Grand Committee
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Co-operation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Luce (CB)
My Lords, this debate provides an opportunity to focus on the Government’s relationship with members of the Gulf Co-operation Council. I look forward to the contributions of noble Lords and to the Minister’s response. Much of the Middle East is in serious turmoil at a time when Britain’s role in the world has become more modest. It makes sense, therefore, to concentrate on areas and issues which best serve Britain’s interests. The stability and prosperity of the GCC states are a clear British interest, and I commend the Government for their positive approach to this region.
The Gulf is of major international economic importance. It is likely to remain so, even as international flows of oil and gas change with time. The GCC states possess 30% of the world’s crude oil reserves and 23% of natural gas reserves. Their sovereign wealth funds hold up to $1.5 trillion of assets. GCC investment in Britain was more than $2.25 billion in 2012. Our exports to these countries are more than £10 billion per annum and are increasing steadily. We have 166,000 British ex-patriots in the GCC working to strengthen our links in many areas. There are tens of thousands of students from the GCC studying in Britain.
In the wider Middle East, GCC states are now playing a major and influential role. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait are key backers of the new Egyptian regime. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have provided vital support to elements of the Syrian opposition. Oman’s dialogue with Iran has recently taken on new significance. Britain’s relationship with these six states remains unique. We have historic connections going back, in some cases, more than 200 years. When Britain finally withdrew from responsibilities in the Gulf in 1971, there were many who forecast a quick demise of the new Gulf states, and that Iran under the Shah would be the strong, stable nation in the Gulf. As we know, the out-of-touch Shah was overthrown in 1979, to be replaced by a theocracy. The rulers of the GCC have not only survived, but remained reliable allies safeguarding the flow of oil and recently providing vital staging facilities for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I first visited the Gulf in 1959. I still find it hard to grasp the scale of the transformation from traditional societies with just a few outward-looking trading ports to nation states with unimaginable wealth, modern cities and influence in the world. It is as though they had jumped like a grasshopper out of an historic Middle East into the modern world. In recent years, my only interest in the Gulf has been as patron of the Sir William Luce Trust at Durham University, where we have worked since 2005 with Chatham House and Ditchley Park to try to understand the pressures for change in the GCC and how those countries are dealing with it.
Earlier this year, I accompanied Richard Muir, the chairman of the trust, on a tour of Gulf countries. This visit, two years after the Arab spring, reinforced many of our conclusions since 2005. These monarchies and peoples are our historic friends; for the most part the rulers still command the confidence of those who live in their state. We must continue to give them our strong support. However, this should not be uncritical, provided we speak as friends to friends and with an informed understanding of the task and dilemmas these rulers face in bringing about change.
We need at the same time to acknowledge that each Gulf country is different. The events of spring 2011 sent a shockwave through the Gulf. Some have called it a “youthquake”, as 50% of GCC citizens are under 30. These events were a catalyst for these young people for the first time openly to question, criticise, challenge and aspire to play a role in their countries. Each Government had their own reaction. A combination of political, economic and, in some cases, repressive moves has for the time being preserved order, and these states remain basically stable. Saudi Arabia has injected $130 billion into its public sector and offered funds to help Bahrain and Oman take similar action. However, the underlying challenges for Governments are today greater than ever before. Resources of oil, gas and water are finite and being rapidly depleted, while subsidies drive up demand. Low-cost imported labour, mainly from Asia, is becoming controversial. At the same time, there is still high unemployment among the indigenous population, particularly the young, with a sharp contrast between wealth and poverty, job discrimination and some corruption.
Money on its own cannot satisfy aspirations, and Syria shows the path down which repression can ultimately lead. The GCC Governments all recognise that further political as well as economic change is an essential part of the way forward. As Lampedusa wrote,
“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change”.
Each of these states is seeking to evolve, each in its own way and at its own pace.
Kuwait faces a challenge as to how its Government and lively Parliament can reconcile their respective roles constructively. In Saudi Arabia, 30 women have been appointed to the Shura Council, and women will participate in the next municipal elections. Qatar might benefit from a little less foreign venture and more constitutional development, led by its new ruler. The UAE, in addition to constitutional development at state and federal level, faces the need to develop a fully independent judiciary and transparent mechanisms for handling human rights cases. Oman continues to evolve its two-chamber Parliament, which can now propose legislation and review audits. Oman has given its judiciary and national human rights commission independence and authority.
Bahrain is at a most critical stage and perhaps provides the real litmus test for peaceful evolution. That country has an historic tradition of tolerance between religions and sectarian groups, but faces a major challenge to remove discrimination against the Shia majority to enable all political parties in its Parliament to play a constructive role and, above all, to complete implementation of all the recommendations of the Bassiouni Independent Commission of Enquiry, so bravely set up by King Hamad. Its national dialogue between government, political parties and civic society must continue to be strongly encouraged by the British. I invite the Minister to comment on those developments.
The GCC states cannot be immune to the cross currents of the Middle East, ranging from turmoil and civil conflict in Egypt and Syria, historic Sunni-Shia tensions, the Persia-Arab rivalry, particularly between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and the broad struggle between political Islam and theocracies and secular forces. Inevitably, all these events may strengthen the voices of those who are opposed to further change. People in the Gulf value stability and are aware that they are living in young states never previously at peace within stable borders and which have moved within a generation from tradition to modernity and from poverty to great wealth. They know, too, that they are an integral part of a region still full of raw, secular, sectarian and tribal tensions.
But things cannot and do not stand still. During my tour of the Gulf states in February, I was impressed by the quality of some of the key institutions that have already evolved—including elected and appointed assemblies—the recognition by some key Ministers, parliamentarians and officials of what needs to be done, and the frankness of many of them, including some in very senior positions, in private discussion about the enormous challenges they face and their need to face up to them.
As we have recently seen elsewhere in the region, change when it comes can be violent, and violent change does not guarantee a democratic outcome. I share the view that successful transformation requires a long haul. After all, we have experienced our constitutional development over 500 years and it is hard to disagree with those in the Gulf who advocate continuous dialogue as the only means to make progress, and that this must take into account at all stages the Arab experience of the tested Majlis or Shura system of consultation. Our interest is to support this approach along a path of relentless and constant constitutional evolution and to seek to assist wherever we can with ideas, encouragement and practical help. However, we should also recognise that our action will be far more effective if it is against a background of strong friendship built on mutual respect and confidence, and that the most valuable advice may be that given in private. An absolute key is to develop a personal rapport with the leadership in all these countries and to be constructive in our relationship. The Foreign Secretary has set a good lead on this and our Arab Partnership Fund is a good framework within which HMG can work positively with our friends. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how this important strategy is working.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Luce, for the opportunity to have a debate on the countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council, and the United Kingdom’s relationship with them. This is not a frequently debated topic in our House: we spend a lot of time on the Middle East, but not so much on this particular part of the Middle East, which is, as the noble Lord pointed out, one of the most interesting, particularly during its current transformations.
I begin with some personal reflections. This morning I was involved in a seminar with a group of young Arab PhD scholars, because I sit on an advisory board which is facilitating higher education from these regions into the UK. It is led by President Martti Ahtisaari, the Nobel prizewinner and former President of Finland. When we started on this venture a few years ago, at the time of the Arab awakenings, we wanted to build capacity for leadership. The need for that was evident in the countries we were looking at in the MENA region—Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Egypt—rather than in the Gulf, where we thought that state finances were such that they did not need help. In this area we were looking to instil leadership through education, by opening mindsets.
This morning, as we were talking to the 20-strong group of scholars from universities across the UK—though principally London ones—what came home to us was that two and a half years ago, when we started this venture, these countries were in transition to democracy. Today they are all in a state of actual or impending conflict. I share that observation because it leads me to the three things I want to say about the Gulf Co-operation Council region.
The UK’s relationship with countries in this region, following our colonial past, has been seen through the prism of three substantive issues. One is energy: our energy needs, and their economic productivity through the output of oil wells and so on. The second is the region’s economics and in particular trade. The third is its security needs, and that comes back to our trade with them in terms of defence co-operation and so on.
That is all very good, although there are problems lurking in all three areas, which I will touch on briefly. However, it is because we have these narrow silos in our approach to the region that we fail to see the need for strategic depth in the most important and overarching issue in this region, which is political and constitutional governance and the requirement for reform in those areas.
In energy, particularly after its early, and I would say easy, phase of development—when infrastructure, roads, airports and so on were built—the region has failed to invest its enormous oil wealth in strategic development. Yes, you have glittering towers, but the substantive development of social and economic capital—investing in people—has not happened in the way that it might have done, given that the region has had 40 years of the enormous largesse of oil coming out of the ground.
The region is incredibly hungry in terms of its own consumption of hydrocarbons. People’s lifestyles are predicated on many gas-guzzling cars, air-conditioned public buildings and private homes, and so on. According to a House of Lords research paper, the UAE and Qatar have the highest per capita energy consumption in the world.
If Saudi Arabia continues with its current hydrocarbon needs, given the developing energy self-sufficiency of the United States—which, through fracking and further oil exploration, is moving closer than we expected—there will be a real budgetary crisis in the region. All countries reacted to the Arab spring or awakening—whatever word you use to describe it—by hugely increasing public subsidies and public expenditure. If one were to be kind, one would say that it was an attempt to ensure that their populations did not become restive. Some might say, more cynically, that it was an attempt to buy off unrest. The result of the dramatic increase in public expenditure is that by 2030 Saudi Arabia will require an oil price of $320 a barrel. Bahrain, which has far more significant problems—as the noble Lord, Lord Luce, mentioned—would require an oil price of $112 per barrel to break even. The oil price over the past six months has been in the range of $100 to $105 a barrel. Therefore, this is clearly not a sustainable method of continuing to evaluate development.
On the economic needs of the region, the demographics suggest an emerging crisis—an iceberg, if you will—with 50% of the population between 25 and 30 years old. Those in the 50% are far better educated than their predecessors, are accustomed to modernity and have access to information in a different way to the old, hierarchical systems that existed in the region. Coupled with this demographic time bomb is the budgetary problem of the lack of an income tax base in the region, and the problem of citizens’ employability in the private sector, which is fairly low, for a less than entirely obvious reason. It is low because it is easier to hire in the experts you need than to grow your own. Productivity in both the public and private sectors is significantly lower than in private sectors where non-nationals are employed.
There is also the issue of ghost jobs, where quotas are put in place by some of these countries to ensure that employers have to hire a certain number of nationals. That is done in terms of bookkeeping, but the nationals are not really hired; they are paid money to stay at home. The incentives are focused on numbers, which tends to distort the results. A good example was given in a Chatham House paper of a Saudi student who chose to read philosophy in order to sit on a waiting list for a public sector job. He could show that as a philosopher he could not get a private sector job but would wait for a public sector job, which would give him a better lifestyle: one-third more generous in terms of salary, and with far more time off, security of tenure, and so on. Moreover, the legal system, which requires nationals to act as agents for international companies, results in pure rentier behaviour in economic terms. Why would you engage in productive employment if family connections enabled you to get the contract to allow a foreign firm to be based in that country?
The final issue is the prism through which we see the region as a security dilemma. Iran has been mentioned but I wonder if too much weather has not been made of the threat from Iran. My own view is that Iran has been used as a means of ever greater defence purchases rather than as a real attempt to find peace. Surely if we do get a de-escalation of the crisis in Iran the peace dividend should result in these countries being able to look towards improving some of the other things I have mentioned.
In conclusion, I would argue that the region appears superficially to have a veneer of stability, indeed a gloss of prosperity and well-being, but a clearly defined path of economic and social development is critical. I accept the need for incremental moves and I understand that Arab society is evolutionary and not revolutionary. Unless we have moves towards better governance, greater constitutionalism and, above all, the rule of law and a respect for human rights—again, I am not asking for something revolutionary—alongside the things that these countries have pledged through the Arab charter on human rights, we will not see a stable future in the region.
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
My Lords, I join in congratulating my noble friend Lord Luce on showing a proper hereditary interest in this region in which his family’s involvement is well known. I also congratulate him on his timing. Everybody who knows the Gulf Co-operation Council and our many friends within it, with whom we have had the pleasure of working over the years in many different roles, will recognise that this is a critically important time for it. I also congratulate the Government, including the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the much regretted Alistair Burt. I am sorry to see that he has moved because I think he was extremely energetic in the work that he did but I wish Hugh Robertson well in the new responsibilities that he takes on. The Prime Minister gave a lead when he became Prime Minister in recognising and improving the contacts that had lapsed a little too much with this vital region.
It is impossible to overstate the seriousness of the present situation. One of the leaders, who had better be nameless, of one of the countries involved said that his worry was that there would be a conflagration that would split on sectarian grounds all the way from Beirut to Mumbai. Actually, I think he was wrong because the threat runs from Mali to Mumbai. The situation in Libya, echoed in the news today with the kidnapping of the Prime Minister, and the chaos in Egypt with the suggestion that ex-President Morsi might be executed, show what a tragically difficult situation those countries face. And the situation in Syria looks increasingly awful in terms of the refugee numbers, which are becoming overwhelming. They pose a real threat to Lebanon and to Jordan—not just the question of whether you can feed and nurture and provide health cover for the enormous number of refugees, but the fact that many of the refugees coming over the border into Jordan are taking any jobs they can get at any price and thus causing unemployment in Jordan to rise quite sharply. There are obvious tensions in that area. We have lost the stability of a major regional power in Egypt. Iraq gives us not much cause for confidence at the present time. At the moment, by and large, the GCC countries have managed to maintain their stability but they obviously face very real pressures—both the demographic pressure of the number of young people there and the threat of unemployment. I recall that when the original demonstrations took place in Tahrir Square in Egypt a huge number of people there were demonstrating about unemployment and the lack of jobs. Of course, we know that the chaos and confusion since have made their prospects vastly worse then they were even then. That will be reflected across other countries as their populations and the number of young people have increased. They face major challenges.
There are those demographic challenges, and then the challenges of what we might call social networking. Now, for the first time, whether it is Facebook, Twitter or the internet, a whole lot of people who previously were completely isolated from any adequate method of communication suddenly have these new channels of communication which are described in a very good brief from the Lords Library as “irreversible” and are a major challenge.
It is against that background that this country has an important role. There is no question that the relationship of some of these countries in the Gulf with the United States has changed. I do not know whether one is reading too much into the refusal of Saudi Arabia to make a speech at the United Nations or whether it is a sign of great displeasure with the United States’ failure to, as Saudi Arabia sees it, support it both in Egypt and in Syria. That is a new development. Of course, if it is true that the effect of shale gas and oil discoveries will be that the United States is exporting more oil than Saudi Arabia by 2020, and given the fact that China has now become the major customer for Saudi Arabia, there will undoubtedly be some change of commercial interest. It is against that background that our position and long-standing relationships give us a particularly important role to play. We must support serious reform, as my noble friend has said, but we must try to ensure that it comes without the catastrophic collapse that has imposed such great hardship on the people of the countries affected.
It is against that background that we must make progress through diplomatic means. I welcome the peace conference in Geneva on the Syrian issues, and hope that it will be successful. How much better than bombing Syria to see people sitting down to a peace conference; I hope that that can make progress. I am delighted that, in the next debate, my noble friend will renew the pressure on United States Secretary of State John Kerry to launch now the initiatives to get real progress on Israel and Palestine. I also welcome very much the new initiative of my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, for his proposal to establish a relationship with Iran.
I know that our friends in the Gulf will have the greatest concerns about that initiative. They may fear that we are somehow going to betray them or let them down. Of course, one must be aware of the challenges and dangers. We must do this with our eyes open and not necessarily believe everything that Iranian leaders may say at this time. However, we must make the effort, and I warmly congratulate the Government on taking that initiative. I hope that that is one of the items that might add to future stability. Any countries with continuing governance all have a continuing interest in greater stability in that region. We should try to bring them all to the table and work as closely as we can with them all.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, I, too, am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Luce, for securing this debate. The UK has long had important relationships with the Arab states of the Gulf Co-operation Council, and our interests remain as heavily bound up in that region as ever.
Our relationships are, of necessity, conducted largely on a bilateral basis with the states involved. The Gulf Co-operation Council, despite its name, is as much a vehicle for competition and rivalry as it is for co-operation. Nevertheless, it fulfils an important function and deserves our full support.
There are many dimensions to the UK’s relationships with the GCC states, but at the moment two issues seem to me to stand out from the rest. The first is the domestic situations in those states and the concerns within them over the continuing political developments within the region. I am thinking here less of the member states’ reactions to the events around them and more of their own political pressures although, of course, these are closely linked.
The status of the Shia majority in Bahrain—which the noble Lord, Lord Luce, has covered—is the most obvious example but the other states are experiencing their own pressures to varying degrees, as we have already heard this afternoon. The question is whether and how these internal political issues should shape our approach to the various states concerned.
We could adopt a boisterous, cheerleading approach and wave the flag for democracy. This would be a mistake, for many reasons. First, democracy can take many forms and mean different things to different peoples. After all, we cannot even agree between ourselves quite what it means. Secondly, too heavy a hand when dealing with the internal affairs of another nation can have unintended and quite counterproductive consequences. We need to tread warily. On the other hand, I do not accept the argument made by some that democracy, even in its loosest definition, has no place in certain societies and cultures. If, by “democracy”, we mean a stake in and some degree of say in the governance of a country, it seems that this is a near universal aspiration in developed and developing societies.
The shape of that democracy, however, is quite another thing. Anyone starting with a blank sheet of paper would not come up with our model. It works for us—after a fashion. Any system needs to grow from and be rooted in the culture it serves. Our understanding of the cultures of the Gulf states can be rather superficial.
It seems that we can best serve both our interests and the interests of the international community by being supportive rather than condemnatory; by being gently persuasive rather than hectoring; and by focusing more on long-term progress than on short-term moralising.
I am not suggesting that we turn a blind eye to repression and to abuses of human rights. However, I am suggesting that our responses should be more nuanced than has sometimes been the case. To those who would say that such an approach ignores our moral responsibilities, I would reply that it is about ways and means. Do we want to achieve our strategic objectives in the region, including our hopes and aspirations for the peoples concerned, or are we just interested in scratching tactical itches? For my part, I vote for the strategic approach.
The second issue, which is external to the GCC states, is their concern—their very real concern, I believe—over Iran. The status of Iran’s nuclear programme is very much in the news, and is certainly the wolf closest to the sledge. It is, however, a symptom of a wider regional tension over the perceived development of a Persian hegemony. Religion plays into this and increasingly manifests its role through a burgeoning Sunni-Shia cold—and sometimes not so cold—war. However, that is not the only fissure between Iran and the GCC. For the regimes in the smaller states it is an existential issue. For Saudi Arabia it is more about regional dominance.
We are all concerned about Iran, but the GCC countries see the issue through a different prism from us—and, indeed, in many cases, from one another. It is important that we understand this. We all hope that recent developments within Iran, and between Iran and the international community, will produce positive results—although we would be wise not to get carried away by the more acceptable face that Iran is seeking to present to the world.
In all of this, however, we should remember our partners in the Gulf and recognise how much more closely all of this touches them. I hope that we are talking to them regularly on these developments and, more importantly, listening to them. We have expended much effort over recent years in trying to persuade our friends in the region that we have their interests at heart, that their security matters to us and that we take seriously their concerns over Iran and its nuclear programme. Those reassurances will ring somewhat hollow if we neglect their views and opinions on recent and future developments.
There are many other issues on which we should be, and frequently are, engaging with the GCC countries. However, the final point I should like to make takes my earlier plea for a more strategic approach to political development into the wider arena. It probably seems quite clear to most of us that our crucial national interests are not only closely engaged in this region today but have been so for a great many decades. But if we were to examine the practical handling of our relationships within the region over those decades, would we reach the same conclusion? Far too often we have sent conflicting signals in this regard. We have engaged, disengaged and re-engaged. We have busied ourselves, distanced ourselves, and then dived in again. Is it any wonder that some of our friends in the region get a bit confused about where we actually stand?
If we are serious about the region, and I think it is in our national interest that we should be, then we must take a more strategic, longer-term view of our relationships within the region. Just as important, we must give such an approach practical effect on the ground. If we want to have real presence, to have real influence, then our friends must believe that we are not only there, but there to stay.
Lord Triesman (Lab)
My Lords, I join others in congratulating and thanking the noble Lord, Lord Luce, for providing this opportunity and for the fine analysis which he provided—as, indeed, have other noble Lords. I, too, have visited the region many times and been struck by the amount of change that one sees almost visit by visit. I share with the noble Lords, Lord Luce and Lord King, the view that turmoil in the region is due to a very apparent set of difficulties. Indeed, I have avoided using the words “Arab spring” because I am not sure that I see it as a short-term seasonal, flowering thing; there is a very long-term set of issues to be resolved, which possibly go back to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and other factors.
However, these are nations that are key allies. We have perhaps given them too little attention, and that may well have been true in almost the whole period from 1981 onwards. They are under stress from their neighbours and the crisis in the neighbourhood; that is clear. Yet these nations are also strategically vital for the region and for potential conflict resolution in the region. It has been said this afternoon—and it is plainly right—that economically they are important; more than half the world’s oil and gas resources are there. That is especially important for the economies of India and China, and their development in the world economy.
Everyone seems to think that this region represents a vital energy issue for the United States, but when I look at the patterns of energy supply and consumption in that country I very much doubt that that is true. West Africa—as well as fracking and issues to do with other important resources—is probably a rather more significant issue for the United States. However, the region must be important for the United States, because the state of the world economy in general is important for the United States, as we all try to trade together successfully.
Over the years I have also observed the degrees of difficulty and competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran. I suspect that since Iraq ceased to be the quarantining environment in which Iran operated, we are also seeing some traditional geopolitical issues regarding regional domination being played out. We often describe it as being simply a Sunni and Shia issue. Actually, I suspect that there is rather a more orthodox and traditional geopolitical contest going on, in which Qatar has also involved itself.
The issues may well become tighter. The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, talked about the price of a barrel of oil. Some people in the futures market are predicting that we may be looking at prices way below $100, perhaps going down to the $50 to $60 range—a matter which will concern the Russians as much as anybody else. I do not know what will happen in those economies in those circumstances.
The members of the co-operation council often have grand plans, but have those plans been realised to any significant degree? It took until 2008 to create any version of a common market, and it is not a strong current theme. Diversification has not been particularly successful, as has been shown by some recent LSE studies, and the members’ external trade relationships outside the energy sector remain very difficult. Perhaps the discussions between the European Union and the co-operation council, which have not prospered so far, may be one of the ways in which international trade relations could be improved. Is it the Minister’s view that this country’s best interests are served by bilateral discussions or through the European Union’s attempts to get a common arrangement; and does she think that that will have an impact on the way in which sovereign wealth funds are deployed given the opportunities which may be present in a much wider setting? There seems to be no prospect of agreement on a common currency. I do not advocate it but it obviously makes trade relations in the council area more of a possibility.
Security is plainly vital to the council. It has obviously no wish to remain wholly dependent on the United States, but it is also significantly divided on what its common interest is and how that interest could be deployed in the region. There is no co-ordination as yet. Does the Minister have a view on that and on whether the tensions which I observe between, for example, Saudi Arabia and Qatar about who they should involve themselves with in Syria are not creating greater division than co-ordination? The possibilities for discussing political reform referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, and others seem to me very important. They have proved to be a source of difference. The shape of reform is obscure but what is plain, as has been said today, is that it is a key strategic issue. Some of the methods used in the Gulf to impose order have revealed what one might describe as the default methods of ensuring that things remain stable. I say with great respect to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, that it is inevitable that we will comment on some of those human rights issues. I think he said that too. We could hardly do otherwise given the kind of Parliament that we have.
What view should we take? A stronger organisation would be of great benefit to the United Kingdom. It would also be of great benefit to the European Union if we think of it in terms of the broader economic circumstances. For the strategic reasons that have been identified this afternoon, I suspect that we would all wish to see further steps taken in modernising and evolving, particularly in constitutional arrangements, which may in the long term and with a much younger population help create the circumstances for greater stability. Young populations often do not respond as well to repression as they do to understanding what their status and location are in the organisation of the country in which they live. I hope that the Minister will identify the top few objectives of the United Kingdom Government. As I said earlier, would they be best handled by the United Kingdom or would they be handled more appropriately by the EU? I am not making this point to reawaken our discussions on the European Union but rather to consider what gives us the best opportunities to create the circumstances in which we might all advance. Without seeking to interfere in the affairs of these countries, are there areas where we could more appropriately offer friendly advice on security co-ordination or economic co-ordination? What might we learn from the countries? I do not think that giving advice is a one-way street. You often get a lot of advice, which is just as valuable if we take it as seriously as the advice that we might tentatively offer to others.
I conclude by saying that I hope that we can make real progress. I do not know whether the ambassadors from the Gulf states get together in London. There is a great depth of experience. The Kuwaiti ambassador has been the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps for a great many years and is a very knowledgeable ambassador. It may be that some of the fora in this country might help us in these developments. I certainly hope so, and I believe that that would be to the benefit of us all.
The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)
My Lords, I should like to start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Luce, for calling this debate. It has provided a welcome opportunity to take stock of the UK’s relationship with a region that is of enormous importance to this Government, and with which we are very close friends and partners. I pay tribute to the noble Lord for his constructive engagement with countries in the region, and my noble friend Lady Falkner and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, for contributing so insightfully to today’s debate. I also thank my noble friend Lord King for his warm words for my colleagues, especially Alistair Burt, who we shall all miss. This debate is also timely for me personally, having recently returned from a visit to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, which served to highlight again that our relationships with the Gulf countries are as strong and diverse today as they have been for generations.
The debate has also served to demonstrate the complexities, contrasts and opportunities that the region presents. Over 160,000 of our nationals currently call the Gulf their home. We work with our Gulf allies on energy security, we value their help in the fight against terrorism, and they represent one of our largest global export markets. The region is home to over a quarter of the world’s sovereign wealth, a significant portion of which is invested in the UK. This shows the strength of the bilateral relationship, but of course we support discussions with the Gulf Co-operation Council at the EU level to benefit trade between the two blocs. However, our bilateral relations remain strong and important.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, we meet regularly as a bloc. In fact, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary hosted his GCC counterparts at a lunch at the end of September, and the GCC ambassadors meet on a regular basis to connect with each other and with parliamentarians. I have been invited to a number of those occasions. We also work with the Governments of the Gulf to help us achieve our foreign policy priorities in Libya, Syria, Egypt and Yemen, to name just a few examples. So ours is a multifaceted relationship and, as the variety of issues raised today shows, one to which an hour-long debate can hardly do justice. However, I shall try to deal with some of the broader issues.
The UK’s engagement with the Gulf is at a high point. Through the cross-Whitehall Gulf Initiative, launched by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary in 2010, we are expanding our co-operation to unprecedented levels across the full range of issues, from culture to defence, commercial interests to education, and of course on regional security issues. We are engaged at the highest levels, with over 150 royal and ministerial visits to the region over the past two years, and frequent visits by our Gulf counterparts in the other direction, not least of which have been state visits to the UK by the President of the United Arab Emirates in May this year, the Emir of Kuwait in November 2012 and the then Emir of Qatar in October 2010. Our engagement with the region has been strengthened by the launch of formal dialogues with the UAE, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain as part of our Gulf Initiative. Visits and dialogues are a substantial commitment, but they are a vital investment and I am pleased that they are already bearing fruit. In a highly competitive global landscape we are building strong links between our businesses, our educational institutions and our militaries. I have taken note of the words of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, who said that we have to take a long-term approach.
Your Lordships have heard today that the Gulf states represent a growing market for our goods. Since 2010, our trade in goods with every country in the region has increased by up to a quarter. It was worth over £11 billion last year in the region as a whole, £5 billion of that with the UAE alone. Since 2009, we have increased our exports in goods by 10%.
Gulf countries are building their infrastructure, improving their healthcare and investing in education. They are doing all of this with the help of British companies. I should add that it is over and above the normal day-to-day business support campaigns that UKTI teams in our embassies are working on to deliver British business success in that region. Inward investment, too, is growing substantially. Qatar alone has invested over £22 billion in the UK, creating jobs here and bolstering our economy.
The Government are constantly seeking new and innovative ways to work together to increase prosperity on both sides. I am delighted to say that the UK will play host to the ninth annual World Islamic Economic Forum in London at the end of this month—the first time this meeting has been held outside the Muslim world. This is an important step in our commitment to cementing the UK’s reputation as a centre for Islamic financial services.
I discussed the forum meeting and broader Islamic finance issues with Ministers, senior officials and finance professionals across the region during my recent visit. In Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Manama and Kuwait City, the message was clear: the potential for Islamic finance is huge and growing. The interest in working with the UK is there. I am committed to ensuring that the UK benefits from this growing market.
Of course, our prosperity goals will be best achieved in a secure and stable environment. Our Gulf allies sit in a troubled region. The problems were eloquently set out by my noble friend Lord King and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. We are proud to have stood by our Gulf allies at times of crisis and need, most notably in Kuwait in 1991. We have strong defence relationships, with military assets and personnel based across the region. The UK continues to provide expertise and equipment. We value the contribution that Gulf countries make to our security too, particularly through our close co-operation on counterterrorism issues. We share a common threat from international terrorism, which we deal with together. Gulf countries are showing leadership in countering the threat. Both Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi have established impressive models. We are also expanding our co-operation in international aid, working on joint aid projects with Qatar in Sudan and with the UAE in Somalia and Afghanistan, to name but a few.
Our strong friendship with Gulf nations enables us to have open and honest discussions where our views differ, in particular on the important issue of human rights and democracy. We are always ready to speak out as a matter of principle, and the Foreign Office’s annual report on human rights pulls no punches. We continue to press, at every level of diplomatic engagement, for practical, realistic and achievable reforms to improve the human rights situation across the region. Gulf states were not immune from the growing hopes which spread across the region in 2011. Countries in the Gulf, as elsewhere in the world, are finding ways to adapt to the changing aspirations of their people.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Luce, that the Bahrain Independent Commission of Enquiry was an unprecedented move by the Bahrain state, and King Hamad in particular. We are committed to supporting a Bahraini-led reform process, and have provided assistance in torture prevention, the judicial process, community policing and civil service capacity building, to name but a few. We welcome the progress that has been made, but we are also clear there is still more that needs to be done. We will continue to press the Bahraini authorities for further action.
Since the Arab spring we have emphasised to our Gulf partners the importance of stability based on the building blocks of democracy: a voice, a job, an independent media and the rule of law. We are constantly pressing for progress—I know because I have done so myself—and we are supporting our Gulf colleagues when we see it. However, we also understand that reform takes time. We are seeing Kuwait building a more vibrant Parliament; Saudi Arabia has, for the first time, appointed 30 women to the King’s advisory council, and we are helping Bahrain by training the police and supporting the judicial system.
I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Luce, for his kind words on the Arab Partnership Participation Fund. Through this fund, administered by the Foreign Office, we will provide UK expertise, technical support and seed funding to a variety of Gulf state countries to build the capability of public servants to respond effectively to the changing economic and political challenges facing the region.
Every time I visit the region I am struck by the genuine affection in which Britain is held. My Gulf counterparts speak fondly of the UK and their memories are long. Many of them have spent time here and see it as their second home. Our relationships have strong foundations of a shared history, but the focus of this Government is about making sure that we use those strong foundations to build a strong future. Our allies sit in a complex part of the world, one which is undergoing seismic shifts. It is a region of great diversity and of great promise, and we will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that the UK remains a key partner and a strong ally.
Israel and Palestine
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Stirrup
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of prospects for progress towards an agreement between Israel and Palestine on a two-state solution.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, before we start, two speakers have scratched. This would allow us to stretch to four minutes for the other speakers, if that huge addition to the length of their speeches might please noble Lords.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, I am most grateful for this opportunity to discuss the current status of the Middle East peace process, and I am particularly grateful that so many eminent and knowledgeable noble Lords will be lending their expertise to the subject over the next hour.
An hour is of course far too short a time in which to do justice to the importance and complexity of the issues involved. Nor would I expect the Minister to disclose the detailed nature and status of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, even if the UK was aware of them, which I rather doubt. We must trust that the US Secretary of State and his team will do their utmost to secure a successful outcome, recognising that we have little direct influence on the process.
However, if that is so, then what purpose might we set ourselves in this debate here today? We could, of course, remind ourselves of the many difficulties involved: the delineation of boundaries, the settlements, the status of Jerusalem, the right of return and so on. For my part, however, I will focus on three issues where I think we could and should go beyond just enthusiastic support for Secretary Kerry, where UK intellectual effort, advocacy and, in some cases, practical involvement might add value to the whole endeavour.
The first of these issues concerns the fundamental proposition that there should be a two-state solution. This has been questioned in the past, and there continue to be voices, perhaps increasing in number, arguing against it. The Foreign Secretary has himself suggested that time may be running out for a two-state solution. That must of course raise the question of what happens if time does indeed run out: what comes next? Some suggest that the time for such a solution is in fact long past—that some sort of single-state solution is the only realistic way forward. Many of these voices, although by no means all, are in Israel. But is it conceivable that an Israeli state that incorporated the present Occupied Territories could remain both Jewish and democratic?
If the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their previous homes is a device to undermine the state of Israel through demographics, as some would argue, then surely a one-state solution would achieve the same end, perhaps even more decisively. The UK Government remain committed to a negotiated two-state solution. This leads me to two conclusions. The first is that the UK needs to engage intellectually with those who argue against such a proposition. We should add our voices to a continuing international effort in this regard, rather than just assuming that the argument has been won for good and all. The second is that we need to do all we can to ensure that the window for a two-state solution remains open for as long as is necessary. While of course we want to engender a sense of urgency, we should be careful about suggesting the existence of cliff edges—or closed windows, if you prefer—lest we paint ourselves into an intellectual corner.
We all hope that something substantive emerges from the current negotiations, but long years of weary experience counsel us to rein in our expectations. In situations such as this, one has to combine long-term optimism with a grimly realistic short-term outlook. However, if the UK view is truly that the window for a two-state solution will soon close, then long-term optimism becomes Panglossian, and we should therefore be thinking now about alternatives, unpalatable though they might be. Is this truly the ground on which we wish to stand? I rather doubt it, and I certainly doubt the wisdom of even hinting at such a thing. The lessons of history suggest that, in cases such as this, one must never give up, never despair, no matter how dark the road might become.
The UK’s position, and therefore its message to others, should surely be that no matter how long it takes, no matter the setbacks, the international community must and will keep coming back to the issue, will keep bringing the parties back together, and will keep banging their heads against the brick wall until the wall one day starts to crumble.
The second issue that I want to raise concerns an important precondition for any enduring agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In political negotiations such as these, it is not sufficient for the leaders to agree upon the terms of a solution. They have to be able to carry with them sufficient of their constituents to enable them to turn any agreement into political reality on the ground. They will never convince everyone, but they need sufficient popular support to sustain them through what will no doubt be difficult and controversial times.
Much of this task will of course fall to the politicians on either side, but I suspect that they will need all the help they can get. So we should think hard about which international actors could wield the kind of influence necessary to condition the debates within both Israel and Palestine. The United States certainly has a role to play here. However, it no longer, I suggest, has quite the economic and moral strength that in old days might have helped it move heaven and earth. The UK is certainly no better placed in terms of direct influence; but perhaps our influence with third parties might be of some use in such an endeavour.
The contribution of the Arab League nations, even when somewhat divided, was an important factor in the recent resumption of talks. They and other countries in the region will continue to be important in the development, and particularly in the acceptance, of any solution. We have many friends among these countries with whom we might constructively engage over the coming months, in support of both the peace process itself and the means by which any agreement might be implemented.
With regard to the Israelis, I regret that we have even less direct influence than with the Palestinians. We seem to have allowed relations between our two countries to enter a sort of limbo. Indeed, it took me most of my tenure as Chief of the Defence Staff to persuade the Foreign Office that I should be allowed even to visit my Israeli counterpart.
I am pleased to say that things have improved somewhat in recent years but we are still playing catch-up, and we are seeing today the difficulties that playing catch-up presents for us when we seek to influence invents within the world. We do, though, have many individuals in the UK who maintain important contacts within Israel. Perhaps we need to think about mobilising this community in support of the current process, and exploring how it might contribute to the debate in Israel. This is no doubt already happening in an ad hoc fashion, but is there not some way we can mobilise this important resource to make up, at least in part, for our lack of direct national influence?
The third issue that I want to touch on is the question of security. One does not have to be a military genius to understand that Israel’s pre-1967 borders were a strategic nightmare. If we were simply to return to this situation, give or take elements of land swap, without providing a greater degree of defensive depth for Israel, then we would be putting in place an inherently unstable arrangement—one that in time would be highly likely to fail. On the other hand, Israel’s demand to exercise unilateral control over Palestinian airspace and in the Jordan Valley does not sit comfortably with the notion of Palestinian sovereignty.
Some have suggested that the answer is to involve NATO. However, the Israelis are very sceptical about such an arrangement. They view with an understandably jaundiced eye the international community’s record in the Lebanon, and would be loath to put their security in the hands of such a force in the Jordan Valley. I believe that the question of airspace control can be worked out relatively easily. There are many examples of allies—which is what Israel and Palestine would have to be—pooling responsibility for air defence and putting in place the necessary arrangements for unified airspace.
With regard to the Jordan Valley, only a degree of international involvement is likely to soothe Palestinian sensitivities. However, international involvement has to be what the Israelis are prepared to accept, even if reluctantly. This is an issue on which General Allen, the previous Commander of US Central Command, is currently working for Secretary Kerry. It is also an issue in which the UK has great expertise and to which it might make a significant long-term contribution. With that in mind, has the Ministry of Defence undertaken any discussions on the subject with the Pentagon? Has the ministry begun any assessment of the likely contribution that the UK might make to an international force? Of course these are early days, and we would not want to get ahead of ourselves, let alone of the negotiations. However, it is an area where some preliminary analysis could be of value, and certainly it is an issue on which we should be liaising closely with the Americans.
There is much else to be said about the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but I will close with a wider observation. We seem to be witnessing—finally—the unravelling of the San Remo decisions and of the other attempts to tidy away the detritus of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. The UK played a major role in that process. Although we may now be somewhat diminished on the international stage, we have an obligation to do all in our power to help address the consequent problems. Practical support for a continuing and enduring effort to resolve the Israel-Palestine issue must surely be the cornerstone of such efforts.
Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, I am sure that I speak for many in the debate when I say that it has been a particular privilege to hear the noble and gallant Lord introducing it so masterfully, with a résumé that was a showpiece of objectivity and constructiveness.
I declare an interest as chairman of the Middle East Committee of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, where we try to bring together Palestinian and Israeli politicians for dialogue. I have just returned from one such meeting. It also gives me the opportunity to visit the region, which I have done several times in the past year, meeting a good cross-section of parliamentarians, and indeed of political leaders, both in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
I will make a couple of observations. The first is that we should have learnt by now that enduring peace cannot be imposed, and that the danger is that if outside interests, however powerful, significant and critical to the outcome, slip into the error of thinking that they can manage the situation and manage a solution, we will be making trouble for the future. I think that the noble and gallant Lord was arguing that a solution has to belong to a sufficient cross-section of people; it must be owned. I look no further than Northern Ireland, where we have a very good example from our own history of putting that principle into practice. There is a difference between facilitating and masterminding negotiations; we forget that at our peril.
The second thing to remember—again, Northern Ireland is an extremely good example—is that if you are to have a successful outcome, a lot that is going on at ground level is important. It has often been overlooked, but in the lead-up to the initiating of the peace process in Northern Ireland, a lot of work went on among women, for example, at community level. This was terribly important in drawing more people—we have never been able to draw everybody—into a feeling of positive participation in the process, and in enabling them to influence events. Therefore, if we are to make a contribution—the noble and gallant Lord was absolutely right—we must not sit around agonising like a Greek chorus but must get on with offering practical advice and help.
One thing that we should facilitate is round-table discussions on issues such as women’s issues, climate change and its implications, and the problems of youth, into which we should draw, as far as we can, representative people from key elements in both communities. That could be immensely helpful, but, again, it can be done properly only if we have an endorsement of the process by the leaders in both countries, otherwise it looks as though we are just meddling and interfering.
An interesting thought I have heard expressed recently is that we might try to encourage, in third countries, scholarships and support for youngsters from Israel and the Occupied Territories in order that they can experience higher education mutually and together in the same place among others. This could make a powerful contribution.
I have made these observations, but of course there are many other issues such as human rights, the treatment of youngsters in the conflict and so on, which are acute problems that have to be resolved because they are aggravating everything. However, I suggest that the contextual elements in the process are indispensable.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I have just come back from a visit to Israel and the West Bank, visiting many places including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ramallah and Rawabi. I thank the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, for tabling this debate and for his forensic analysis and detailed strategy which I unhesitatingly agree with. It is extremely positive that the two sides are back in the room. This is the first time that there has been a formal and sustained bilateral negotiation since 2008. Both sides have expressed their commitment to bringing about a final resolution to all aspects of the conflict. Although the parties face considerable challenges, there are reasons for hope. This is the feeling I have brought back from Israel and from the Palestinians. Both sets of negotiators are experienced in the process. Israel’s lead negotiator, Tzipi Livni, is Israel’s leading advocate of reaching an agreement with the Palestinian Authority. Her party’s election campaign stressed the importance of finding a solution to the conflict based on two states.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has, not always but repeatedly, spoken of his commitment to a two-state solution, which was so well advocated by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. He has spoken increasingly of the threat to Israel arising from the emergence of a binational state that could threaten Israel’s existence as a majority Jewish state. That is the clearest indication yet that he believes in an agreement based on two states for two peoples. It is in Israel’s best interests as well as those of the Palestinians. I must also acknowledge the work of the US and the personal commitment of US Secretary of State John Kerry.
An example of how a viable Palestinian state is being created came in a heartwarming visit last week to Rawabi, the first Palestinian planned city. It is the largest private-sector project ever to be carried out in Palestine. Initially, it will be home to 25,000 residents, and ultimately to 40,000 people. It is located 9 kilometres north of Ramallah and it needs a wider access road and a more assured water supply—points that I took up with the Israelis and our own helpful embassy in Tel Aviv.
A much improved atmosphere between the Israelis and the Palestinians has been created by the resumption of talks. A joint press conference was held following a meeting at the end of September of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee on economic support for the Palestinian Authority at the United Nations in New York. It was attended by Israel’s Minister for Strategic Affairs and the finance Minister for the Palestinian Authority. The cordial nature of the joint press conference would have been unimaginable just a few months ago. Israel announced a number of measures to assist the Palestine economy, which included 5,000 new permits for Palestinians to work in Israel, bringing the total number of Palestinians earning a living from the Israeli economy to 100,000. It has extended the opening hours of the Allenby crossing between the West Bank and Jordan for goods and people, and it has already implemented 4 million extra cubic metres of water for the West Bank and had promised 5 million cubic metres more a year for Gaza. It has also agreed Abu Mazen’s request to allow the import of building materials to Gaza.
There is much more, which I will probably not have time to list even though our three minutes has been extended. However, I agree with the noble and gallant Lord that three issues exist and that we must all continue to emphasise a two-state solution, not allowing anyone to get off the track, wherever in the world they are, whether in Israel or among the Palestinians. It has to be an enduring agreement, and I hope that my noble friend the Minister will reply with a cautious, positive assessment of prospects for a lasting peace.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, ever since President Obama’s new Secretary of State, John Kerry, began, as his top priority, to reassemble the well-worn components of that oxymoron known as the Middle East peace process, he has been subjected to a deluge of denigration, disparagement and weary cynicism from the serried ranks of pundits, many of whom have broken their teeth on that problem over the years. Now, with the removal of Syria’s chemical weapons and the convening of a Geneva 2 conference aimed at ending the Syrian civil war taking centre stage, that chorus is, if anything, louder. Is that disparagement justified as simple, common-sense realism, or is it a short-sighted unwillingness to recognise an opportunity where one really exists? I unhesitatingly argue the latter, which is why I welcome the noble and gallant Lord’s initiative in initiating this debate.
One reason for thinking that there is an opportunity, oddly, is because the Arab-Israeli dispute is not, for once, the focus of diplomatic preoccupations in the Middle East. That could be an advantage. In the past, excessive public focus on the issue has often led to the rhetorical radicalisation of the respective negotiating positions of the parties. Perhaps all concerned should reflect on whether they can be quite so sure that the outsiders on whom they rely will be ready to pull their chestnuts out of the fire in some future conflagration.
That thought could concentrate the minds of the Israelis, whose US backers seem increasingly dubious about any direct military involvement in the Middle East. It could also concentrate the minds of the Palestinians, whose Arab backers are focusing their efforts on other problems—domestic in the case of Egypt, and international in the case of Saudi Arabia. It could also influence Hamas, which is increasingly bereft of external support. If those trends get the direct parties to the dispute to focus on their own negotiating positions, and on compromises that they will need to strike if a peace deal is to be achieved, the prospects for progress could be improved.
Then there are more classical arguments for giving this renewed effort to reach a negotiated solution a real chance. We should not delude ourselves; the fact that the Arab-Israeli dispute is not currently centre stage does not mean that it has lost any of its explosive potential. Indeed, the fact that we almost certainly face several decades of instability in the Middle East, as the aftershocks of the Arab awakening work themselves out, only increases that potential. Meanwhile the continued Israeli settlement building on the West Bank inevitably pushes the situation towards insolubility and drives Israel towards something that it is no hyperbole to call an apartheid regime. These outcomes must surely be avoided if they possibly can be.
Are there any new elements that could usefully be injected into the process without destabilising it? One such idea might be to give more serious consideration to the guarantees that could be entrenched, both for Jewish minorities in a future Palestinian state, and for Arab minorities in Israel. This aspect has been neglected for far too long. Does it really make sense to think that every single Jewish settler will need to be removed—by force if necessary—from the territory of the Palestinian state, and that the substantial Arab population of Israel should be treated for ever as second-class citizens? I doubt it. That said, the logic of the situation is that outsiders—influential as they inevitably are and will be, and necessary as effective supporters and perhaps guarantors of any negotiated solution—should be less prominent than they have been in the negotiating process. Rather than negotiating, they should be talking with all those who will need to be party to any settlement. I urge—as I have done an awful lot of times—that we should be ready to talk to anyone who is prepared to operate within the scope of the Arab peace initiative. That should include Hamas.
It will be interesting to hear the Government’s views on this, and I hope that we will not remain, as we were in the past, too chained to the axle of American policy. The US is in a different position from us and I hope that we will be able, with our European partners, to play an active role in the months ahead.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, we are very tight on time. If noble Lords could be very strict in sitting down as soon as they see the four minutes come up, I should be grateful.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, another US-sponsored peace initiative; again hopes are raised. I follow the noble and gallant Lord in his theme of “never despair”, but it was sad to learn that the Foreign Office tried to put obstacles in the way of him visiting his Israeli counterparts. The broad lines of a settlement are clear; the logistics are not. The international community has tried unsuccessfully the politics of little steps and the politics of the big bang.
I pose three questions. First, is there any serious alternative to a two-state solution? Surely, one state based on the federal principle or a parallel state structure is politically unrealistic. Nor is the status quo a long-term alternative. I recall sitting recently on a beach in Tel Aviv witnessing families enjoying the good life. One can see the short-term attractions of that, but demography puts a major shadow over the longer term. For Israelis, any alternative has major risks. Golda Meir said something like, “If our enemies destroyed their weapons, there would be peace. If Israel did so, there would be no Israel”. Israel points out, of course, the divided Palestinian groups, the reaction to the Gaza withdrawal and the constant Palestinian anti-Israel propaganda. Palestinians see the settlers increasing their stranglehold on both the West Bank and Israeli politics.
The second question is what, then, are the difficulties in making progress? Last year, Tom Phillips, a former British ambassador in both Israel and Saudi Arabia, wrote a most perceptive article in Prospect magazine, with the headline:
“There may never be peace”.
He gave 10 reasons why the chances of a solution had grown bleaker over the past six years. Surely the fundamentals of the problem remain the same. John Kerry is certainly very active but even the great persuader, President Clinton, failed, and there is no Rabin or Olmet on the scene.
Are there any signs of hope? Clearly at the margins, there are indeed such signs. Negatively, the PA has not, as threatened, taken Israel to the International Criminal Court after the authority’s victory at the UN. Secondly, President Netanyahu has released some prisoners and promised more investment, both in the West Bank and now in the gas fields in Gaza. There are welcome developments in the PA economy. The signs that Iran is coming in from the cold, an “Iran spring”, may remove a perceived existential threat to Israel—as may the promised removal of chemical weapons from Syria. The Arab peace initiative has just been reaffirmed. The Arab spring can, of course, work either way.
Yet with all the problems, the efforts are worth while, as the noble and gallant Lord has said. The precedents of Northern Ireland and South Africa are encouraging but it is difficult to counter persuasively the pessimistic conclusions of that old Middle East hand, Tom Phillips, who concluded:
“Failure is the most likely outcome”.
Lord Williams of Baglan (CB)
My Lords, I welcome this debate and commend the noble and gallant Lord Stirrup for tabling it. Like all Members of the Committee, I welcome the efforts of Secretary of State Kerry in taking forward this process. One is conscious, however, of the many other crises he is handling—above all, the Syrian civil war with all its appalling ramifications throughout the Middle East. For progress to be made on a Middle East settlement, President Obama will need to use substantial political capital, which may be depleted as a result of the current congressional and budgetary crisis.
It is important to remember that we have been here many times before. I myself participated as part of the British delegation at the Annapolis conference called by President George W Bush in November 2007. Talks subsequently followed, led by the then Secretary of State, Condi Rice, with the Israeli Government of Ehud Olmert coming close to a temporary agreement in its dying days in office. I am conscious of the fact that none of the speakers before me have mentioned the quartet—the body which is seen to oversee and support the Middle East peace process. I wonder if that is the right body to do so any longer. It is one which curiously excludes one member of the P5, namely China, and also Arab countries. I believe that if Arab countries were involved in a remodified quartet, it would lock the Arab peace initiative of 2002 into the negotiation process.
I take this opportunity to welcome the prisoner releases that have been made by Prime Minister Netanyahu, which were truly painful for him and for the Israeli Government, and I look forward to a further 26 releases on 29 October. I welcome, too, the economic progress that is being made in the wake of the reinvigorated peace talks. This is long overdue. We have been here before and the outcomes have not always been what we would have hoped and certainly fall far short of economic transformation. This morning’s edition of the Financial Times carries very welcome news that a long-stalled project which involves a British company, BG, off the shores of Gaza, has now received positive support from the Israeli Government. I would welcome any news that the Minister might have in that regard. If this is confirmed, I would see it as a strong signal and I would encourage the Israeli Government to be more generous on economic and social measures that it could make on the West Bank.
It is often said that time is running out on the Middle East peace process. My own view is that time is running out for Israel on this. Earlier this year we lost a Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad—a former IMF economist and a man of extraordinary stature—who resigned. Abu Mazen, President Mahmoud Abbas, is now well into his late 70s. How long will he remain as Prime Minister? It is doubtful whether any significant Palestinian leader after these men can command the political presence to push forward a peace agreement, a process which will be as painful for the Palestinians as it will for the Israelis. A future leader will not have the political strength to do this. Now is the time to move forward and this will require great political courage on all sides, above all from the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Lord Turnberg (Lab)
My Lords, according to the polls, most people in Israel and Palestinian territories strongly believe that a peaceful two-state solution is highly desirable and, although expectations are very low, there may be one or two reasons to be slightly less pessimistic. First, talks are going on in secrecy and so far there have been no significant leaks, so that gives no one an opportunity to start sniping. Secondly, expectations are very low so no one will be too surprised at failure. Thirdly, the Arab League seems keen to see some resolution to the terrible impasse that has bedevilled Middle East politics for so long. Fourthly, Hamas might be in a less strong position to undermine any peace deal as they have been significantly weakened by the recent actions by the Egyptians to block their arms-smuggling tunnels.
However, there are very many problems, of which I shall mention just a few: Israel is distracted by the greater danger to its survival from Iran and Syria and may not be giving these negotiations their full priority. It is also painfully aware that its experience of withdrawal from Gaza was not a complete success. Its demands for security on its eastern border with a new Palestine will be very tough—they may indeed be too hard for the Palestinians to swallow. Withdrawal from the settlements and re-housing of huge numbers of settlers will not be a trivial task. Optimism in Israel is not running high.
On the Palestinian side, they are in an even more difficult position. The population desperately needs peace and a land of its own, but the leadership has not always shown willingness to accept a Jewish state. Its rhetoric in the state media has been all about a return to the whole of the land occupied by Israel as well as the West Bank. Perhaps significantly, it cannot be unaware of the impact that a peace deal with Israel would have on its relations with its Arab neighbours to the north. All those regard Israel as the sworn enemy that they seek to remove from the map of the Middle East. Mahmoud Abbas must know how dangerous a peace deal would be to him personally as he remembers the assassination of Sadat when Egypt signed a peace deal with Israel. Hamas is unlikely to make life comfortable for him even in its weakened state.
Against this pessimistic background, what might the UK usefully do in support of a two-state solution? We are of course very limited, but there are some things that are worth our effort. First, we should exert what influence we can on the Arab League to support Abbas and convince him that it will stand by him if he strikes a deal—here, I echo the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. Abbas desperately needs that support, and we have some influence with those countries.
Secondly, we should encourage the USA to keep at it despite its Syrian and Iranian distractions, and make sure that it impresses on the Israelis how important it feels it is that they should do a deal now. It should explain that America’s interest in the Middle East may not be so strong in the future as it becomes less dependent on its oil. The opportunity for American support for Israel may not last all that long. Meanwhile, we should refrain from levelling unhelpful criticism at either side while they are in this tricky phase of discussion. We need to think carefully about whether the criticism will help or hinder the discussions.
These negotiations give little room for optimism, but the fact that they are going on at all is vastly better than a continuing stand-off. Meanwhile, we should use what limited resources we have to help both sides.
Lord Weidenfeld (CB)
My Lords, if Britain and Europe wish to influence the course and outcome of the talks between the leaders of Israel and Palestine, diplomatic pin-pricks and untimely press attacks can have only an adverse effect. The European boycotting of Israeli goods, remotely traceable to beyond the Green Line, is a great mistake and controversial because it also hits Arabic economic interests.
The Israelis feel that that their gesture of releasing 26 Palestinian prisoners serving long, enduring life sentences has so far been accepted without reciprocation or appreciation. A closer look at the biographies and charge sheets of the released prisoners reveals a roll call of the most heinous crimes, resembling some of the horrors to which we have now, alas, become accustomed on the Syrian front.
President Abbas in his recent speech to left-wing members of the Israeli Knesset on a visit to Ramallah said remarkable, reassuring things about the current negotiations. He thought that peace could be achieved within nine months; he tactfully avoided such themes as settlements, right of return or an international campaign against Israel at the United Nations. These are all very good things, but it is important to remember one thing—here, I must disclose that I have all my life been very much involved with Israel. At a very early stage, I was even involved as the chef de cabinet of President Weizman and had a ring-side seat at some of the negotiations with Abdullah of Jordan, who came very close to an agreement then. I can say that the idea of a two-state solution was a dogma of the Zionist redemption. One of the great tragedies was that after the 1968 war, which was imposed on Israel, there was an absence of any agreement on the part of the Arabs about what they wanted. There were the three “noes” in Khartoum—no to peace, no to recognition, no to negotiation—that created a sort of no man’s land at the beginning of the settlement issue. On the other hand, General Sharon’s remarkable feat in getting all the Israeli settlers removed from Gaza shows what can be done.
I think that Prime Minister Netanyahu, who I know extremely well and who has been on an ideological odyssey, is now absolutely determined that a two-state solution is the only possibility. I think that this country and Europe could alleviate the situation by being much more lenient and understanding of the affairs of Israel. The initiatives now being undertaken in Ramallah and the negotiations between Tzipi Livni and the Palestinians’ opposite numbers have a chance of success. We have to stand by and be genuine neutrals and sympathetic, not partisan spectators.
Lord Triesman (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, for giving us the opportunity of having this conversation. We remain firmly in support of the two-state solution. I do not think there is a difficulty in holding a discussion of other kinds of plans, of alternatives, but I would be disappointed if we were distracted by that process from the two-state solution.
I have tried in the past few days to get a careful, hard-headed assessment of current prospects from those who are most closely involved. I want to focus on two elements, one political and the other economic. On the political one, it is hard not to say anything other than it is great to see the three-year hiatus in the peace negotiations finally broken by the efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry and his intention to reach a deal—comprehensive, as he described it, rather than interim—by April 2014 and to know that there are more frequent meetings taking place in which the United States has a far greater involvement and is very pro active. Those who are closest to the process have described John Kerry as being plainly, personally, deeply committed in driving the process. I use the words that they have used to me, and I applaud and congratulate that.
Of course, it may fail. The point has been made today that past predictions of breakthroughs have not always come on stream as we would have wished. Condoleezza Rice expressed that view, as many of us will remember, in 2008. But this is a serious United States push. That is what we demanded they should do, and that is where we should offer our encouragement.
On the economic front, which is being led by Tony Blair on behalf of the quartet, it may very well be that the quartet’s role is now being expressed more in the economic construction, and that is a very useful thing to do. Any political success will have to be underpinned by economic advance. People will feel an ownership of a new kind of economy. They will have an interest in each other’s success. That is vital. The eight-point plan in the economic initiative—and I strongly recommend it to the noble Lords: it is well worth reading—covers construction, including the institution of personal mortgages; agriculture; tourism; telecoms; power; water and light manufacturing. These are all building blocks of a viable economic future. They have been drawn up with the active engagement of the Palestinians and the Israelis. They have been supported by the global investment world and by international donors. The United Kingdom has a proud record of being a significant international donor in that environment. We should be proud of that.
Building two states will, of course, focus on land, boundaries and security, but it should also focus on economic and other institution-building. That is where there is going to be a chance of designing a real future and resilience in that future. The plan that has been guided by the work of leading global consultants is perhaps the most serious that we have seen yet. It is a plan: it is accomplishing a plan which is the hard thing; making one is often the easier part of the process. It is absolutely critical, however, and I hope that in our Parliament we will be cautious about any further name-calling or unhelpful criticism, rather than putting our shoulders behind what seems to be the most serious effort that we have seen in a very long time.
The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)
My Lords, I would like to begin by thanking the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, for giving us the opportunity to debate this subject. I know that the Middle East peace process is a subject of deep interest to those here today and to the House generally. I would also like to thank the noble and gallant Lord for leading the UK delegation with Sir John Scarlett at the recent UK-Israel security seminar held at Wilton Park. This is important work that enables us to better understand Israel’s security concerns and explore how these could be resolved in the context of the Middle East peace process. We look forward to the next conference in January of next year.
As my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has made clear, progress towards peace through the two-state solution is needed urgently. The ongoing events in the Middle East that have so consistently dominated world media continue to focus all of our minds on the need for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. We therefore warmly welcome the resumption of talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Washington on 30 July, and the resumption of formal negotiations on 14 August, with a view to resolving all final status issues.
The UK firmly supports a negotiated settlement leading to a safe and secure Israel living alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state based on 1967 borders with agreed land swaps, Jerusalem as the shared capital of both states, and a just, fair and agreed settlement for refugees. This is the only way to secure a sustainable end to the conflict, and it has wide support in this House and across the world. We strongly believe that achieving such a solution is in the interests of Israel, the Palestinians and the wider region. Of course I note the worries of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and the concerns voiced by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, but as I said earlier this year, this is a decisive year; this is the best chance in a decade—and perhaps the last chance—of ending this conflict. Britain will be there every step of the way. I hear the concerns of the noble and gallant Lord, but as the situation on the ground continues to deteriorate, it is increasingly clear that time to achieve a two-state solution is now running out.
It is with this in mind that the American Administration have carefully set out the foundations for negotiations to begin. Secretary Kerry worked hard with both parties leading into the resumption of negotiations, emphasising the difficult choices that lie ahead. We do not underestimate the challenges involved, a point that we have made clear to both parties. We continue to applaud the commitment Secretary Kerry has made. I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, on Secretary Kerry: his passion, determination and commitment were obvious for all to see when he spoke at the United Nations General Assembly.
It is also the courageous leadership shown by both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas, and the commitment of negotiators on both sides, that has enabled these negotiations to resume. In this regard, we welcome the decision taken by Israel on 28 July to release 26 Palestinian prisoners in advance of talks. The noble Lord, Lord Weidenfeld, referred to this. The negotiating parties have been disciplined in maintaining a coherent single-track model of negotiation. They have been meeting regularly. At the negotiator level, they have had several rounds of direct bilateral talks, and the US special envoy has been party to a number of these. At the same time, information about the discussions has been well protected from release to the outside world, which we believe is both positive and necessary to reduce the risk of disruption to the process. We continue to support the aims and objectives of the quartet, which we believe are aligned with UK interests.
The noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, asked about the Arab League. The UK is working closely with the Arab League countries in support of the peace process. We agree on the importance of working with all international partners to achieve a successful deal and it is clear that the Arab states have an important role to play. We warmly welcome the Arab League’s decision earlier this year to reaffirm the Arab peace initiative and its contribution to the resumption of talks. We are closely engaged with Arab partners and others in the international community to support efforts to achieve a just and sustainable peace.
Looking ahead, it is clear that determined leadership from the United States will remain critical in the months to come. I note the practical suggestions of the noble Lord, Lord Judd. Britain will do all it can to support the parties and the US in their efforts to achieve a negotiated peace, and we have already played an active role. In September, President Abbas visited London for meetings with my right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. In both cases, the Middle East peace process was at the very top of the agenda. President Abbas also met my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary and Secretary Kerry. In his subsequent statement, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary reiterated to President Abbas that Britain is committed to supporting,
“the Palestinians, Israelis and the United States to achieve this agreement and the lasting peace that the people of the region need and deserve”.
We will continue to work with all our international partners, including the quartet, the Arab League and the European Union, to support efforts to achieve a just and sustainable peace. Of course, we know the path ahead will be difficult. As Secretary Kerry has noted:
“There is no shortage of passionate sceptics”.
So the immediate political focus between the Israelis and the Palestinians should be on building trust as they take forward the negotiations. Reaching agreement on final status issues necessarily involves detailed discussion about refugees, Jerusalem, borders, security arrangements and Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. These issues, especially that of refugees in Jerusalem, are complex, and making progress on them will require difficult choices to be made by both sides.
To avoid drift, Secretary Kerry has explicitly required negotiations to be concluded within nine months, and maintaining the momentum is crucial to meeting this deadline. We therefore welcome Secretary Kerry’s recent announcement that talks are due to intensify in the coming weeks. We will continue to support Palestinian state-building efforts ahead of a deal, including by fostering private sector-led, sustainable economic growth in the West Bank. We also welcome the steps taken by Israel referred to by my noble friend Lord Palmer and the noble Lord, Lord Weidenfeld. These steps are positive and we look forward to further progress in the days and months ahead, including on some of the issues to which noble Lords referred, such as the rights of minorities, which were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay.
I conclude by thanking noble Lords again for their participation in this debate. We will take every opportunity to promote a peaceful two-state solution, which is important not just for the security of the immediate region but of the UK too. The groundwork has been laid, so we now look to President Abbas and Prime Minister Netanyahu to continue their strong political leadership, and we will provide support wherever necessary. In parallel, we will continue to call on the European Union, the Arab League and other international partners to unite behind Secretary Kerry’s efforts and do everything possible to support decisive moves for peace.
We are at a critical juncture. Either there is a movement towards peace with strong regional and international support or all of us face an uncertain and potentially dangerous future. Developments since the Arab spring have made progress even more pressing, not least in light of the threat posed by the conflict in Syria and the current events in Egypt. Maintaining the status quo is neither desirable nor practical. The Government therefore remain committed to supporting the efforts of the parties and their shared commitment to reaching a permanent status agreement within the agreed goal of nine months. We firmly believe that if both parties continue to show bold leadership, peace via a two-state solution is achievable.
Transport: Bus Services
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bradshaw
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to increase the use and quality of bus services.
Lord Bradshaw (LD)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their magnificent punctuality, which should be the precursor of this debate. It is my great pleasure to welcome my noble friend Lady Kramer as the Minister. I am sure that her advent here will be warmly welcomed throughout the House. It is also a good thing to note that the Department for Transport has today issued a statement about the Better Bus Area Fund, with new additions to it in Merseyside, York, Nottingham and the west of England. This money has been competed for and is to go towards improving bus services according to those proposals put forward by authorities which were deemed to be the best.
I shall start by talking about the reimbursement of concessionary fares. This is still a bone of contention. I remember when the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, was the Secretary of State, he invited a party of bus operators to see him. We had a full and frank discussion, but unfortunately it did not actually result in anything. The consequence is that there is a lot of ill feeling among bus operators that they are not getting a fair return for the services rendered. They should be neither any better off nor any worse off, but some of them are in fact considerably worse off. Unfortunately, that disadvantage is felt most severely by small and medium-sized operators, not the big five. They have the opportunity to cross-subsidise and utilise the swings and roundabouts. However, I have received a letter from a bus operator in Norfolk who is quite adamant that his operation is not getting adequate reimbursement. The letter states, “Certainly in my area, now with the highest proportion of over-60s among its population of anywhere in England, there are longer routes where the scheme comprehensively underpays any reimbursement, and this is causing services to be reduced or cut entirely”. I think that we are all conscious of the fact that it is not fair or reasonable to offer elderly people bus passes on the one hand and to remove their bus services on the other.
I want to ask the Minister whether she will take another look at what is going on and possibly meet with some more bus operators with, I hope, a better result than was the case after my last meeting. This is an important issue. I know that all the political parties are gearing themselves up to offer, at the next general election, to do something about young people’s fares. There is much justice in that, particularly following the raising of the school leaving age and so on. However, bus operators will not co-operate unless they feel that they are being treated fairly in respect of concessionary fares. Again, it is important that something is done about this because we should be reaching out to people when they reach the age when they can buy motor cars. It is rather important that they do not buy them because of the congestion that affects many of our towns and cities. This is the first issue I want to bring home, and I hope that the Minister will agree that we should have some discussions with operators.
The second issue that I wish to debate is profitability. The word “profit” has been bandied about recently as a thoroughly dirty word, yet any enterprise that is progressive needs profit to invest money. The bus companies have not been slow to invest money. They have much more modern, environmentally friendly and cleaner vehicles than they had a few years ago, which—thinking of the next debate—cannot be said of all train operators. However, some people are now describing “profit” as a dirty word.
I have been involved in the management of bus companies. I know that bus companies in both the public and private sectors have to earn a profit, otherwise they will not have money to invest. Where profits are at a reasonable level and companies are investing money, we should not pretend that allowing the public sector to take over the routes, which was more or less set out by Maria Eagle at the Labour Party conference, is a way forward at all. Reducing the bus operators to penury is not a very good policy. I can remember—because I am very old—what Greater Manchester buses were like when they were in public ownership. The buses ran late; they were filthy-dirty; the staff were thoroughly disobliging; and the service cost the ratepayers a lot of money.
We know that the authority in Tyne & Wear, for example, is trying to go forward with a quality contract scheme. The arithmetic of it seems to be very faulty. I know that there is a procedure that has to be gone through to convince the senior traffic commissioner that a scheme is good and will benefit taxpayers and bus users. The Government should be very careful that they get good, sound reasons for any change that takes place. I fancy that it will be a long struggle. The bus companies believe that their rights are being sequestrated without compensation, and the likelihood is that the case will go right to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg if the scheme is not properly formulated.
Competition is necessary, but all attempts to regulate it through competition authorities have proved very expensive and ineffective. If the Minister looks back through the records of the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission, she will see that they investigated the bus industry probably more than all the other industries in the country put together. It cost a huge amount of money and took up a huge amount of management time, and I do not think that any result was worth a row of beans.
Could not the traffic commissioners have a more active role in regulating any predatory behaviour that arises? The commissioners have to accept a registration. Before they accept that registration, they will know that Bill Bloggs proposes to run a bus three minutes in front of Bill Smith’s, after which there will be a long gap. That sort of thing does not need a genius to spot, and is extremely destructive of the network and public confidence.
Local government has a very active role in keeping streets clear of obstructions, be they parked cars or road works which seem to infest all our roads. I believe that when a traffic commissioner calls in a bus operator for not operating within the margins—margins which are going to be tightened up to mean no minutes early and nearly 100% on time, which is a very high target—the traffic commissioner should also summon the local authority at the same time to make sure that it is playing its part in the bargain because, unlike with the railway, the streets are separate from the operator. At least with the railway they fall within one armful with the Office of Rail Regulation.
There are a few things that might interest the Minister and I would be very happy to talk in more detail. This is the time of year when I raise the question of the bus industry which needs consideration.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)
My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Bradshaw for tabling and introducing today’s debate, which has become a sort of annual fixture. It is a real pity that the importance of buses to the public is not reflected in the interest that the House takes in public transport generally and buses in particular. It is not just a courtesy at this point to say how much I welcome the presence of my noble friend Lady Kramer at the Dispatch Box. I have known the noble Baroness for many years and I know that her hands-on experience of transport, particularly the financing of it, is going to be of real benefit to the House, to the department and to the Government, so she is very welcome.
I wish to focus my few remarks today on the question of rural bus services, which is a topic close to my heart. Like many Members of this House, I split my time between my home in the country in a village of fewer than 200 people, and my flat in London, which is close to a main road along which around a dozen services run about every five minutes during the day and then continue to run through the night, so the contrast is very stark. About seven years ago when the gentleman who is now my husband first came to see me in Suffolk, he asked the Londoners’ question: “When is the next bus?”. “Thursday”, I told him. “We don’t need real-time passenger information; we just need a calendar”. Now my village does not have a bus service at all and I do not have a problem with that. When I was first elected to the county council in 1993, I recall looking at bus routes where the per-passenger subsidy was greater than a taxi fare, and that is clearly untenable. However, people who live in small villages still need to access services and not everyone can run a car. In my village the answer has come in the form of demand-responsive transport. It is called Suffolk Links and it is run by a not-for-dividend-profit organisation called Optua. Using a mixture of paid and volunteer staff it provides a very good service to villages like mine and, while it is not as convenient as a car, it is very much better than a weekly bus and much cheaper than a taxi.
These demand-responsive services are suffering from a combination of local authority cuts, regulatory burdens and an unhelpful financial regime, so I would appreciate it if the noble Baroness could perhaps write to me setting out what the Government’s current thinking is on the demand-responsive transport sector. It is becoming quite urgent as there is now very real pressure on these services because of the withdrawal of bus services from larger communities which in my day on the council would not have been considered marginal. Central government cuts to local authorities and to the bus operators’ support grant, along with changes to the concessionary fares scheme, have meant that many services are no longer seen as viable. Close to us in Suffolk is the village of Stowupland. It has a population of around 1,800 so it is a decent size. Due to its previously good bus links—it had an hourly service—it has a large population of retired people. There are also quite a number of people in the village living in socially rented housing. Having lost their weekend and evening services some time ago, First has recently announced the withdrawal of all bus services from the village. This is a terrible blow to the many people who rely totally on buses will have a major impact on the fabric of the village.
Lest noble Lords think that I am focusing too much on Suffolk, North Yorkshire County Council is consulting on a proposal to cut a further 25% of bus support, and Dorset 28%. In Norfolk, the popular Coasthopper service is to be cut by a third; that is perhaps what my noble friend Lord Bradshaw was referring to. These are all rural counties and many small communities will be badly hit by this level of cuts. We need to remember that 10% of the rural population does not have access to a car. Those people will suffer increased isolation and have real problems trying to access essential services. It is all very well for the Chancellor to stand up at his conference and say that jobseekers are going to have to go to the jobcentre daily, but how on earth are rural claimants to get there? There is a desperate lack of joined-up thinking in all of this.
As another example, most Suffolk villages, even the smallest, have a group of a dozen or so council houses which were built after the war. They were built at a time when land was cheap and families were larger, so on the whole they are quite big. It is therefore not always easy to find tenants for them. Having no access to bus services is not going to make it any easier to find tenants for these houses, especially when you couple that with the changes to housing benefit, which are making larger properties much harder to let.
I would like the noble Baroness to outline for us how the Government’s role in bus policy is currently being defined. Is there still a role for government or is it simply being left to a combination of market forces and cash-strapped local authorities to deal with? I wonder whether the Department for Transport is aware that there is a real perception that the Government are no longer supportive of the bus industry and its needs. We have heard the questions about the changes to the concessionary fares scheme and the bus service operators grant, which have not helped the bus industry one bit. The mood music really is important. For example, Eric Pickles’ proposal that people should be allowed to park on the road for 15 minutes is just plain daft. A succession of cars parking for 15 minutes is as bad as one being parked there for the whole day. If it blocks the road and makes the smooth running of buses and cars and safe pedestrian crossing more difficult, it is a very silly idea. Billing it as a pro-high street measure reveals a failure to understand the dynamics of people and traffic on high streets.
There is another area about which I am concerned, and I would be interested to know whether the department has had consultations and discussions with the Department for Education and the Department for Transport on home-to-school transport. In rural areas this has always been provided by a combination of large and small operators using the same buses on the school runs and the service runs. As the services are disappearing, the school runs by themselves will almost certainly not be viable for the operators. This is particularly key where there are smaller operators in the rural areas, because they are the ones who are finding the going tough and withdrawing from the industry altogether. Councils have a statutory obligation to provide home-to-school transport, so they could, ironically, end up having to run a bus fleet in order to get children to school, which would be very much more expensive than subsidising transport. I would like to know a little more about that.
Finally, it would of course be churlish not to welcome the Government’s Better Bus Areas programme, particularly the announcement today. My heart sings for Merseyside and so on. However, my plea to the Government, particularly to the noble Baroness, is not to forget rural areas. People rely on buses and they will be badly impacted by these changes.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to say a few words in the gap. It is extraordinary hearing the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, talk about rural bus services. Where I live in Cornwall, exactly the same thing is happening: buses are being cut. I do not have a car; I have a bicycle, but not everybody who does not have a car can go by bike. The problems are the same in my area.
This also comes back to the debate we had on the Question in the Chamber yesterday about new roads, the problems of resurfacing existing roads, filling in potholes and so on. The Minister who answered for the Government, the noble Lord, Lord Popat, said that local authorities have got a big budget for this. However, the problem is that local authorities’ budgets are being cut all the way round and that applies to the budgets for buses and road surfacing. I do not buy into this continuing mantra, which comes not just from this Government but has been going on for years, that everything central government does is perfect whereas everything done by local authorities is rubbish and should be cut down or given to somebody else because they can do it better. We have a long way to go in this regard and the problem with rural buses is extremely serious.
I also want to refer briefly to bus lanes, particularly in the context of city centres. I do not think that we have discussed them recently, but there has been a lot of debate over the summer, particularly in London, about cyclists being killed by trucks and trucks being required by the mayor to put extra safety equipment in place. I refer particularly to tipper trucks as opposed to articulated lorries. The safety equipment is a good idea and may possibly help to prevent a few accidents. However, the real problem is enforcement. These trucks are allowed into London and I believe that they can be fined £200 a day if they do not have the right equipment fitted. How will the mayor ensure that the enforcement is sufficiently rigorous to make the owners of these trucks comply with the regulations? How will he ensure that bus lanes are kept free for buses, and for cyclists if they are allowed in them?
Pedalling or driving round London, whether in a bus or a car, you see endless examples of cars, vans and trucks being parked in bus lanes when they should not be there. They may be 24/7 bus lanes or they may apply just in the morning and evening rush hours, but illegal parking in them dramatically constrains the reliability of buses. The bus drivers are very good and do their best, but the whole point of bus lanes is to provide greater reliability for passengers, drivers and operators. However, that does not exist. Before we bring in too many more regulations in this area we should have a strong go—government, local authorities, police; whoever’s job it is—at making sure that the existing regulations are properly enforced and are seen to be enforced by the public. I would love to see a car illegally parked in a bus lane have a ruddy great big ticket put on it and be subject to a big fine. The driver would not do that again, but at the moment, most people think, “Well, what’s the point?”. I shall be very interested to hear what our new Minister has to say. I warmly congratulate her on her appointment and I look forward to working and debating with her in the future.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, for securing this debate. His comments seemed to have as much to do with Labour Party policy as government policy. I agreed rather more with the thrust of the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, and, of course, with those of my noble friend Lord Berkeley. I also take this opportunity to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, on her appointment as Transport Minister, a subject on which she has considerable knowledge and experience, not least through the prominent positions she has held over a number of years as a Liberal Democrat in London. If, by any chance, the Minister feels that she has had to wait a long time since becoming a Member of this House to speak in a debate from the government Dispatch Box, then, like the proverbial comment about the arrival of buses, she now finds that, after the wait, two debates have arrived together one behind the other. In warmly welcoming the Minister to transport debates, I take this opportunity to express my thanks to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, who, as a Whip, has spoken for the Government up to now on transport matters, and who in my experience has always been a very courteous and approachable person with a genuine sense of humour.
Some questions have already been raised in this brief debate about the Government’s policy and their approach to the bus industry, and we wait to see whether the Minister’s arrival is likely to mean any change in approach. I should like her to confirm that there will be no change in one area: that neither party in the coalition Government has any plans to withdraw the current concessionary bus passes for senior citizens. It would be helpful if she could confirm that that is the position.
We know that, outside London, local bus passenger numbers fell again last year, this time by 2.5%, with bus mileage outside London also falling again, this time by just under 1%. Mileage on services financially supported by local authorities, accounting now for 20% of the total, has fallen even further: by an estimated 8% over the latest year and 17% in the past two years. There is no need to guess which government policy has led to that state of affairs. If you make cuts of a quarter in local transport funding and a fifth in direct subsidies to support essential routes, it is bound to have an adverse impact, as has already been said in this debate.
The Campaign for Better Transport has said that a great many local authorities have looked or are looking to buses as an area in which to make cuts, with some councils planning to lose all their supported services. A fifth of such services have already gone. The position in London is different. Around half of all bus journeys in England are made in London, where the 2012-13 total was broadly unchanged from the previous year at approximately 2.3 billion, following years of growth. Likewise, vehicle mileage is up in London. In London, bus services are operated by private companies but regulated by Transport for London. In England outside London, services are operated on a purely commercial basis or with financial support from transport authorities.
The Department for Transport produces regular statistics on the bus industry. The most recent statistics, I think dated last month, appear to tell us that total costs in 2012-13 were at broadly the same level in real terms as in the previous year, and that operating costs for local bus services in England outside London have fallen by 2% since 2008-09. However, the next paragraph in the document, unless I have misread it, tells us that, despite this, the latest figures show that bus fares continued to increase at a rate greater than inflation in the year to March 2013. The heading for this very brief paragraph on bus fares is, “continued above-inflation increases”, which may of course be the explanation for why the paragraph on fares has been kept so brief by the Department for Transport.
What the official statistics also tell us is that women are more likely to use buses than men, that males and females aged between 17 and 20 made more bus journeys than any other age group among the categories within the DfT’s statistics in 2012, and that those in the lowest household income group make the most bus journeys, accounting for more than half of all bus journeys in Great Britain. It is therefore not clear on which groups who are not qualified for free concessionary travel the impact of—I use the Department for Transport’s own wording—“continued above-inflation increases” falls most heavily at a time when we continue to have the cost of living increasing at a faster rate than wages.
The Government also claim that they are trying to get young people into work or full-time higher education, while ignoring the fact that the Government have trebled university tuition fees, scrapped the education maintenance allowance and hammered the Future Jobs Fund. The Department for Transport statistics also tell us that the “continued above-inflation increases” in bus fares have a disproportionately greater impact on the very group—namely, the 17 to 20 year-olds who the Government say they want to get into education, employment or training, and who may well need to travel by bus to do so—than on any other age group. If bus fares are too costly, the opportunities for young people to take up opportunities in education, work or training are going to be reduced and restricted. That in itself imposes further costs on the nation and on taxpayers. The Government can hardly claim that bus deregulation outside London has been successful, except perhaps for the five major bus companies who control more than 70% of the UK bus market and do not appear to be feeling the pinch to the same extent as many of their passengers. I note, however, the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, about the position of smaller operators and concessionary fares, and await with interest what the Minister has to say in response.
The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has given his views on Tyne and Wear. Tyne and Wear is pursuing quality bus contracts to get a better deal for passengers. Contrary to the tenor of the comments of the noble Lord, I believe that they should be encouraged, as should other local transport authorities who want to go down the same road: planning the local bus network, raising the level of services and tackling the issue of fares, including fares for young people.
Other local transport authorities may prefer partnerships with local bus companies, and there are examples of where this has been very successful. However, it should be for the local transport authorities, who are accountable, to decide which road to take. The Government should not appear to side with bus companies, who do not seem to like quality contracts, through funding arrangements which militate against local transport authorities that want to go down that path.
Government policy on buses has been a failure. One hopes that the reason the Minister has been brought in to replace her Liberal Democrat colleague in the department is to oversee a change in policy which leads to increasing passenger usage of buses outside London and to a better deal for bus passengers, who, while in the main not well off, are among those bearing the brunt of the cost-of-living increases.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)
My Lords, I thank your Lordships for the debate so far. It is an extraordinary privilege for me to be here today. I could not open in any other way than to thank the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, who so stalwartly responded to questions, many of them from people present at today’s debate. He may not have a large shoe size, but his are nevertheless large shoes to fill; I feel that as I stand here.
I also had a joke to open with. However, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has taken advantage of me and talked about my facing two debates today already. Instead, I will make just one statement, because I want it to be absolutely clear: this Government have no plans to withdraw concessionary fares for older and disabled people. They are enshrined in law and that remains the position. I want to make that clear before we discuss any other issues.
We can all agree that buses play a vital role in our economy: 4.6 million bus journeys were made on local buses in England in 2011-12. They are essential for people to get to work and to education. They are a lifeline for many people, enabling them to socialise. Over half of those outside London who rely on the bus do not have access to a car. Studies such as those from the University of Leeds have reinforced the importance of buses to a healthy and growing economy, and that is surely something we all support.
While there has been some suggestion, particularly from Lord Rosser, that the situation is bleak, I suggest that there is evidence to the contrary. Customer satisfaction with bus journeys is high: 84% of passengers are satisfied with their service. We all want to see that figure improved, but let us not deny that that is a mark of success, particularly compared to the past. Under-21s make up a third of bus passengers; as a group they are often fascinated by the car, yet they are accepting the bus as a way to travel. Use among the over-60s is also increasing, especially as a result of the national concessionary pass.
Moreover, the Government remain committed to improving bus services, and expenditure on buses reflects that. This year the Government spent £1 billion on the concessionary travel entitlement and £340 million on direct subsidies to bus operators in England. We have allocated over £300 million to major bus projects in the last year, and we have provided £70 million, through the Better Bus Area fund, for improvements in 24 local authority areas.
Let me pick up the issue of demand-responsive transport, raised by my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market. We have allocated £20 million to support community transport. This is an area of real interest and challenge because it is going to take an intelligent and innovative approach to work out how to provide transport to areas where demand is irregular and sporadic. It means that local authorities will have to bring together the community, so that many others in the community—the voluntary services and stakeholders—can try to look for answers to this. It is one of the reasons why the Government have said that the answers have to be found in the local community, which understands the local problems, rather than imposed constantly from Whitehall. She also raised the home-to-school transport issue. I need to understand that better, and I promise to try to do so.
The Government have provided £600 million for the Local Sustainable Transport Fund and £95 million for four rounds of the Green Bus fund, but we can still do better. The Government’s Green Light for Better Buses sets out our plans for buses. The proposals include reforming bus subsidy, improving competition, improving local authority capability in tendering—and let us not underestimate the difference that can make—incentivising partnership working and multi-operator ticketing, which is a particular interest of mine, and making access to bus information and ticketing easier for all. Perhaps some of that is a result of my London experience.
There is no doubt that we are operating in challenging economic times. The Government must ensure that the bus market is still attractive to all operators, large and small—precisely the point raised by my noble friend Lord Bradshaw. They must find ways to allocate funds fairly, while keeping in mind the best value for money for taxpayers. There is a balance and it is not necessarily an easy set of answers.
The bus service operators grant, paid to bus operators, has historically been provided in a blunt, untargeted way, related to fuel consumption. But from January 2014, the bus subsidy previously claimed by operators of non-commercial services will be devolved to local authorities. I hope that that will drive forward that kind of innovation and new thinking. That money will be ring-fenced until 2017 to ensure stability and will allow local authorities to make the best local-level decisions about the provision of non-commercial bus services.
As several noble Lords around this table have said, some local authorities have argued that they can make the bus subsidy deliver better value for money by working in partnership with their bus operators to grow the bus market. We can all agree that Reading and Nottingham are fine examples of the sort of excellent bus service that can be achieved through that kind of partnership. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, acknowledged that. It is precisely what the four new Better Bus Areas, which I announced today in a Written Ministerial Statement, are intended to test; I thank my noble friend Lord Bradshaw for his kind comments on that. The policy relies strongly on partnership with commercial bus operators, rather than contractual relationships. That is a significant element of a more positive approach.
As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has said, Better Bus Areas are quite distinct from quality contract schemes, where, in effect, the local authority follows something much closer to a London model. I feel very strongly that local authorities and local communities should be making the decision about which way they should go on this. If I understood the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, he took that position as well. Some will go one way and some will go another, but I believe that it is absolutely vital that Whitehall does not try to pretend that it understands the needs of each local community. Providing that flexibility to go in two directions seems to be something that we should see as a strength, not as a weakness.
I also want to stress that the Government are committed to protecting the national bus travel concession. I talked about that and made a very clear statement. I love my freedom pass; I suppose I should declare that I have one in case that could be considered a conflict of interest. I know that it changes people’s lives.
A number of people, including the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, recognise that there is a serious issue of young people’s travel, and it is a complex area. While there is no statutory obligation to provide discounted travel to young people, many commercial and publicly funded reductions are available. I make it clear that this is an area that I want to explore. I think that we could do a lot more work in this area and see what possibilities there are, because I take on board many of the issues that have been raised here. I congratulate those local authorities—I think that Brighton is one example—which have provided discounted fares to young people. We therefore have a beginning point for seeing what the impact is and for putting a great deal more thought into this.
Let me try in the minutes that I have left to make sure that I have covered some of the issues that were raised—where I have not, I will of course write to noble Lords. My brain is not yet trained to grasp every point in the way that it should be and, I hope, eventually will be.
On the reimbursement of concessionary fares, the underlying principle, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said is: no better off and no worse off. It is an EU regulation and there is plenty of guidance around all this. I am very happy to meet those who think that it is not working effectively, but I should point out that, at the end of a process, bus operators can appeal to the Secretary of State on this issue—indeed, during the past two years, the number of those appeals has fallen, so this may be less of a problem than we might initially fear. I agree, however, that getting that sorted is very helpful if we are going to start thinking through the issue of concessions for young people.
On traffic commissioners and their role in competition, I am sure that I was handed a note and, if I was, I cannot find it. However, I shall pick that up; I am not yet familiar with the issue of traffic commissioners and what they do. Obviously, because they are regional, they can have an impact in a way that I should be aware of, so I will come back and answer that question.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, talked about bus lane enforcement. In London, on TfL roads, that is obviously a matter for the mayor; otherwise, it is a matter for local authorities. From personal experience, I think that most people seem to regard enforcement as ruthless rather than soft. There are certainly successful examples, such as in York, which has employed enforcement officers. This is another area where we must look to local communities to work out how it can be done within their own community. I would be hesitant about Whitehall trying to suggest that there is one way to carry out enforcement, but I take the point that the noble Lord makes.
I again apologise if I have missed any points that noble Lords may have made. I will cover them in letters—we will go back through Hansard and make sure. I assure the Committee that the Government believe in buses. Our vision is for a better bus service with more of what passengers want. We want punctual, interconnected services; we want them greener; it is essential that they become fully wheelchair-accessible; and we need widely available smart ticketing. I know from the experience of London what an impact some of those “soft issues” can have on the effectiveness, the attractiveness and the success of a bus service. A more attractive, more competitive and greener bus network will encourage more passengers, cut carbon and create growth. I believe that those are grounds on which we can all agree.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
I am afraid that I shall have to ask noble Lords to contain their impatience until 4 pm. The rules of the Grand Committee do not allow the next debate to start before the appointed time, even though I look around and see that every speaker is here. I am afraid that I have no discretion on that.
Railways: East Anglia Network
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Scott of Needham Market
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have for investment in the rail network in East Anglia.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)
My Lords, I thought that I would start with a Michael Caine moment. Not a lot of people know this, but the east of England is one of only two regions that make a net contribution to the Treasury. That is quite interesting, because when people talk about English regions, they talk about Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle. They do not think about Norwich, Chelmsford and Ipswich. It is a really impressive feat, particularly when you consider the rather poor investment in road and rail infrastructure that the east of England has had for the past half-century.
I wish to focus my comments today on just part of the region: the counties of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex and of course my home county of Suffolk. I am really pleased to see that those areas are all represented by speakers in today’s debate. Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire are of course within the eastern region in government terms, but in rail terms they are quite a separate region, so I will leave them to one side. I want to try to make the case for more strategic investment in our region. Given her background, I know that the Minister will bring a real understanding of the issue and of the importance of investment.
Many parts of our regional rail infrastructure have had no modernisation in the past half-century. Much of the rolling stock is now 40 years old. Recent problems with the franchise holders and now with the franchise process itself have resulted in a miserable passenger experience for far too many people in our region. Passengers are being asked to pay higher fares every year, but experience a worse service overall. The award of an interim franchise to Greater Anglia, which has now been extended for a short period, has meant that investment in rolling stock, which is so desperately needed, cannot be made. It has improved the reliability of the service, but faces an uphill struggle against problems caused by poor infrastructure; notably signalling, which brought the entire line into London to a complete halt on Tuesday this week. I would appreciate an update from the Minister on the question of the franchise for our region.
It does not have to be like this. A few years ago, one of the very worst areas in our region was the misery line from Southend to Fenchurch Street, which has now been transformed by new investment. Right through the region and particularly on the main lines, keeping costs down in the old BR days resulted in a number of inadequate stretches of track. I am really pleased that some of these false economies have now been rectified. It is not on the tip of everyone's tongue, but the completion of the Beccles loop, which cost £4 million, has been transformative. On the East Suffolk line, usage has gone up 12% since December, because the Beccles loop and the associated signalling have enabled an hourly train service to run. That indicates how a relatively modest investment can pay dividends.
The eastern regional economy is driven by centres of growth in Cambridge, Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Chelmsford and Southend, supported by the market towns and their rural hinterland. Our region also plays a key part in driving forward the capital’s economy. That is especially true of Essex. At its most basic, without the tens of thousands of people who endure a daily commute into London from Essex, our entire economy would grind to a halt. Cambridge, Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Chelmsford and Harlow are already hubs of science, innovation and new technology.
East Anglia’s ports have an unparalleled opportunity to develop the offshore energy industry. Felixstowe is already the fourth largest container port in the world and has created around 40,000 jobs in the area. If it is to compete with Antwerp and Rotterdam, it needs infrastructure that is fit for purpose. Some improvements have been made, but further improvement to the Felixstowe to Nuneaton freight corridor is an essential part of ensuring the continued growth, given the congestion on the adjacent A14. Investment in the Ipswich chord is another good start but we need to continue investing. I am very pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in his place today and speaking in this debate. He has done more to keep rail freight on the agenda than anyone else in the country.
East Anglia is one of the fastest-growing parts of the UK. Both commuters and long-distance travellers are growing in number on all the routes under discussion, both to London and between towns and cities in the region. More housing is planned—about 360,000 more houses in the four counties over the next planning period. When I talk to planners across the region, they say that they are concentrating the building, the new-housing growth, in areas with good access to the rail network. Of course, this is good transport planning, but only if the network has the capacity to cope with the growth.
Network Rail is currently basing assumptions on a 75% growth in passenger use over the next 30 years. This simply does not accord with the growth in recent years, and is considered by people who know to be a serious underestimate. The burgeoning economic strength of the region is being increasingly threatened by gridlock, congestion, and capacity shortfall on the network. Local business and quality of life are being undermined. Rail investment has transformed other parts of East Anglia.
I have mentioned the misery line, but the introduction of the Cambridge express service and other improvements on the King’s Lynn-to-London route have made a massive difference. They can unlock areas for sustainable housing and business growth. We need significant but not unrealistic investment in additional infrastructure and rolling stock, including tackling congestion in and around London Liverpool Street and lines to the north through north London, Essex, and Hertfordshire.
In Cambridgeshire, the Ely North junction is a bottleneck which causes problems throughout the network in our part of the region. This really needs to be unlocked to allow the growth of regionally significant routes, including freight. In Suffolk, a passing loop at Wickham Market would further improve the East Suffolk line and will be absolutely essential if Sizewell C gets the go-ahead. This needs to be coupled with more frequent inter-regional services.
A longer-term aspiration for the region, and one which has been talked about since long before I first came into local government in the early 1990s, is the east-west rail link, a link between Cambridge and Oxford. It is not about linking the two old rivals but about providing access between the south-west and south Midlands to the east of the country in a way which bypasses London and releases valuable capacity there.
The rolling stock on the main line is simply not fit for purpose. The Great Eastern main line is badly in need of new intercity stock or new and refurbished trains. We have a hotchpotch of rolling stock which has been scraped together from the rejects of other areas. It has an average age of 25 years. Greater Anglia has made some improvements in cleanliness which are greatly welcome, but, with the uncertainty of the franchise in recent years, travelling on our main line trains can be a pretty unpleasant experience, with tatty seats, malfunctioning doors, and, even worse, malfunctioning toilets.
It is not really just about the links between the main towns and cities. I live close to a market town, and I am very well aware not only of how important rail is to the prosperity of my town but also of the importance of branch lines to many of the smaller market towns. These lines across our four counties offer commuter, tourism, and everyday travel opportunities for communities. This connectivity can be further exploited to offer further economic opportunities and housing growth if the services were faster and more frequent.
Services are operated with basic trains, which, in many cases, have serious accessibility constraints. Line speeds are often poor and impaired by issues such as single sections and level crossings. Experience has shown that improving core services, frequency, speed, and so on vastly increases rail usage. The many different users of the lines to Southminster, Braintree, Sudbury, Harwich, Felixstowe, and so on would all increase in number if these constraints were improved.
These lines have been much promoted by thriving community rail partnerships, such as the Crouch Valley, the Gainsborough, Mayflower, Wherry, and Bittern lines. There are 11 community rail lines in Suffolk which have been really successful in raising the profile of the railway locally and in some cases doubling the number of passengers using them. Just to echo the point made by the Minister in the previous debate on buses, they really show the value of harnessing local involvement, because community rail partnerships are harnessing this enthusiasm, recruiting volunteers to work with local authorities in the rail industry, securing improvements to the appearance of stations, and so on. It has involved a lot of hard work by dedicated people.
But they can only go so far and in the end it comes down to the need for the continuation and security of local authority funding to keep the work of these community rail partnerships going, and the need for additional rolling stock to accommodate the greater number of passengers being carried.
I hope I have been able in this brief time to make a case for more investment in our thriving region and for the fact that it could produce even more revenue for the Exchequer than it currently does. I look forward to hearing contributions from other noble Lords and from my noble friend the Minister.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for securing this debate and for giving us the opportunity to explore some important issues. My interest in this debate is that of a passenger—a regular passenger but thankfully not a commuter—on the London Liverpool Street to Norwich line. My own station is Hatfield Peverel between Chelmsford and Witham. As my husband is the Member of Parliament for Harwich and North Essex, I am even more acutely aware of what a big issue this is for all MPs and commuters on this line. The annual season ticket from Hatfield Peverel is now £4,696, which out of taxed income is a lot of money for an unreliable and very overcrowded service.
The eastern regional economy is driven by the centres of growth in Cambridge, Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Chelmsford and Southend and supported by smaller market towns. This burgeoning economic strength is increasingly threatened by the hopeless gridlock, congestion and capacity shortfall on our transport network. Local businesses and quality of life are undermined. Commuters on the Greater Anglia franchise who commute on the Great Eastern main line have long been let down by underinvestment and the whole of the east of England has suffered for too long from the effects of this underinvestment. These commuters are effectively paying to subsidise rail services elsewhere as the franchise hands £110 million a year over to the Treasury. They also suffer from frequent delays and problems on the line as congestion and signalling problems impact on them on a regular basis. Indeed, I was in the Clerk of the Parliaments’ office earlier this week and was told by the PA who travels from Hatfield Peverel of the terrible delays on Tuesday due to signalling failure, as mentioned by the noble Baroness. The region’s passengers deserve a better service and value for money for the fares they pay.
Investing in infrastructure and services—such as improvements to tracks to boost capacity and to reduce delays and congestion, new trains, and better passenger services such as wi-fi and refreshments—could potentially unlock £3.7 billion of economic growth for the region. This economic analysis was put together in the GEML capacity study report. I congratulate the region’s MPs who have all got together to publish a rail prospectus to further the campaign for investment in rail services and infrastructure. The prospectus outlines the measures needed to support economic growth and job creation in the region through the railways. These measures are intended to deliver regular services between London and Ipswich with journey times brought down to 60 minutes and between London and Norwich with journey times brought down to 90 minutes—also known as the “Norwich in Ninety” campaign. The prospectus has been supported by councils, business groups and rail user groups in the region and I understand the Secretary of State for Transport has been engaged with this process, meeting MPs and organisations to discuss the plans.
In Network Rail’s strategic business plan for control period 5—investment period 2014-19—it has committed to spending around £2.2 billion in the east of England. The infrastructure improvements include works to signals, new switches and crosses, and the remodelling of Bow Junction near Stratford to increase capacity. The region will also benefit from Crossrail coming to Shenfield. All these investments are welcome but further investment is needed to boost this economic corridor. In particular, commuter and freight capacity on the GEML will be enhanced considerably by introducing four-tracking north-east of Chelmsford. I am sure my noble friend Lord Hanningfield will have more to say about that. This new infrastructure could be put in place to coincide with the development of Beaulieu Park and a proposed new station being constructed there. I pay tribute to my honourable friend in the other place, indeed my own Member of Parliament, Priti Patel. She has been working closely with Essex County Council, Chelmsford City Council, the Essex chambers of commerce, Network Rail and Abellio Greater Anglia to develop a strong economic case for this new infrastructure, recently holding a meeting with them in Chelmsford. Other improvements that are being pressed for include: new, refitted or fully refurbished rolling stock; an increased frequency of services; improvements to branch lines; increased parking capacity at train stations; and track upgrades throughout the GEML to enable services to travel at 110mph to speed up journey times. The new Greater Anglia franchise is due to be in place from October 2016. The franchising process also presents an opportunity to secure new improvements to the train services in the region.
The east of England has suffered for too long from the effects of underinvestment in its rail network. The time is now overdue to rebalance this regional anomaly. Modern growth demands effective rail links to drive a balanced innovation economy, to facilitate sustainable housing and development, and to support an international transport network. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the points that I and others raise in this debate.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for achieving this debate. For me, the East Anglia rail network is one of the most important parts of the network in our country. I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. I will not talk just about freight but about Sizewell, which is in the region. Most speakers have commented on the lack of sufficient track on most of the network. Most places are two-track, except the Felixstowe branch which is a single track. As the noble Baroness has said, Felixstowe is a very successful port.
In spite of that—I say “in spite of”, although there is an hourly passenger service on the Felixstowe branch—Felixstowe is achieving 30 trains in each direction on the single track, which is a credit to the port, Network Rail and others. The noble Baroness mentioned the chord that allows the trains to go straight from Felixstowe to Peterborough and Nuneaton without reversing. I call it the bacon factory chord which is a much nicer name. It will make a great difference to the volume.
It is a lovely challenge to have all the jobs at Felixstowe but the intermodal traffic by rail is forecast to at least double, probably more, in 20 years. Whether it will go to Felixstowe, London Gateway or Southampton is a matter for debate. I know that the port will work very hard to get a good market share of that. A new rail freight terminal has just opened at Felixstowe. I do not know whether any noble Lords went to the opening. I could not go myself but I was told that it was very good. However, there Felixstowe is, connected to a single track, which needs to be doubled quickly. It is not a difficult job as it goes mostly through fields. A lot of improvements have already been done to the bacon factory chord, Ipswich, Nuneaton through Peterborough. The gauge has been enhanced to take the nine-foot six-inch boxes on standard wagons and the signalling is being improved. A few other things also need doing.
The next stage is to have the line electrified. Around six months to a year ago, the Government announced an electric spine from Southampton, which will be very useful for freight and which we all welcome. However, there should also be an electric spine from Felixstowe, which would improve the capacity. It would obviously reduce the emissions that there are from the diesel trains. It would also enable more freight trains from Felixstowe to the Midlands and the north-west to avoid going along the North London Line in London. Our colleagues in London are not very happy about having all those freight trains. It is rather odd to have freight trains going through virtually the centre of a major capital city. That suggestion would help a great deal.
Electrification needs to be on the agenda in a firm programme, whereby the train operators will invest in the electric locos necessary. It is really good news that in the past month Direct Rail Services announced the order for the first new electric locomotives probably for 25 years. The beauty of them is that they also have a diesel donkey engine in them so that they can do the last mile into terminals. It needs doing, and it needs doing properly and planning in advance. For me, freight is a very important part of the East Anglia region. I am sure that those who are keen to see better passenger services will be pleased that more freight in the future will probably go a different way rather than through London.
As regards Sizewell, a big nuclear power station will probably go ahead and will employ a large number of people. I have been talking to EDF, the developer, about whether it could try to avoid too much damage to the local roads in Suffolk and the area by making more use of the railways. I know there has been an improvement in Beccles, which is good but it probably needs double tracking, where there is none, from Woodbridge or somewhere around there.
There are two reasons for doing this. One is to get the workers to work. Why cannot they go by bus or car? Of course they can, but in a great big traffic jam, which would be very bad for all the other users. Why could there not be a bit of a link? It would be the old, original link to Aldeburgh, extended into the Sizewell site to run passenger services for the workers—the commuters, if you like—from Ipswich or wherever. I see that as a big Section 106 improvement, which I hope the local authorities will push for. I think they will.
The second reason for making more use of the railways is, of course, to try to stop too many deliveries coming by road. This was done very successfully in the construction of terminal 5, and it was done reasonably successfully for the Stratford Olympics. All the bulk materials can come and go—they can go by sea as well now. In the construction of terminal 5, when it came to bringing things such as desks, basins and all the smaller things that you would not necessarily bring by rail, there was a series of consolidation centres around the country, wherever was convenient for the manufacturing or supply. The contractors called up for what they wanted the day before, and the goods were sent down by train overnight. It just needed a rail terminal in the area.
The combination of passenger and freight benefits for Sizewell and for the residents who live around there would be immense. I hope the Government will encourage EDF to look at that very positively when it comes to the planning process, and make it all part of a Section 106 agreement. Again, I am very pleased to welcome the new Minister to this debate and I look forward to what she has to say.
Lord Bradshaw (LD)
I do not live in East Anglia, but because one of my grandchildren has recently gone to University in Norwich, I have sampled the passenger service. It was really quite a shock: it was so shabby—I think that is the word I would use to describe it. It did not seem to be like an inter-city service at all. The point I want to make is that the new franchise is due to be let in 2016. It is important that plans are made to find new rolling stock. Rolling stock off the east coast, which is called mark 4 rolling stock, is pretty good and would be very good if it were refurbished. It could be used to revolutionise the East Anglian service and the electric locomotives could go there as well, because the department has ordered the IEP trains—the express inter-city trains from Hitachi—to work the east coast services. I will not go into that saga—it has been much discussed—but whichever this franchisee is, it should be in the position where it negotiates with the suppliers of the rolling stock. This is not a process in which the Department for Transport needs to be or should be involved.
Rolling stock companies were set up and they were supposed to own or provide the rolling stock. The train operator was supposed to be what is called “asset light”. It was supposed not to own the track and not to own the rolling stock. Therefore, it could make decisions about hiring the rolling stock which was best for that route. I hope that the franchising process can be put in train sufficiently early for the potential franchisees to agree with the rolling stock companies what they want to do the job. There will be surplus rolling stock which they will be able to use. It is not the sort of thing for which the department has the skills necessary to actually make this happen. I am sure that these trains, if refurbished, would be a huge lift to the area because they have half their life left. I know that is not as good as new trains but it would be an improvement.
I urge the Minister to get the franchising process moving and, when the franchise is let, to let it for a longish period. Particularly in recent years, franchisees have been given short-term extensions during which they cannot possibly be expected to invest. They might apply a coat of paint, clean the trains and hire a few staff, but they cannot invest. The problem is the disjuncture between the long life of railway assets—40, 50, 60 or 70 years—and the very short franchises. The franchise should be long enough for the franchisee to see some return on his money. However, the franchise should not be extended unless there are means in place by which the franchisee is held to account for punctuality, cleanliness and reliability. Reliability is particularly important, because it is the long delays that upset people. Let us have a sort of quality partnership, whereby the franchisee gets a long franchise in return for achieving what is expected, both in return to the Treasury and in quality.
Lord Hanningfield (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for obtaining this debate. It gives us all the chance to voice our views and suggestions on how we might improve railways in the eastern region. I also congratulate the Minister on her appointment. As this is one of her first debates, I hope that she will take a particular interest in improving railways in the east.
I am getting on a bit in years, and I have probably been using the railways in the eastern region longer than anyone in this Room. My mother came from a little town called Holt in north Norfolk. The only rail service in Holt today is a steam engine you can take from Sheringham to Holt. I used to go regularly to Holt with my mother during the war, and I have cards sent by my mother to my father saying: “Paul and I will be at Chelmsford station at two o’clock on Saturday afternoon”; I was a two year-old at the time. Since then, I have been using the trains very frequently, coming to London to attend meetings of the National Farmers Union, local government—as most people know—the Association of County Councils, the Local Government Association, and now the House of Lords. I have been a regular user of the railways in the east for 70 years.
I do not think the railways are as good now as they were when I was a two year-old. The service is very unreliable at times. Most people have mentioned the signalling problems. I was one of those caught up in them on Tuesday; the delays were initially an hour. Most Lords have mentioned reliability, and we do not have reliability in the eastern region. Every week there is a disruption to the train service. On Tuesday it was pretty bad because the signals problems were not just in Chelmsford, but in Rochford as well. The whole of Essex, and right up to Norwich, was at a standstill for a long while on Tuesday morning.
It seems to me that in this day and age improving signalling should not be beyond us. Surely, given the technology we have now, signalling could be improved, and virtually all these delays are due to signalling. If some investment could be put into signalling now, we might have a better and more reliable service without billions of pounds of investment. As noble Lords have said, the eastern region is a net contributor, so money spent on signalling now might solve the problems in the short term.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, mentioned the station at Chelmsford. That is another improvement that could solve a lot of problems. The developers will build the station, at no cost to the national Exchequer or even to the rail companies serving the station. There needs to be is a loop just north of Chelmsford back towards Witham. Then the trains could sit in the loop while others came up and down the line. There will be a large car park there which will stop the enormous congestion in Chelmsford at peak times. That could solve a lot of the problems in the eastern region, so I hope that the Minister will take that one up and pursue it, because that could do a lot of good.
Many noble Lords have mentioned rolling stock. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, that our service is pretty shabby, but we could do with a few more shabby coaches rather than none at all. Often, the trains are very short. I now often catch the train at Ingatestone. This was not first thing in the morning, it was about 10 am. The lord-lieutenant and I were standing on the platform, two elderly Peers. We got on the train and there was nowhere to sit down, so we both had to stand up. I felt ill and collapsed on the floor and the lord-lieutenant was holding me up, trying to support me. Initially, no one gave us their seats or anything. Then we were offered a seat and, fortunately, I was helped off the train at Stratford. I must say that the attendants at Stratford station were very good. It was because of the size of the train at 10 am that we had to stand up. So it seems that we could do something better with rolling stock now, rather than waiting years for it.
Those are the particular issues: the rolling stock, the station at Chelmsford and please can we get someone to do something about signalling? Everyone has spoken about the growth in the eastern region. As an Essex man, I know about the growth in Essex in Chelmsford and Witham and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, said, the whole of the county is buoyant. At 6 am, the platform was virtually six deep with people waiting to come to work in London. This is one of the new Minister’s first debates. Let us have her take a particular interest and see whether we can solve some of our problems in the eastern region as soon as we can.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market on securing this debate, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, on her appointment as Minister. It has been fascinating listening to noble Lords who are much more expert on the complex technical issues of the rail network than I am or will ever be. However, there is one area in which I have become more experienced than I might have wished over the past few years, and that is disability access to trains and stations, where more investment in the rail network is essential. But it is not just about money; it is also about attitude at the top of the train operating companies. I hope that your Lordships will allow me to stretch the scope of the Question for Short Debate today to include the train operating companies that cover the east of England region, despite the earlier comments of my noble friend Lady Scott, not least because my experience is over the whole of the east of England and I think that some points bear comparison.
I shall start by saying that the staff of whichever train operating company I have had to ask for assistance have been unfailingly helpful. Sadly, the services offered are somewhat mixed. Starting with wheelchair access, the east of England train operating companies all set out their offer on their websites and are proud to say that most of their larger stations are step-free and have barriers suitable for a wheelchair to go through, but that is only as good as the lifts at the station. Intermittent faults on a lift are an irritant to someone with a stick and a case, but to someone with a wheelchair, that station becomes a no-go zone. At Watford Junction, a lift went out of service 10 days ago and we were told at the time that it would be mended within three days. It is still out of service. We have been told that someone has written off for a part, but we have no idea when service will resume. The alternative route to that platform, which is the main west coast line down to London, means that you have to come out of the station, go all the way round it and under a tunnel, climb up a steep hill into the car park, and then get a member of staff to unlock the gate for you in order to access the platform.
Then there is the vexed issue of ramps on to trains. Disabled passengers travelling home in the evening can usually find support at the London terminus, but people tell me that they have occasionally arrived at their destination and there is no staff member to meet them, certainly not to put up a ramp. A staff member pointed out to me that it was helpful that I lived at a main station with 24-hour staff. What people do when staff are there for only part of the day or, worse, at unmanned stations, is a real issue. At another station that I have had occasion to use, if you are in a wheelchair you have to wait until the train has left the station to be escorted down a ramp, across the rail track and up the ramp on the other side. That is clearly not safe in this day and age.
Not all disabled people are in wheelchairs. I tend not to use a wheelchair on trains unless I have to. Many disabled people rely on sticks and crutches. The modern trend for beautiful forecourts—King’s Cross, Watford Junction and, just out of the region, Birmingham New Street—rightly addresses the issue of flat surfaces and wide, automatic doors. However, the amazing new hall at King’s Cross, which I use frequently, has positioned the disabled priority seats for waiting in a place where you cannot see the departure boards. The seats are right underneath them, so you have to get up and move to find out the platform your train will arrive at. They have not thought about the walking disabled and how they will get to and from the station. The taxi drop-off at King’s Cross is great, but if you want to get a taxi once you have come off a train at King’s Cross, you have to stand and queue with everyone else. I have done that for up to 15 minutes.
The recently opened forecourt at Watford Junction had neither a disabled drop-off point nor a pick-up space near the station. The new provision removed the disabled spaces beside the forecourt and put them on the other side of the bus station. When I first inquired about that, I was told that all disabled people use wheelchairs, and that wheelchairs and access do not matter as long as there is a path. Let me tell you that after four months they now have a disabled drop-off and pick-up point, but they had real problems in understanding that people with blue badges carry the badges with them, so people coming to pick them up do not have the badge. When they are accosted, they have to say—my husband is expert at this—“My wife will be along in a minute and will show you her badge then”. Good practice in this area includes Euston and St Pancras, where they have separate queues and priority access for disabled passengers, and it is well signposted.
I will move briefly to access on trains. The old rolling stock seats are really difficult for people who have difficulty getting up and down. If you use a mobility buggy rather than a wheelchair, some companies ask you to move into a seat. I would be in real trouble if that happened because I find getting up and down difficult. All companies now have priority seat arrangements. However, they rely on the public understanding the little sign behind the seat that says, “Please give up this seat if available”. More often than not, I have to ask people to give up their seat. Southern Trains and London Midland labels are easily accessible. Those on Greater Anglia and First Capital Connect services are a disgrace. In the rush hour, it can be even harder. The commuting public do not want to look at you if you need a seat. I have been reduced to tears on two occasions. Staff were brilliant at helping, but, again, often on a crowded train they are not there. The TOCs feel better because they offer priority cards, but they need to do more than publicise where the seats are and they should have advertisements to encourage people to give up their seats if they are needed. The @nogobritain campaign, run by Channel 4, has been brilliant at exposing these problems.
The report card on access is very mixed. Where is the accountability? Can government departments help to join up the thinking to get the train operating companies to provide a good service? We need more trains that are a smooth ride, not a stop-start service held at a red signal, for people with disabilities.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful for the chance to say a few words in the gap. When I was a schoolboy after the war, living in Suffolk, we had a wonderful stopping service. It was a direct line between Liverpool Street and Lowestoft. I would get out at Wickham Market and change to a little steam train that went to Framlingham. I would get out at Marlesford. Sometimes I was allowed to stand on the footplate, and I would be met by my mother with a pony and cart at Marlesford station.
My next real experience of rail was that for five years I was on the board of British Rail Anglia. It was the worst commercial experience I have ever had; it was so frustrating. The quality of the management was just not there—and the key is management. There has been talk about producing good franchises. When considering who you should give a franchise to, it is necessary to look at the management and the targets that they are prepared to set themselves. Let them be judged by those targets. Interview the management. We all know that if you are in the advertising world and you decide to hire an advertising agent, you do not just see the agency, you see the person who is going to handle the account, so insist on that. It is a matter of buying a good franchise by doing it properly, and that has not been done.
In the old days when you had the wonderful non-stop service from London to Ipswich and Norwich, you could guarantee an hour between London and Ipswich. Now, however, it is different. One of the things that I had as a non-executive on the board was a first-class free ticket to wherever I wanted to go, but I virtually never used it on my own line if a journey was time-sensitive. As has been said, reliability is crucial. Trains are about reliability. You cannot blame someone else when you are in a car, but you jolly well can when you are on a train. That is another factor which should be properly taken into account.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, was absolutely right to say that something has to be done about Felixstowe. We should have a new target for the amount of freight that is carried; I think that it is only about 20% at present.
Lord Berkeley
I think it is about 30% now. It is one of the best in the country.
Lord Marlesford
Well, it wants to have a new long-term target, maybe 50%, and in my view let us forget about HS2.
I shall end on a positive note because I am allowed only two or three minutes in which to speak. At least the difficult communications that we have to East Anglia have kept Norfolk and Suffolk the very beautiful counties that they are, and I proudly declare an interest as president of Suffolk Preservation Society.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, I warmly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, on securing this debate, but even more so on the trenchant way in which she made her opening remarks and set the scene. She posed a series of questions that I hope the Minister will respond to because they established a position that was greatly reinforced by subsequent contributions in the debate. I also welcome the Minister and congratulate her on her new position. I am sure that she will enjoy the role enormously, although I have to say from bitter experience that I always found these debates the most difficult to respond to, given the constraints of time. I will therefore make my points fairly brief and give the Minister the maximum opportunity to concentrate on the real issues.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Berkeley for ensuring that in this debate about rail we have discussed the issue of rail freight as well, because it is particularly important to the eastern region. After all, there is the obvious claim that the eastern region is a net contributor to the Treasury, and Felixstowe bears a considerable responsibility for that. That is why we should cherish that area of the developing economy and the successes of recent years, and ensure that it goes from success to success. My noble friend is also right to identify how important the issue is with regard to Sizewell.
I reinforce the point that additional investment in our rail service is necessary. Difficulties on many lines have been identified today, along with the inadequacy of the service that is provided at present. Anyone who travels in East Anglia will be all too aware of those difficulties. In a moment I shall comment on an area that has not thus far been commented on, but I have every sympathy with the points that have been made. The expectation is that rail passenger numbers will increase by more than 40%, which makes one realise the level of necessary investment that we have to make just to stand still. The trouble is that at present the trains do stand still on occasion, which is not much help to any of us. We want an improved passenger service and we want the trains to run on time.
I have to say that one despairs. In the area where I am, which I would guess in comparison to Suffolk, Norfolk, Broxbourne and the East Anglia area would be looked upon as Hertfordshire, the line up through Harlow might be considered to be somewhat blessed. After all, Stansted is a crucial dimension of the line. Any idea that having an airport as one dimension of the line improves the service on it has to be thought about again. It certainly sets a benchmark which the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, identified. He said that it is a benchmark for service to the airport, which makes very great demands upon the service. After all, it is the only airport in Britain where over 50% of its passengers arrive by public transport. We need to build upon that. While we realise just how significant the rail is, if you have a line to Stansted that is not a dedicated one—far from it—but has to give considerable priority to the Stansted Express, the implications for the other areas along the line are quite critical. Mention has been made of the significance of places such as Harlow, which is an important economic development area of the eastern region. However, Harlow finds its service affected, as do so many others, by the fact that many trains which are destined for Stansted do not stop there.
We have to recognise that where there is the possibility of additional capacity, we should exploit it. The great bottleneck, as ever for East Anglia, is access to the London terminals for so many of its operations. All the London terminals were created in the 19th century and the bottleneck problem is reflected in them all. Yet it is the case that, coming out of Liverpool Street into the area over which the Stansted line operates, there is extra capacity in the form of land that is spare and owned by the railway. Surely we could follow the pressure of local authorities and communities to bring an extra line or two into that area that would lead into Liverpool Street and thus free up Stansted. It would certainly give priority on a line which serves not just Stansted but, of course, King’s Lynn. I was on a train heading for King’s Lynn the other evening—mercifully, I was only going as far as Bishop’s Stortford—when I heard the classic apology that you get on really good trains: “We apologise for the fact that this train is running late. There is a slow train in front of us”. Wow—what a delight it was for us all to have a slow stopping train in front of a supposedly important express that was going quite a good distance. Liverpool Street to King’s Lynn is one of the longer journeys that one can make in East Anglia.
I hope that the Minister recognises that real issues have been raised in this debate. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, that if it is a question of good management, then how about looking at this test? The directly operated railway on the east coast main line—the one which is in fact being run by the department after that franchise collapsed—has returned a very significant profit. Yet there was no consideration by the Government that that should be used for the two-year period which emerged once the franchise collapsed as far as National Express is concerned. I wonder why? If the Government took the management issue and the targets referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, to heart, it might be that they could learn a lesson from them. They could then do a better job on franchises in the future than has been done in the recent past.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)
Thank you, my Lords. I have learned enough between debate one and debate two to realise that I have a lectern available to me, so we are definitely making progress. My heart obviously sank as this debate progressed, when I realised that so many Members of your Lordships’ House suffer regularly from this line. I can tell your Lordships that as we went through it, my empathy increased with each additional speech. I, too, thank the noble Baroness for securing this debate because the East Anglia rail network is clearly a topic of real concern to any of us who are involved in the world of transport.
Investment in these services is vital for economic health in the east of England. It unlocks the potential of important regional centres such as Norwich and Ipswich, to which a number of speakers have referred, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Jenkin and Lady Scott, and maintains links between rural communities. It supports the position of Cambridge as one of the leading centres of high-technology in the UK.
I shall try to address questions that have been raised in this debate. If I miss anything, we will definitely follow up with a written response, so I hope that noble Lords will bear with me.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, said, there has been an ongoing dialogue between the department and the key stakeholders in East Anglia on many of these issues. I wish to commend the work that went into Once in a generation—A rail prospectus for East Anglia, and the way in which so many different stakeholders came together to support a united vision around that document. It is now being updated, and I hope that it can be an important mechanism for raising some of the capacity issues that we talked about today. It will be the basis for continuing engagement between the department and stakeholders in East Anglia. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, brought up issues around the quality of service and, more specifically, around rolling stock; I am not sure to what degree it will look at rolling stock in quite that technical sense, but quality of service should be very much embedded in that discussion. As others have said, the Secretary of State has been to Ipswich and been very engaged in this process.
I understand the concerns that investment in rail in East Anglia has been delayed because of the pause in the rail franchising programme last year. The important result is that the Government have a full timetable covering all rail franchises for the next eight years, and it will let us get that programme back on track. To allow the programme to be robustly delivered, and following the recommendations of the Brown review, the timetable contains a number of direct awards that let us stagger the start of the new franchise competitions. The Greater Anglia franchise will receive one of those direct awards. It will be important as we look in the short term and the long term and have those discussions with the rail network to determine whether an economic case can be made for infrastructure improvements to expand capacity. The Greater Anglia direct award goes from the current contract in July 2014 to the start of the next competed franchise in October 2016. We do not yet have the term for the long-term franchise; that is still under discussion. We are concerned that the direct awards do not become a rationale for delay in the long-term franchise. That will be an underpinning issue; it is not expected that the direct award would be required to extend beyond October 2016.
Any improvements will be assessed for affordability and the level of value-for-money that they provide. They must also lay a suitable groundwork that will support the terms of the competition for the next franchise. It is key that the franchise competition remains free from preset obligations so that it can achieve the best possible long-term deal for both the passenger and the taxpayer. But I take on board the comments made about rolling stock; the Government are not necessarily the party to make rolling stock decisions, and I will feed that back into the franchise discussions, although I am not the Minister directly responsible for those. But the need for short-term improvements in rolling stock has been expressed very clearly in this conversation. I want to confirm that we are actively working with the operator, Abellio, to see what improvements can be made to the rolling stock during the short-term direct award period. I do not think that anyone can make any promises; it is certainly unlikely that initiatives will provide the level of improvement that everybody would like to see. But we may be able to get some meaningful and positive changes that generally improve the passenger environment as a whole. I know well that there clearly are issues in the prospectus that was put forward such as power points on the trains, which have been underscored as being very critical to the passenger experience, and we have tried to take those kinds of issues on board.
I will move on to the issue of freight, which has been raised by many people, primarily by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who is one of the great experts on this in the House. The growth of Felixstowe and Thamesport places renewed pressure on rail freight services, so that is a good reflection of growth in the economy. I know that he is appreciative of the changes that mean that freight can now move from Felixstowe through to Peterborough rather than coming down and going through London. As a Londoner who lives fairly close to the North London line I can see the benefits of that. I also say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that preventing freight coming down into London increases passenger capacity in many ways, so it is one of the mechanisms that provides something of an answer. Electrification clearly has to be considered for this part of the route. It will be part of CP6—it will be considered as part of that—but obviously, as we are only beginning that process and the consultation I cannot comment on what the conclusions will be. However, I want to assure noble Lords that that is being recognised and is definitely one of the issues that we will look at carefully.
I have to admit that my knowledge on the issue of Sizewell C is very limited, particularly compared to the knowledge of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, so I will write to him on that issue. I am struck by the canny approach that he suggested, which sounded like a win-win, both for the community, for the rail services, and in the end for Sizewell C, so we will take a look at that. I will have to write back to those noble Lords who raised the issue of an east-west rail link and also on community rail partnerships, which are areas that I am less familiar with.
The issue of disability is such a serious one, and I want to spend significant amounts of time looking at disability issues. Again, I am very conscious, from my background in London, that attitude is extremely important in the culture of the organisation. It affects the kind of services that people have. As we go forward into the franchising process it is critical that the issue of disability is at the forefront of people’s minds. By planning around the needs of people who have disabilities and recognising how important their mobility is, we deliver a better system rather than constantly retrofitting, which has been one of the pains and suffering of much of the rail system here in the UK. The noble Baroness will be aware that rolling stock must be compliant with persons with reduced mobility—that is a regulation that comes into effect by 2020—so that will definitely help drive the improvements on the trains. The department is committed to trying to deliver accessibility both on trains and in stations. She might be interested to know that the department is working with Network Rail on the delivery of specific schemes under the Access for All programme. It will not answer all problems but it could try perhaps to deal with issues such as ramps, which she pointed out are absolutely key in this process.
Noble Lords have made various comments about the station at Chelmsford. That is an area on which I will choose to write to a number of noble Lords as I have to confess a lack of familiarity with it. I was going to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who talked about disability, that perhaps she might be willing to meet with me to talk more extensively about this issue, and perhaps we might even take a trip or two together so that I could see the situation first-hand with someone who goes through some of these awful experiences and find out what could be done, particularly in this arena.
The Brown review into franchising recognised the benefits of setting clear franchise specification outputs and giving franchisees flexibility in how they are achieved. That picks up a lot of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, made, so I want to give him that reassurance. We must take into account the views of stakeholders—I am glad that the stakeholders have been so articulate—although I would perhaps have wished to have been more knowledgeable about the system before I had to face them in debate. That has been very good and salutary for me. When we consult on the new franchises in late 2014 I hope very much that those voices will make sure that they are heard, and we will make sure that they are listened to. We want to ensure that the passenger is at the heart of rail services in the east of England; that has to be right in terms of the community, economic growth and the success of our increasingly improving and very important rail system. I think I am being told that I am out of time.
Immigration: UK Citizenship and Nationality
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Roberts of Llandudno
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have plans to revise their requirements for those who apply for United Kingdom citizenship or nationality.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
My Lords, I appreciate the opportunity to bring up the question of residency and access to the United Kingdom, and to ask the Government to look again at the requirements of those seeking UK citizenship: residency conditions; evidence of their good character; English language ability; and a matter that I have raised in the past, the Life in the UK test. A friend from Texas took this test several months ago. These were the questions she was asked: first, whether Elizabeth I handled her Parliament badly or had good relations with the legislature; secondly, whether UK citizens were renowned for backing individual liberty, intolerance, inequality or extremism; and thirdly, was it true or false that in 2002 Sir Winston Churchill was voted the “greatest Briton of all time”.
I should like to take the Minister up on an offer he made during Questions in February to meet interested groups in order to devise a more relevant and practical set of questions. As he will know, Dr. Thom Brooks of Durham University makes a number of recommendations for change. First, the handbook should make it clear which sections are to be tested. It contains about 3,000 facts—far too many for anyone to memorise—and the whole matter could easily become a pub quiz. There are inconsistencies and omissions that need to be rectified. The Government should decide what the rationale is for the test. Is it to be a stumbling block or a ladder in the immigration process? It appears totally unfair that it is used as part of the Government’s plan to reduce immigration. That is not what the test is there for.
Many of the current questions could be omitted. It does not help us at all to know when wives were granted the right to divorce their husbands. Let us make the test far more local: on the basic history of the community where the applicant lives, on where local schools, pharmacies and hospitals are, and so on. It would be interesting if we set up a parliamentary citizenship quiz—perhaps the Commons versus the Lords—on the Life in the UK handbook. If it succeeded here, we could then roll it out across the UK to see how many long-serving, ordinary UK citizens could answer the questions asked. Perhaps the Minister could set up a ministerial team to tackle these questions. The answers to irrelevant questions should play no part when one is making decisions about a person’s suitability for citizenship. I ask again: where is the necessary information about the NHS, how to report crime, or which subjects are taught to our children? We have to have someone looking at this new set of questions, and perhaps Dr Thom Brooks could do just that.
In 2008 the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said of the test that it created a deep impression of unfairness among those who had to sit it. I agree with him but I would go further. I suggest that an accurate impression of the UK’s current immigration system is one that is deeply unfair and riddled with inequalities. I know many folk representing immigrant societies, trying to help them in their present situation, and the general impression is that the whole situation is shambolic.
There is much talk about how we must attract the brightest and the best. Is that done by restricting our immigration further? I have a Bill before the House to reduce from 12 months to six months the time within which those seeking asylum in this country will be able to work. Is it by indefinite detention? Is it by reassessing the family migration rules? These can be barriers but they can also be bridges.
Only 26 of the 193 countries in the United Nations have an average personal income of more than £18,600, which is the sum called for before people can take up their place in our community. You see families with far less than this. In Nigeria the average income is £1,022 and in India it is £935. We are setting impossible targets. How on earth can people raise this sort of money? How can they send their children to somewhere where they can fulfil their dreams? We rely so much on people from India, Nigeria and other countries in order to run our National Health Service. I looked at the list of consultants in the three north Wales general hospitals and a third of them come from outside the UK and outside Europe. If we had these sorts of limits when they were struggling in their own countries, our health service would have gone a long time ago. There could be a very real crisis and if we establish them now and insist on them, that crisis is waiting for us in the future.
Today’s new Immigration Bill, of which I have had a brief view, makes nonsense of the dreams of the past. When the Statue of Liberty was erected, what was written on it? It stated:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”.
In the UK today we say: “Stay where you are. The barriers are up; the bridges are destroyed. Forget the hopes and dreams for yourself and your children”. Of course, if you are a wealthy entrepreneur, you can buy residency here if you have £20,000 or £50,000 or £200,000—you can buy your citizenship in the UK—but if you are a little child, with tremendous potential, in one of the African countries, hard lines. The world will never benefit from what you could contribute.
On 25 March the Prime Minister said that he wanted the brightest and the best to come here, but what chances are there for so many? Do we not have an opportunity here to provide them with an opportunity? One thing we could do is to improve at an early stage our links in twinning with schools in places like Africa. There is a lot that can be done and perhaps in the new Immigration Bill we will be able to take up that opportunity.
I think of the vans that went out—they were actually lorries more than vans. The Home Office paid for posters. How effective were they? In the Commons today, it was revealed that only one person took advantage of that offer: one person from Pakistan. There was nobody else. Despite all the cost and the unease produced by the posters, they had such little effect.
This morning, I heard Mrs May trying to create a hostile environment for undocumented migrants in the UK. In an earlier debate, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said that denying asylum seekers the ability to work makes it difficult for them to integrate into our society, which is what we want.
I suggest that the whole culture and attitude is one that we must deplore. It is the new attitude. I imagine that when the Welsh dairymen came here more than 100 years ago, they were not really welcome, and that there was hostility. “Taffy” was one insult for the newcomers.
In 1938 the Daily Mail headlined its story: “German Jews are pouring into this country”. It went on to print:
“‘The way stateless Jews from Germany are pouring in from every port … is becoming an outrage. I intend to enforce the law to the fullest’. With these words, Mr Herbert Metcalfe, the Old Street magistrate, yesterday referred to the number of aliens entering this country through the ‘back door’—a problem to which the Daily Mail has repeatedly pointed”.
That was in 1938. The attitude was hostile. Where did it end? It ended in the Holocaust.
The response in 2013 can be much better than that. We should ask the Minister to look again at the contents of this test, and at the whole raft of immigration legislation.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
Before my noble friend rises, perhaps I may remind noble Lords that this is a time-limited debate, with contributions limited to six minutes. If any speech exceeds that, it will eat into the Minister’s time, and the time of the opposition Front Bench, so I would appreciate it if noble Lords could keep to time.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)
My Lords, I feel that I am a strange person to be speaking in this debate because I am not a British citizen. I have thought about it a few times, but in the days when I thought about it the Australians would have revoked my Australian citizenship. Because I was here before the immigration laws, I had the right of abode. However, I can tell you that that right has become a bit of a nightmare, because you have to renew it every time you renew your passport. You are required to send in an unbelievable number of documents, all in their original form, including my husband’s parents’ birth certificates, his birth certificate, our marriage certificate—there is a whole list—and they must all be in their original form. Some of them are now so old that if I live long enough to get another passport, I am not sure that they will be in any state to be sent to the office.
I have spoken to the department about this. The man dealing with it is in Liverpool. He said, “I can’t imagine why we have to have originals every time”. Clearly they do not want someone forging all the documents, but Germaine Greer told me that when they told her that they required 10 documents a year and that she had been here for many years and therefore needed 40 documents, she told them that she could not produce 40 originals, and in the end gave up and became British. I thought that it was interesting that that seemed to be the easiest way out; but surely it would be easier to say, “Once we have a document, we will keep an official record of it”. I can see that you have to be sure that someone is not forging documents, but these things should be simple and they are not.
Nationality is an interesting thing. I have helped some people here get British nationality. One woman from Colombia had been illegally here for 27 years. In the end, we were very fortunate. Originally she came legally as an au pair. You did not have to have a visa but came as a guest of the people who invited you to come and be part of their family. I know that well because at one time I ran an au pair agency. I was at home with my own children and could not get anyone to help, so I set up the agency and discovered that all you had to do was invite someone. This woman was fortunate because in her then illegal years she had looked after the parents of one of the very well known Lords here. She told me about this man—“Sir” someone—but it never occurred to me that he was a famous Law Lord until she brought a photo. Then we were able to get going, he supported her, and she got her right to be here. She legally stayed here for five years 20 years ago. However, the five years have to run since you received your permit to be here. Now she has two more years to go, and I want to live so long to help her.
She resents terribly, and so do a lot of other people, all the people who come in, supposedly as asylum seekers. They go to the same English classes and are not interested in learning anything at all. All they want is to be here. A lot of people who want to become British citizens feel cheated because they feel there are quick ways in which people are getting in without any of the bookwork that was referred to—learning.
Now, my right of abode, apart from anything else, costs more than my Australian passport. The other situation I found through the woman I helped is that of moving the goalposts. I have raised this at meetings that Mrs May has attended. You arrive here at a time when there is four years or six years to wait or whatever it is. By the time you present yourself, it has moved up two more years. By the time you have waited another two years before you can apply, it has moved up another two years. So in cases that I came across, applicants from Latin America had found that the goalposts had moved three or four times. That does seem to be very unfair.
A few other matters should be mentioned because time is very short, such as retention of passports. I know that there is a big backlog but people who are here on specialist visas are highly talented people who we want. Their passports are taken to some department and hung on to up to for a year before they are returned. No matter how big the backlog, something has to be done about that. If they need to go abroad during that time, they have to apply to get their passports back. They can get them back, but then they go back to the bottom of the queue and start another year. It should be possible to have the equivalent of what they used to give out in cinemas, a thing that let you reserve your place, and you could leave and go back in. I think there are so many departments all involved in citizenship—the Border Force, the Passport Office, the Post Office for your passports—and so many tests, many of which are quite unrealistic. It is time that people looked at the actual wording of these forms and simplified them so that people could understand the procedure and the ball game did not change by moving the goalposts.
Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, listening to the noble Baroness, it seems to me that one thing that is absolutely certain is that anyone who, at the end of the day, is still in the game and wanting to be a British citizen must be really committed to that objective. I was tempted to think, as I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, who is an old friend on these issues, that I should just get up and say—in the Welsh tradition of non-conformism—“Hallelujah!”, and sit down. However, the issue is too important for that. I want to make just a couple of observations.
I am always impressed how, within a broad sweep of history in Britain, each wave of immigration has added to the vitality of our life. There are difficulties, but it takes time. If we are determined to narrow ourselves down into a small group of people and to limit ethnic variety, geographical and other backgrounds, we will be shooting ourselves in the foot because previous generations have made a tremendous contribution. One looks at the public services. We encouraged people to come and be part of us. My God, there are large parts of the public services that would never have survived if those people had not been here and provided their service and in many ways become cheerful, positive members of our community. Yes, there are difficulties, and it is no good looking at these things just in terms of five or 10 years—we need to look at them for longer than that—but, looking at the broad sweep of history, I am certain that the outcome will again be positive.
We should look not only at the public services but at higher education, in which I am involved as a university member of court and an emeritus governor of the LSE. Some members of our ethnic minorities, as we like to call them, are doing incredibly well in higher education and are adding to the quality and prowess of our society. What is all this about? Is it about putting obstacles in the way of citizenship or is it about encouraging people to become citizens without bearing a grudge or feeling exasperated, having been through a sensible, rational process of learning how you become a citizen? We used not to have all these arrangements. I think that it is clear to anyone outside that they are not about learning about citizenship but about limiting the number of people who obtain citizenship. We need to separate out these issues. I do not believe that it is possible to have an open-door immigration policy leading to citizenship; that is just not rational or possible. Ideally, it would be lovely but it is just not possible. However, what we should not do is aggravate and alienate people as that leads to dissension and frustration. That is not a good way to create harmony and achieve the best possible outcome. The process should be open and just.
I am very worried about the financial barrier, as is the noble Lord. If it is a mix, it is a mix. What may seem hardly petty cash to many Members of this House is a very heavy cost indeed to many ordinary people in our society who play a constructive part in our community. What are we doing with that? As regards the test, what I worry about is how we will assist integration, harmonisation and the future well-being of our mixed society if we indulge in hypocrisy. I ask noble Lords to please go to an average football match, cricket match, commuter train, airplane or place of employment and say to people, “You claim to be a British citizen. How many wives did Henry VIII have?”. How many unquestioned members of our society would be able to say how many wives Henry VIII had just like that? However, we expect newcomers to our society to answer questions that we know a large number of people in all parts of our social system would be unable to answer.
The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, put my next point extremely well. It seems to me that if we are to have a citizenship test—in many ways I wish that we did not have to have one—it should ask questions about the character of our society. It should ask imaginative questions which test people’s understanding of our society and the stresses and strains within it rather than simply asking technical questions. My wife has spent her professional life teaching history at an advanced level. When she heard the question about how many wives Henry VIII had, she hit the roof. She said, “What does that tell us about the story of British life and British citizenship?”. It is not an essential dimension. From that standpoint, I ask that we please do not base our policy on hypocrisy.
Lord Avebury (LD)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Roberts has a proud record of supporting the rights of people who are entitled to British citizenship. I am grateful to him for this opportunity to talk about citizenship. He has seen the Long Title of the forthcoming Immigration Bill, but he cannot tell me whether it contains anything about citizenship. I understand that it does not, and that after several years in which there have been no Bills to revise citizenship, we are again not to be given an opportunity in this Session.
There are some residual problems left over from measures agreed by Parliament in 2002 onwards to equalise the transmission of citizenship between fathers and mothers, with which we have dealt before. Citizenship is automatic for children of a British father, but it requires registration while the child is a minor when it is the mother who is British. If the mother forgets or dies, the right is forfeited. This could be rectified by providing that, where the mother has not registered the child during the child’s minority, she has the right to register herself on attaining her majority.
Another example was given by Wesley Gryk solicitors. It concerns a client, Mr A, who was born in Bermuda in the 1950s to a mother who was then a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies. She became a British Overseas Territories citizen on 1 January 1983 by virtue of Section 23(1) of the British Nationality Act 1981 and a British citizen by virtue of Section 3(1) of the British Overseas Territories Act 2002. The Home Office says:
“There is no registration option for people who would have become British Overseas citizens or British Dependent Territories citizens on 1 January 1983 if women had been able to pass on citizenship before that date and who, as a result, might now have had entitlements to British citizenship under other provisions”.
However, Mr A’s cousins, the children of his mother’s brothers and similarly born outside the UK, are now British citizens. That is a clear case of gender discrimination in the operation of British nationality law and ought to be corrected.
Another anomaly that has been raised several times is the status of the Chagos islanders. If they had not been kicked out of their homeland by our Government in the late 1960s, their descendants would by now have become British citizens. Descendants born here are still British, but those born overseas, mainly in Mauritius, are not. In some cases, a member of the family who is British may come here, but can only bring in members of his family if he can demonstrate that the dependents will have no recourse to public funds immediately on arrival. This results in split families and in British citizens being permanently exiled because they cannot or will not leave their families.
The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association proposes that Chagos islanders born in exile should be able to register as British citizens if they have a single parent, man or woman, who was born on the islands. The same right should be extended to children of those who registered as British citizens under Section 6(1) of the British Overseas Territories Act 2002.
There is the whole question of stateless persons, for whom the UK restated her commitment to the 1961 convention at the 50th anniversary UN event in Geneva in December 2011. However, a British citizen born outside the UK and British Overseas Territories is British by descent and therefore unable to transmit his or her citizenship to the next generation or bring the children to the UK without surmounting major obstacles. In addition, there are the children of people living in a foreign country who acquire British citizenship after the birth of their children, where the state of residence prohibits the acquisition of its nationality to the children, often on racially discriminatory grounds, so the children are then stateless.
Finally, I need to mention the British overseas citizens who renounced their Malaysian citizenship when advised falsely by solicitors that they could then claim full British citizenship. After they found this was wrong, they languished here stateless, destitute and without the right to work for many years. After much correspondence and many meetings with the Minister for Immigration, he said that he had negotiated an agreement with the Malaysians for these people to return there and reclaim their former Malaysian status. When pressed for details, the Minister wrote yesterday saying that the persons concerned will be allowed a five-year residence pass to return to Malaysia, and that at the end of that period they could apply for permanent residence. However, he did not say how much longer they would have to continue stateless or explain what conditions they would have to satisfy before they could regain their original citizenship. The Minister says that he will publicise the arrangements only after at least a couple of successful returnees have demonstrated that the process is running smoothly, but even if that happens, I imagine that most of the people concerned would sooner have another five years of statelessness here in this country than return to Malaysia and face a 10-year period of statelessness there.
Lord Noon (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to be speaking today and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, for securing this important Question for Short Debate. I am myself an immigrant to the United Kingdom, having come here in the late 1960s to set up a business. I started with very little except for my drive and ambition, and a determination to succeed. I worked hard and grew a successful international business that now has a wide range of foods in most of our major supermarkets. This success was possible because of the opportunities that the UK provided, and I remain proud and grateful to be a UK citizen, able to take advantage of the opportunities that this great land gives everyone. It is a wonderful aspect of life in the UK that, if you come here and work and integrate into society, you will have the opportunity to become a British citizen. So it saddens me and makes me angry to see some people trying to abuse these opportunities. We must cherish and protect our citizenship from those who come here but do not intend to work hard and contribute or, worse, those who come here to do harm. We must also ensure that our borders are monitored properly and that we know exactly who is coming in and going out of the country.
There is a list of requirements that you must comply with before you can apply to become a British citizen. In the short time available, I want to talk about one of these requirements: that people must be of good character. Let me quote from the UK Border Agency website on what it means to be of good character:
“We consider you to be of good character if you show respect for the rights and freedom of the United Kingdom, have observed its laws and fulfilled your duties and obligations as a resident”.
Being of good character, as the UK Border Agency states, means fulfilling your duties and obligations as a resident. Those duties and obligations include working hard, paying taxes and giving something back to society. I have spoken before in this House on the need to ensure that we protect the values and freedoms of the UK. Immigration controls are an essential part of how we do that. We need to ensure that the requirements for gaining entry and citizenship to the UK are strong and robust enough to work as they are intended to.
For example, a number of noble Lords have spoken before about the ineffectiveness of the citizenship test. I agree; how can knowing at what age you can be asked to serve on a jury or where Father Christmas comes from possibly show whether you are of good character or even understand the values and culture of this country? These questions tell us nothing about the character of the person. We should be asking people to demonstrate their commitment to the UK’s values and we should be expecting people to have at least a reasonable command of the English language and the prospect of a job waiting for them. Can the Minister tell us if there are any plans to review the citizenship test once again in order to make it more applicable? At the moment, the test is made up of questions about a range of obscure facts that do not have much to do with the day-to-day experience of living in the UK. Citizenship is something that is attained by birth or earned over time. It is then retained by being a contributing member of your community. Allowing and embracing immigration ensures the future of our dynamic and interesting country.
Perhaps it would be more helpful if the citizenship test focused on people having a knowledge of our laws, customs, history and culture, and also accepting our way of life. It should be focused on the practical things that immigrants should know to help them navigate living in Britain. Someone’s level of historical knowledge should not be a determinant as to whether they are a good or a bad citizen. What matters is the character of the individual, not only their general knowledge of the British Isles.
It is my belief that we must enforce these requirements much more strongly. There are too many people coming to the UK who expect the benefit but not the hard work that goes with it. They take advantage of our system but forget their obligations. If people cannot prove their good character through their family, friends and behaviour, they have no right to be here. Why not ask people to state their beliefs and how these concur with the values of the UK, or even to explain what they will contribute to the United Kingdom? The vast majority of immigrants to this country come here to make a better life for themselves and their families, and they bring a lot of knowledge and experience which help this great country to grow and prosper. We should welcome hard-working immigrants who wish to become British citizens, and we should make the Life in the UK test focus on real questions of how to navigate living in the UK rather than asking questions that most indigenous Britons may have difficulty in answering. I thank noble Lords for listening to me and I look forward to hearing more on this essential debate.
Lord Watson of Richmond (LD)
My Lords, international students account for almost half of current immigration into the United Kingdom. I wish to focus on the impact of UK immigration policies on the student population, postgraduate and staff. I declare two interests. From 2007-11, I was president of the British Accreditation Council, which, during those years, acted along with the British Council as the principal accreditation agency for Tier 4 entry into the United Kingdom, assessing colleges and offering education to foreign students against very stringent criteria. In 2011, this role was taken over by two other agencies—the QAA and ISI. This was a costly reorganisation and it has effected little change, with both those agencies reaccrediting 99% of the colleges which we had accredited originally. This is relevant because if the Government are to effect their aspirational cap of no more than 100,000 immigrants a year into the United Kingdom, there is a real risk of a significant further reduction in the number of foreign students. The other interest that I declare is that I am high steward, or deputy chancellor, of Cambridge University which both attracts substantial numbers of foreign students, especially postgraduates, and needs to attract researchers and teaching staff from overseas.
As we all know, in 2011 the Home Secretary broke up the UK Border Agency as unfit for purpose. It has been replaced by the Border Force. This successor agency is now headed up by Sir Charles Montgomery, who is currently appearing before a number of parliamentary Select Committees. He is already grappling with the demands of his agency, demands of such complexity and tenacity, including the establishment of e-borders, that I am not surprised that his predecessors heading up the Border Force did not stay for very long. Sir Charles Montgomery is, however, crystal clear on the strategic aims of the Border Force. As he said before the committee, they are to provide security and to promote British prosperity. There is, to put it mildly, a creative tension between these two objectives. Security is, of course, the priority and must be provided, although how best to do this, given the complex multifaceted terrain of insecurity, will continue to vex not only the Border Force but all our security agencies. But Sir Charles’ second strategic objective of promoting British prosperity is also vital, and this is my focus.
While the case for the value of immigration to our economy is well made, including by the CBI, the value of immigration to Britain’s economy by the international student education sector is much less well known. This sector contributed £17.5 billion last year and BIS quite rightly wants to increase this by 20% in coming years. It is not only the revenue raised but the significant value added, in skills, research and teaching, as testified to by the universities. Cambridge University, for example, is somewhat frustrated by the residential qualification for a visa application, which applies to T4 entrants with their dependants. We are losing very important people to universities abroad because the dependants cannot come here if the course is under 12 months long.
Therefore, we encounter a truly dangerous dilemma: if the Government are to achieve their overall cap of 100,000, they will have little option but to further curtail international student immigration into the UK. I urge great caution on the Government in this matter. We need international students—economically, intellectually, academically. Striking the right balance is not only a challenge for the Home Secretary and for the Border Force, it is also a challenge for our society because we will harm ourselves if we succumb to the rhetoric of an island fortress submerged by waves of immigration—rhetoric so beloved by some of our newspapers and politicians.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, on his persistence with this issue, and welcome his efforts to secure today’s debate. The excellent speeches we have heard do great credit to your Lordships’ House. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, and I have had a number of debates over the years we have been in our respective positions on the issue of immigration and citizenship, and that reflects the public and political interest in this issue. It also highlights the great responsibility of government.
The timing of today’s debate is interesting as it is against the backdrop of this week’s news that the Government’s “ad van” campaign on immigration was banned, not because it was an ill-judged political stunt but because the facts it deployed were wrong. Then there is the highly critical report by the independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration on the chaotic failings of the e-borders programme. The Government have refused to allow the Home Affairs Select Committee to see that report in full. Then today we have the publication of the Immigration Bill. After the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, I look forward to seeing what amendments he puts forward to that Bill.
Those events set today’s debate in the context of the wider interest and show how difficult and complex these issues can be. Clearly, it is a key government responsibility to ensure that immigration is good and beneficial to the UK and its citizens. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Noon, used the phrase “of good character”. In the case of asylum, the Government are under a moral imperative; the Minister has made that clear on a number of occasions, and I thank him for it. However, the Government have a right—I think that the noble Lord, Lord Noon, referred to this as well—not to grant citizenship, or leave to remain, to those they consider will not contribute appropriately or will pose security problems.
I want to put that in context and to make just two points. One is about responsibility and policy. We should recognise that when we talk about immigrants we are not talking about a cohesive, identifiable group but a whole range of people of different nationalities who for one reason or another are seeking permission to live, and possibly work, in the UK. They include students—as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned—together with people involved in businesses, and workers and families. There is the separate issue, which concerns us all, of those who enter the country illegally and have no right to live here.
It is therefore right that we have a genuine debate about the kinds of immigration that we need and can sustain. Policies on this issue must be evidence-based and define the boundaries and the benefits or the disadvantages to the UK. Like the noble Lord, Lord Watson, I struggle with the Government’s test of success as being a fall in the level of net migration. It is a crude measure which, bizarrely—I am sure this was not the Government’s intention—means that if more UK citizens leave the UK than immigrants enter the UK, the Government will have succeeded. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, highlighted an alternative way the Government could achieve their aims which I think would be equally damaging to the UK. That is not success, and the Government’s current policies can lead to all kinds of problems and concerns. The Minister has heard this many times during questions and debates in your Lordships’ House in relation to universities and businesses. For example, the Government’s approach does not even start to address the different kinds of immigration, and the different impacts they have for the immigrants and for the country.
The other crude measure that gives me cause for concern—I have raised this with the noble Lord before, and other noble Lords have raised it—is the income threshold for British citizens who want to sponsor their spouse or family to live with them. I say at the outset that I fully agree that if an individual wishes to bring their family to settle in the UK, they should never assume that they will have state support. That is why there is already an absolute requirement for them to show that they have sufficient funds to support their family. There could have been greater clarity around that because it requires discretion and investigation on the part of entry clearance officers. We do not propose greater clarity there, but a blanket threshold that does not take into account any other relevant factors will not have the effect that the Government intended.
I recall a conversation with a gentleman who lived with his parents in the New Forest. He did not earn £18,600. In order to earn that in his profession, he would have had to move to London. In that case, his housing costs would have increased to such an extent that his disposable income would have been significantly less—but he would have fulfilled the Government’s requirements for allowing his wife to enter the country, even though it would have been much more difficult for him to support his family.
On the issue of asylum, the noble Lord himself said that there was no question of the UK not being a safe haven for those who genuinely face persecution in their native country. The example of young Malala from Afghanistan, whom many of us will have seen on “Panorama” this week and who is currently living in the UK with her family, should be a source of great pride. We should take pride in the fact that a woman of this amazing capacity—a quite exceptional young woman—is living, being treated and learning in the UK. Some 70% of people in the UK agree that we should offer asylum to those fleeing persecution.
There are other exceptional cases of people who have risked their lives to help UK interests and who face continued threats now. The Minister will have heard the comments made in your Lordships’ House about the Afghan interpreters who now face threats from the Taliban as our troops withdraw. Of course, the Gurkhas have been welcomed into this country.
The Minister said in your Lordships’ House, in a short debate on the citizenship test, that,
“the whole purpose of the exercise … is … to provide facts on which people can base a life of settlement and, indeed, citizenship in this country”.—[Official Report, 26/2/13; col. 954.]
Other noble Lords have spoken about this. I appreciate that I am getting close to my time, but perhaps I may direct noble Lords to the report from Dr Thom Brooks of Durham University, which makes it quite clear that the citizenship test is not fit for purpose. The Prime Minister failed it on national television. I am sure that I would fail it, and I regard myself as a very loyal and committed citizen of the UK. It is more like a pub quiz or a game of Trivial Pursuit.
I hope that the Minister has found this debate useful, and that we will have many more debates on issues around immigration as the weeks go on. I hope that he will take back some of the concerns raised in the debate today by noble Lords who have only the interests of the UK at heart and are really concerned about the citizenship test and about some of the other barriers that we put in the way of those who will be a great asset and benefit to the UK.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach) (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Roberts of Llandudno for securing this debate, which has been wide-ranging. Indeed, to some extent we have ranged beyond the strict subject of the debate. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I focus to some degree on the essence of the debate, which is nationality and citizenship. I assure noble Lords—it is important that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, accepts this—that the core of the Government’s policy is that the UK should continue to welcome individuals coming to work, study or join their family, and to provide a place of safety for refugees.
Reducing net migration is not about encouraging more Brits to leave than foreigners to come; it is about achieving a sustainable level of migration. All political parties are working towards a consensus on this issue. The Government are succeeding, because the levels of non-EU migration are at their lowest for 14 years.
My noble friend Lord Roberts of Llandudno pointed out that today we have published a number of important reforms to the immigration system through the new Immigration Bill, which is going to be a subject to which we will all be returning, I have no doubt. Everyone who has spoken in this debate, I am sure, will be back to talk through that Bill. It is a Commons starter, so we have got a bit of time to limber up for it. I hope noble Lords will not object if I try to answer specifically the questions and points raised on the questions of citizenship and nationality. They are all set out in the British Nationality Act 1981, so it is quite a long-standing Act. It has not been particularly changed. The citizenship test has changed. The one introduced by the previous Government has been brought up to date. Although there has been some criticism, notably from Dr Thom Brooks at Durham, about that test, it has been designed to make it much more real to the people who are sitting the test, and it has been widely welcomed.
The 1981 Act reflects the principle that citizenship should be acquired on the basis of a close and continuing connection with the United Kingdom. Although there are some registration routes for those who already have a link, and we will perhaps discuss areas where they have worked and where they perhaps do not work so well, the majority of those seeking to become citizens will do so through naturalisation. We are rightly proud of our British citizenship. It is a privilege, not a right. We expect those applying to naturalise as British citizens to have demonstrated a commitment to the United Kingdom through a period of lawful residence of five years, coupled with knowledge of the English language and of our culture, history and democratic government. Those living in Wales, as my noble friend will know, being a Welsh speaker, will already be able to demonstrate a knowledge of Welsh or of Scots Gaelic. Additionally, they should be of good character and, in most cases, intend to make the United Kingdom their permanent home. The Government consider that these remain the right criteria, although changes to particular requirements are planned.
First, the Government have looked at the way in which applicants for naturalisation demonstrate the required knowledge of language and life in the UK. If a person wishes to make the United Kingdom his or her permanent home and to become a British citizen, it is reasonable to expect that an individual will show, among other things, that they are committed to learning English and have an understanding of British history, culture and traditions. The ability to speak English and an understanding of the traditions and democratic principles underpinning UK life are essential for successful integration.
The noble Lord, Lord Noon, is nodding. There is no better example than himself of somebody who has done just that and contributed so much to British life. This can be demonstrated by taking the Life in the UK test in English, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic, or by obtaining an English for Speakers of Other Languages qualification, which can be at a very basic level. This means that some individuals have been able to naturalise without sufficient English to communicate and integrate with the wider community. The new Life in the UK test, to which there has been much reference today, places the emphasis on British history, culture and democratic government. Despite what some noble Lords have said, the vast majority of feedback on the new test has been positive. I cannot agree that the questions asked are irrelevant or that the test should concentrate on more practical matters.
The test is being taken by individuals who have been in the UK long enough. They have to be resident here for at least five years to qualify for this test and they should know about day-to-day practical issues. The aim of the test is to help new residents appreciate British traditions and understand how democracy developed in this country. The new test was informed by a user survey of 664 people who had taken the previous test. Most respondents were already aware of the practical aspects of UK life, but wished to have more information about history, government and the legal system. The test was designed to meet that request.
My noble friend Lord Roberts said that it should be made clear in the book which sections should be studied. It is intended that the whole book should be studied, but it is made clear that readers need not remember dates, including birth dates, or things of that nature. It is designed to inform, but the companion publication assists individuals in becoming familiar with the type of test that they are likely to face. With any book of this nature, it is possible for some details to become out of date, but we have deliberately moved away from the inclusion of statistics or similar information that could become irrelevant. As I said, the test is generally taken by people who have been in the UK long enough to know about practical issues. The handbook aims to provide information on British history, culture and democracy in an accessible, interesting way. Questions are no longer asked about dates: for example, “When did it become possible for wives to have the right to divorce?”. Instead, the questions are about principles, such as the principle that men and women have equal rights.
Further changes come into force on 28 October. From that date, applicants will be required both to pass the Life in the UK test and to have a speaking and listening qualification in English that shows that they can communicate at an independent level. Nationals of the majority of English-speaking countries will not be required to show a formal speaking and listening qualification. However, they will still be required to pass the Life in the UK test. This revised knowledge of language and life requirement will apply to all applicants unless they are exempt on the basis of their age or physical or mental condition. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for whom I have the greatest regard, that the whole point of the test is that it should be fair, reasonable and just, as he asked for it to be.
It may interest your Lordships to hear a few figures about how many people have taken the test and what the pass rate was. In 2012, 201,087 applications were decided. Of these, 97% were successful. Clear guidance limits the number of people for whom the test would be inappropriate. Of the 678 cases that were refused, 103 were refused because the applicant had insufficient knowledge of English or life in the UK. The failure rate is very small. The whole point is that candidates should prepare themselves by reading the publications that are made available for them.
We have a number of proposals coming forward in support of the Citizenship (Armed Forces) Bill, which will amend nationality Acts with respect to those serving in the Armed Forces overseas. I can tell my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes that the average processing time for a nationality Act application is nine weeks, and in that time it is possible to get your passport if you choose to do so. They just make a note of the details and return it to you; it is not kept.
I am going to run out of time so I will have to write to my noble friend Lord Avebury. He raised a number of interesting issues on which I would like to inform him, including the question of the children of British mothers, Chagossians and stateless persons. I will make sure that that letter is sent to all Members who participated in the debate. I enjoyed the tribute paid by my noble friend Lord Watson of Richmond to Sir Charles Montgomery. If any man can tackle the problems facing the Border Force, it is Sir Charles, and I have every confidence that he will do so. I thank noble Lords and I am sorry if I have been caught out of time. This debate has raised a lot of issues and I have found it very interesting.
House of Lords
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Introduction: Baroness Manzoor
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Introduction: Lord Wrigglesworth
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Abortion
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Knight of Collingtree
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they intend to take to ensure that medical professionals offering to perform abortions on the grounds of gender are prosecuted.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness) (LD)
My Lords, where it is suspected that abortions are being authorised in circumstances which do not comply with the Abortion Act 1967 and the matter is referred to the police, a full investigation will be carried out. The Crown Prosecution Service will review any cases referred to it by the police in accordance with the two-stage test set out in The Code for Crown Prosecutors. Where there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and it is in the public interest, such cases will be prosecuted.
Baroness Knight of Collingtree (Con)
My Lords, is it not the case that, whatever else can be denied, secondary reasons may come into the decision? However, when the main reason for the terminations about which I am questioning the Government is that the coming child is a female, it seems to me as a human being and a female, as it does to millions of others, that that cannot possibly be right. Does my noble and learned friend accept that those of us who took part in the debates on the Abortion Bill in 1967 did not dream for one moment that it was necessary to put down an amendment to protect girl babies? Had we done so, I do not think that the Bill could ever possibly have been passed. Finally, is it not extremely dangerous that the law of the land should allow killing on gender grounds at any stage?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I know of the long-standing interest that my noble friend has had in this issue, going back, as she indicated, to the passage of the initial legislation. Given the reporting, people might well think that this case was about medical practitioners offering abortion on the basis of the gender of the child. In those circumstances, it would seem incomprehensible that the full force of the criminal law was not being brought to bear on a practice which most of us would consider abhorrent. However, if one reads the full note provided by the Director of Public Prosecutions earlier this week, which I will make available in the Library, one will see that on the facts of the case it would not have been possible to prove that either doctor authorised an abortion on gender-specific grounds alone. It is a far more complex case than that. Indeed, the criteria used were those set out in Section 1 of the Abortion Act 1967.
Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)
My Lords, first, there have been differing reports as to whether there was a realistic prospect of prosecution, and I wonder whether the Minister could clarify that again. Secondly, on the public interest point, did the director consult the Attorney-General on this very issue, and what exactly were the public interest points against prosecution in the case which has been very much in the newspapers?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, with regard to the first point that the noble and learned Lord raises, the note that the Director of Public Prosecutions has set out indicates that the evidence was not strong and that the prospects of conviction would not have been high but that, on balance, there was just sufficient prosecution to provide a realistic prospect of a conviction. As the noble and learned Lord well knows, there is a second test—the public interest test. The view taken by the Crown Prosecution Service was that the jury would have had no independent yardstick of professional practice by which to assess the facts of the case—hence the need for the greater clarity which is now being sought. On the other question that he asked, the Director of Public Prosecutions did not consult the Attorney-General before the decision was made not to prosecute. My right honourable friend the Attorney-General has obviously had subsequent discussions with the Director of Public Prosecutions in the context of the review and, without in any way wishing to infringe on the independence of the prosecutor, he believes that the decision was taken in a proper and conscientious way.
Lord Walton of Detchant (CB)
My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord accept that there are a number of potentially lethal genetically determined diseases which are transmitted by an X-linked recessive mechanism and hence affect only boys? Does he therefore accept that, unless the availability of pre-implantation diagnosis were available, a female carrier of such a potentially lethal gene would be fully entitled to abort an affected male foetus?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I certainly bow to the medical knowledge of the noble Lord—I do not pretend to come anywhere near it. However, there is reference in the BMA’s code of ethics and law regarding this factor, where there may be issues that could relate to gender and a medical condition. Indeed, my understanding is that in the two cases that have given rise to the current controversy, the patient concerned indicated that she had had previous serious difficulties in a female pregnancy due to genetic abnormalities. That is why it was not possible, in the view of the Crown Prosecution Service, to prove that the procedure was conducted purely on the grounds of gender selection.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, does not this case, and in particular the letter from the Director of Public Prosecutions, taken together with the overall fact that, I believe, nearly a quarter of recognised pregnancies are deliberately ended in the womb, call for a comprehensive review of the operation of the Act in its entirety?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I am certainly cognisant of the strong views that are held about this Act and its operation. One of the clear things emerging from this case is the great need to have clearer guidance for doctors on how to carry out their functions and the tests that are set down in Section 1 of the Abortion Act. I am confident that that will now be addressed. Certainly, the Crown Prosecution Service stands ready to assist in any way to provide that clarity.
Lord Steel of Aikwood (LD)
Does my noble friend agree that it is very difficult to see how any prosecution under the Abortion Act could take place if no abortion has taken place? Does he accept that gender selection by abortion is wholly repugnant and that therefore we must hope that the General Medical Council will issue ethical guidance on this important matter as soon as possible?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble friend that gender selection as a ground for abortion is wholly repugnant. It is quite clear that that is the very strong view of Members of your Lordships’ House. While abortions did not take place in this particular case, attempting to commit a criminal offence—that is, doing something that goes further than just preparing to commit it—is a crime in its own right and it is on that basis that the Crown Prosecution Service looked at the facts of this case. I do not know yet when the General Medical Council will come forward with any revised guidance; I have indicated that I think that it is necessary. However, the Chief Medical Officer will be writing again very shortly to all doctors involved in abortion provision, setting out the Department of Health’s views on sex-selection abortions—making it clear that sex-selection abortions are not acceptable—as well as pre-signing of certificate forms and other relevant issues, highlighting the need for doctors to keep up to date with legal provisions in the Act.
House of Lords: New Peers
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
To ask the Chairman of Committees what logistic and financial adjustments are proposed to take account of the recent list of new Peers.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
Needless to say, that is a disappointing answer. I want to make it clear that I do not associate the Chairman of Committees in any way with the Government’s cynicism in failing to abolish this House and now packing it with placemen and women. However, he is in the forefront of facing the consequences. Will he confirm that we are now reaching a new peak in membership and that new working Peers are—quite rightly—attending more frequently than those who have left or have died off?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I mean, more than they used to attend. This is resulting in higher expenditure on allowances and greater demand on all our resources and facilities. Quite frankly, this cannot be achieved on a fixed budget.
The Chairman of Committees
My Lords, it is not part of my job to defend or attack government policy. I just try to keep the show on the road, with the helpful advice and support of the noble Lord in particular. To give a few facts, after the general election in 2010 there were, I think, 117 new creations. Since then, the net increase in the size of your Lordships’ House has been seven. It is difficult to put this: it is likely that the new creations are more active than those who are no longer with us. It is virtually impossible to find a nice set of words to convey those facts.
However, it is worth pointing out that in December the House Committee will consider whether to make any additional provision for any net increases in the membership of the House and in attendances, when it considers the forecast outturn for the current financial year and the budget for the next year.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, does the Chairman of Committees agree that it is crucial that we give our new colleagues the sort of warm welcome we all enjoyed when we came to this House? However, it is equally important that the Government recognise the problems that exist. Would it not therefore be an absolutely admirable gesture if they were to support the Bill to be introduced in another place on Friday 18 October by Mr Dan Byles, which incorporates the Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, got through this House last year?
The Chairman of Committees
My Lords, we are again venturing into policy areas and, as Members of your Lordships’ House know, I have no views on such policy issues. If I did, I certainly would not express them.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I would be grateful if the Chairman of Committees could ask the Leader of the House if the rumours circulating at the highest level about another list are true. Will he also convey to the Leader that there would be great anger and dismay in this House, and in the country as a whole, if those rumours were proved to be true?
The Chairman of Committees
I do not think that I have any need to ask the Leader of the House that question as I am sure that he heard it directly from the Leader of the Opposition.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, the Chairman of Committees has been here a long time. Will he acknowledge that normally when a list is prepared during the course of a Parliament, as opposed to lists that come after a general election, there is careful attention to the effect of the list on the party balance within the House, particularly between the Government and the Opposition? Will he confirm that this time around, the net effect of the new list is a very, very substantial—I repeat, very, very substantial—increase in the Government’s political majority within this House? As far as I can discover, for that to be engineered half way through a Parliament is entirely without precedent. Will he comment?
The Chairman of Committees
I am being tempted again to comment on policy issues and I am reluctant to do so. Of course, the actual size and composition of the list is a matter for the public record and people can see the party composition of the present list.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
My Lords, will the Chairman of Committees confirm that savings through the freeze on staff salaries that has gone on for several years, savings on the freeze on existing Members’ expenses, high catering prices, cuts in House of Lords publications and other savings that are being made are being used to fund the new membership coming into the House?
The Chairman of Committees
Not really. Two things have to be borne in mind; namely, the budget and what has been referred to as the savings target. In December 2010, the House adopted the policy that:
“We will aim not to increase our resource costs, in real terms”—
compared with 2010-11—
“throughout the period of the plan”,
which is to 2015,
“despite the increased size of the House”.
That decision was made in December 2010. In July this year, that policy was quite significantly modified to read:
“To make best use of … financial resources we will … Adhere to the savings target of not increasing the resource budget in real terms (compared with 2010/11)—
and here is the new bit—
“subject to the need to maintain the ability of the House and its Members to carry out their parliamentary functions in changing circumstances, including increased attendance”.
That is a clear commitment to ensure that in future when budgets are being constructed overriding concern is given to the maintenance of the House’s functions and the activities of Members.
Gibraltar
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Luce (CB)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I declare an interest as a former Governor of Gibraltar.
The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)
My Lords, we continue to uphold the sovereignty of British Gibraltar territorial waters through the Royal Navy’s response to unlawful incursions and our diplomatic protest to the Spanish Government. We are maintaining strong diplomatic pressure on the Spanish Government to de-escalate tensions and to remove unlawful additional checks at the border. The European Commission sent a monitoring mission to the border at our request on 25 September, and we await its conclusions.
Lord Luce
Does the Minister agree that as democratic partners in the European Union and NATO, the Spanish Government, rather than embarking on a policy of undemocratic Francoist type bullying of Gibraltarians, both at sea and on the border, would do well to follow the example of the previous Spanish Government, which embarked on constructive policies of joint economic collaboration between Spain and Gibraltar bringing advantages to the citizens of both Gibraltar and Spain in that region? To that end, will she say whether the Spanish Government have agreed to proposals to resume a dialogue and, if that is to take place on practical issues to do with Gibraltar, will the Gibraltarians be full participants in these discussions?
Baroness Warsi
I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord in relation to Gibraltar, during his time at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and as Governor of Gibraltar. He is incredibly familiar with incidents that arise between Spain and Gibraltar. We are entirely clear that this matter should be resolved politically. I take the noble Lord’s point about both of us being members of the European Union and I completely take his point that this matter has to be resolved in accordance with the wishes of the Gibraltarians.
Lord Bach (Lab)
My Lords, the House should thank the noble Lord, Lord Luce, who was a very distinguished Governor of Gibraltar, for raising this issue. Her Majesty’s Opposition support, and will continue to support, the Government as long as they continue to give Britain’s full support to the citizens of Gibraltar in the face of intimidation and threats. What is Her Majesty’s Government’s view of how the present situation will develop and what can they do to prevent these outbursts of mid-summer folly; this unacceptable behaviour?
Baroness Warsi
There is, of course, a trilateral process which allows all parties to have discussions, but we are incredibly clear about the sovereignty and the sovereign position of the Gibraltarian people. It is nice to hear that the Opposition now share this view.
Baroness Hooper (Con)
Would my noble friend care to comment on the fact that the mayor of La Linea has also joined the protests to the Spanish Government about the delays and disruption which are affecting the Spanish workers moving on a daily basis to Gibraltar to work? Does this suggest that the Spanish people, particularly those of the region closest to Gibraltar, do not have the same attitude as the Spanish Government?
Baroness Warsi
My noble friend makes an important point. There have been huge delays on the border, in relation to the crossing of both people and materials. There have been questions in relation to harassment at the border. At their height, some of the delays were unfortunately up to seven hours long. This is causing misery to both the Gibraltarians and to the Spanish people who travel between the two regularly, especially Spanish workers.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
The Spanish Government are linking with the Argentine Government to bring joint pressure on us in international fora. Our friends in Gibraltar are members of Commonwealth institutions. To what extent are we ready to use the Commonwealth as a means of countering that international pressure?
Baroness Warsi
There will always be politics in international fora, but it is the responsibility of the Government to respond to the reality on the ground. There have been a number of discussions at the highest levels between the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of Spain and the Deputy Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister of Spain, and discussions with the President of the European Commission. We feel at the moment that discussions are ongoing. We also have the Royal Navy Gibraltar Squadron, which makes sure that those waters are properly protected.
Lord Chidgey (LD)
My Lords, when the UN decolonisation committee met in June, what representations did the Government make in attempting to have Gibraltar removed from the UN list of 16 remaining non-self-governing territories? In that context, what progress have the Government made in convincing the UN General Assembly that Gibraltar has now achieved the maximum possible level of self-governance short of independence that the UN recognises as non-colonial in nature?
Baroness Warsi
I do not know what representation was made, if any, but I will write to the noble Lord in detail.
Lord Boyce (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister not agree that were this Government not to have depleted our destroyer frigate force to anorexic levels, we would be able to demonstrate better and in a more consistent way our resolve in a time-honoured and effective way? By the way, a patrol boat in the Gibraltar squadron is not as effective as a destroyer.
Baroness Warsi
I hear what the noble and gallant Lord says, but we have never had to deploy that kind of force in Gibraltar and we do not anticipate that we will have to. The annual Cougar deployment that has been taking place is long planned and well established. It is a large Royal Navy force of frigates and aircraft carriers that exercise in the region in the summer.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, can my noble friend explain the relevant difference between the British presence in Gibraltar and the Spanish presence in north Africa?
Baroness Warsi
I am trying incredibly hard to decipher that situation. May I return to what I think is the basic position in relation to Gibraltar? The Gibraltarians have a right to determine their future political will and we support them in that.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, in answer to a question from my noble friend Lord Bach earlier, the Minister said that the Opposition now support the people of Gibraltar. I would like to make it clear, and have it on the record, that my party has always supported the citizens of Gibraltar and their self-determination.
Baroness Warsi
It is incredibly heartening to hear that. It therefore puts my mind at rest, certainly in relation to the potential sovereignty crisis that could have been caused in 2002.
Literacy
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Addington
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effect of hidden special educational needs and disabilities on levels of literacy in England and Northern Ireland, in the light of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s recent low ranking of England and Northern Ireland in terms of literacy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, there is a gap in literacy and numeracy levels for pupils with SEN, some of whom have their needs identified late. Twenty-three per cent get grade A* to C in GCSE English and maths compared with 59% nationally. All pupils need high quality teaching in the basics. Our focus on phonics is playing a key part in that. It also supports earlier identification of issues such as dyslexia, so that schools provide effective support in line with our SEN reforms.
Lord Addington (LD)
I thank my noble friend for that Answer, especially as this Question was tabled at such short notice. However, would he agree that teachers do not receive enough training both initially and in service to have a good chance of identifying those who are finding it difficult to learn to read, particularly when they are on the less extreme end of the spectrums that they encounter? Will he consider that we should, at the first available opportunity, try to improve this level of training and awareness in the teaching profession?
Lord Nash
My Lords, Teachers’ Standards requires that all teachers have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with SEN, and must be able to adapt their teaching to meet those needs. All teachers must also now receive IT in synthetic phonics, and Ofsted inspects against that. Also, the draft SEN code of practice that we published on 4 October requires that teachers’ ability to meet SEN is included in schools’ approach to professional development and their performance management arrangements. We have invested heavily in SEN training, educational psychologists and other programmes over the past few years, but I am sure there is more to be done.
Lord Quirk (CB)
The issues highlighted by the OECD of course go far beyond the SEN cases that this Question addresses. Why is it that almost 40 years after these grave problems in the English educational system were starkly identified by James Callaghan, successive Governments have failed to address the problems concerned?
Lord Nash
This Government’s approach is to focus on that core issue, to ensure that all our students leave school adequately qualified in literacy and numeracy. That is why we have a focus on much more rigorous exams. Our new national curriculum will promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of spoken and written language. Our phonics programme is an integral part of that; it is showing good results, with the number of pupils reaching the expected standard in year 1 rising from 58% to 69%.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, while these figures are, indeed, appalling, will the noble Lord consider whether perhaps one of the reasons for these very poor scores is because of the accuracy of the way we keep our figures in the United Kingdom generally? That is one issue. Also, does the noble Lord agree with me that one of the key problems in our educational system is the lack of support for children in the home with literacy, reading and mathematics, and that we need to concentrate on getting more parents involved with the school education?
Lord Nash
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. There are different schools of thought about the accuracy of the statistics. A study on this was published recently by the Sutton Trust. However, the overwhelming conclusion from these statistics is that other countries have overtaken us and that we have a lot of work to do quickly to improve our schooling and our literacy and numeracy.
As far as home support is concerned, we all know, of course, that the number of words that a child experiences in early age is terribly important, and can be too little. We do all that we can to support parents; however, it comes down basically to improving schools, which have to do so much more because of poor parenting.
Lord Tebbit (Con)
My Lords, without detracting in any way from the rightful concern of our noble friend Lord Addington for those children with special needs, is it not clear that there are special educational needs among the teaching profession, which no longer seems capable of teaching basic literacy or numeracy to children in the way that always was done in the past?
Lord Nash
We now have the highest quality of teachers entering the profession that we have had for many years. I am afraid that I have to disagree with my noble friend. We are doing a lot to support the teaching profession; it is the most noble profession, in my view, and the issues are much more complicated and deeper than that.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
The noble Lord quite rightly made the point that high quality teaching is essential to identify the needs of children with special educational needs at an early stage. How does that marry up with the fact that the Government now allow unqualified teachers in schools? Will the Government now reconsider that policy and insist that all teachers, whatever they are doing and at whatever level they teach, should be properly trained and qualified?
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness is quite right that we allow unqualified teachers in academies. There are some remarkably good success stories of teachers in academies. We will continue with this programme because we have many examples of people coming into the teaching profession after successful careers in other industries. We need all the talent we can get in our teaching profession.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
Is my noble friend aware that many of the young people in custody have these hidden disabilities? In many cases, indeed, that is part of the reason that they are there in the first place. There is wonderful work being done in prisons by charities such as the Cascade Foundation, but the problem is that their funding is not secure. Will my noble friend work with the Ministry of Justice to address this problem?
Defamation (Parliamentary Proceedings) (Amendment) Bill [HL]
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Business of the House
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
That the debate on the Motion in the name of Lord Layard set down for today shall be limited to 3 hours and that in the name of Lord Kennedy of Southwark to 2 hours.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford) (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I should explain that this follows your Lordships’ agreement to the Procedure Committee’s second report of 25 July. That included the provision that where one balloted debate has at least twice as many speakers as another, a maximum of half an hour can be reallocated from the debate with fewer speakers to the more popular debate.
Prisoner Voting
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
That, notwithstanding the Resolution of this House of 14 May, it be an instruction to the Joint Committee on the draft Voting Eligibility (Prisoners) Bill that it should report by 18 December 2013.
Mental and Physical Health: Parity of Esteem
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Layard
That this House takes note of the implications of parity of esteem for mental and physical health, as required by the Health and Social Care Act 2012.
Lord Layard (Lab)
My Lords, by an extraordinary coincidence, today is World Mental Health Day, so I wonder whether it is not due to ballot rigging that we are having this debate today. This is also the time when the Government are preparing the next mandate for the National Health Service, so the timing of this debate could not be better.
Of course, we would like to be in a situation where we did not need to debate parity of esteem, but I start from one simple fact. We have 6 million adults in England suffering from depression or crippling anxiety disorders, and of them only a quarter are in treatment. You can compare that with people with physical conditions where, in most cases, more than 90% are in treatment. The same is true of children: only a quarter of those who would be diagnosed as mentally ill are in treatment. That is not parity of esteem; it is a really deplorable situation. What is the reason? The reason is the lack of parity in the provision of care; that is the central reason.
Of course, medication is available for most people who come forward with those problems, but most of them would prefer, or would want in addition, psychological therapy. We have excellent psychological therapies with 50% recovery rates for anxiety and depression conditions, for children’s disorders and so on, and NICE has reviewed all of them and recommends that psychological therapies ought to be offered to all patients with mental health problems. However, that recommendation is largely disregarded in huge areas of the country where those therapies are not available. Let me give just one extra argument why they should be available—other than the obvious humanitarian argument that we should treat people who are ill; that is why we have a health service. In this case, there are also huge savings to be had if we treat them. Those savings in welfare benefits and extra taxes would pay for the cost of the psychological therapy. That is a complete, 100% offset. Another probable 100% offset is in the cost of additional physical care that mentally ill people demand.
So the argument for making those therapies available is overwhelming, but it is happening very slowly. As Sir Mike Rawlings, the former chairman of NICE says, this is the area in the whole of the NHS where NICE recommendations are the most flagrantly and casually disregarded. If the same thing happened with cancer or heart disease, there would be uproar. That is why what happened in this House two years ago was so important. It was the landmark moment for millions of people because the amendment that we passed in this House introduced the principle of parity between mental and physical health. The issue that we must discuss today is what that means. That was not said in the Bill. We need to discuss exactly what that means and how we would know if we got there.
I want to suggest two simple principles. First, NICE guidelines should be as faithfully implemented for mental illness as they are for physical illness. That is a very simple principle. Secondly, treatment should be provided speedily when it is needed, as it generally is in the case of mental illness. Those two basic principles should guide the way forward. How do we get from here to where we need to be? The mandate, which is now under discussion, is the key. I very much hope that the Minister can help us with some improvements in the draft of the mandate which has been circulated for comment.
Let me start with waiting times. It is shocking that there are waiting times for hospital treatments and no waiting times for psychological therapy. This is not acceptable. Depression and anxiety are pressing conditions; more pressing than some physical conditions, although obviously less pressing in most cases than cancer. With cancer we talk about two weeks. It seems clear that we should be aiming at a maximum wait for access to psychological therapy of 28 days. Many people have argued this. I very much hope that that can be included in the mandate.
Of course, that raises the question of what scale of service would be needed to achieve that objective. The main provider of psychological therapy in the NHS is Improving Access to Psychological Therapies—the programme known as IAPT, launched in 2008. It has been very energetically and faithfully supported by Ministers from all political parties, for which everyone is extremely grateful. The programme grew rapidly, but 80% of those treated still wait for more than 28 days. Some wait for more than 12 months. Waiting lists are rising as people become aware that there is some hope in their lives.
How large a service is needed to implement the NICE guidelines for all who need them? By 2011, in the third to fourth full year of the programme, the programme was seeing more than half a million people. But that of course is only 10% of the 6 million with the condition. Since 2011, the programme has stalled due mainly to poor priorities on the part of local commissioners, the dislocation of the messages coming down to them and the pressure on them from the higher levels of the NHS as it is being reorganised.
I think we can all agree that 10% is a completely unacceptable figure. The Government have already committed to 15% by 2015, but even that deals only with the tip of the iceberg. From our experience in the first three and four years of the programme, it would be feasible to reach a figure of 25% by 2020. I would urge the Government to be thinking in those terms.
The Government, rightly, will want to have people not only treated but recovering. That is the right way to be thinking and that is where the IAPT programme is so strong because we know how many people recover. Patients are monitored on a meeting-by-meeting basis and there is now a 45% recovery rate for the patients who have two or more sessions. The Government target is 50% and the right way to express a vision for 2020 would be the numbers of people who have recovered as a result of treatment.
So I hope that the Government will be giving some indication of that longer term perspective in the mandate. It is really important because we can get good people to train as therapists for the service only if they see that the number of jobs will go on expanding. We will get commissioners to commission this service at an expanding rate only if they see that they are expected to do that and block in increasing sums. Too many of these commissioners have concluded that they have done what they need to for IAPT, which is how it has stalled. It has to be restarted, so I urge the Minister to include at least some phrase in the mandate, if he can, such as “continuing expansion of access up to 2020, linked to 50% recovery rates”. Some phrase of that sort would show that the Government and the service are serious about this. We know that the good will is enormous towards IAPT on the part of the coalition Government, but can they please set this down in some concrete way that commissioners can read and see that they have to act on?
There are of course financial constraints and commissioners are always tempted to dumb down in areas which look like soft targets. Incredibly, one commissioner will not pay for any patient receiving more than two sessions unless they can be shown to have recovered. This is an outrage but there are many who will pay only up to a maximum of six sessions for any one patient, as if they would cut an operation short if it happened to need more than the standard time. This is absolutely unacceptable discrimination and it is rife throughout the commissioning system. How can we deal with it? It would be by pressure of all kinds from above and, of course, with a constant emphasis on outcomes. I place great hope on the measurement of outcomes as the ultimate source of pressure on commissioners. When we get to outcomes-based payments, which we may in a few years’ time, we must again resist the pressure to dumb down by leaving the tariff price free for the local commissioner. There has to be the national reference cost, otherwise this will again be the soft area which gets dumbed down.
I have one final comment on the IAPT programme. It is currently in the list of 10 services suitable for “any qualified provider” treatment, together with incontinency services, wheelchairs and a few other things. Is the treatment of depression and anxiety really worthy of being treated like that? A recent study from the World Health Organisation compared the disabling effect of depression with that of angina, asthma, arthritis and diabetes. I hope it is not surprising to Members of this House that depression was 50% more disabling than each of those four conditions. One wonders why those four were not included in the list, together with incontinency and wheelchair services. If there is confusion about parity of esteem at the centre, no wonder there is even more confusion at the local level.
I have concentrated on depression and anxiety disorders. There are many other mental health problems for adults, and of course for children as well, which I am sure other noble Lords will talk about. But I want to mention just one general point: research. According to the WHO, mental illness accounts for 38% of all illness when weighted by severity in this country and 23% of the total burden of disease, including premature mortality. But what percentage of health research goes on mental health? It is 5%. We need much more mental health research. We need more trials on therapies other than CBT and many more on therapies for children. For adults we do not even know about effective group treatment, which could be very economical and effective compared with individual treatment, and so on. Most trials in mental health are very short follow-ups compared with the decade-long trials for treatment of physical illness. All this should be changed and there should be some statement about it at this point, although it cannot be changed overnight.
I hope that the Minister will reassure us on the four points I have raised—the 28-day maximum wait; the commitment to continued expansion; taking psychological therapy out of the degrading position of coming under AQP, which leads to many of these terrible commissioning decisions; and more research for mental health, especially psychological therapy. We know that the political pressures coming for psychological therapy are trivial compared to the pressures on politicians from those who suffer from most physical illnesses—especially, of course, those which are helped by the pharmaceutical industry—but one third of all families include someone with a mental health problem. Many are silent because of shame, but I think that they will privately thank any politician who shows that they understand their problems.
It is an amazing fact that mental illness, as the surveys show, causes more misery in our society than physical illness does, causes much more than unemployment or poverty do and costs the Exchequer £60 billion. It is extraordinary that it still has such a low priority on the ground. I think that we still live in the materialistic shadow of William Beveridge. As noble Lords know, he identified five great giants—poverty; unemployment; undereducation; poor housing; and physical illness—but he omitted the problems of the human spirit within. This has caused us decades of unnecessary misery. It is time to name the sixth giant, the great, hidden problem in our society, and that is mental illness. If it had parity of esteem, it would have its own Cabinet Minister, like the other subjects I just mentioned. Perhaps the best test of when we eventually have parity of esteem is when we have a Cabinet Minister for mental health. I beg to move.
Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Layard, for initiating this important debate. As a medical student I was rather surprised to hear professionals refer to patients with psychiatric conditions as “nutters” and “away with the fairies”, among similar comments. As the noble Lord, Lord Layard, said, we do not ridicule people with heart failure or cancer; why do we do it with mental illness? This made me rather interested in psychiatry and I did think of entering that profession, or trying to enter it, but that came to an end when I presented a patient to a psychiatrist, who shall be nameless, having spent a lot of time taking a history from the patient and writing it all up carefully. I started presenting it to the psychiatrist and half way through, he started laughing. I said, “What’s the joke?”. He said, “He’s a psychopath”. I said, “I know he’s a psychopath but what exactly is the joke?”. “Well, we can’t do anything for him.” I thought that was totally inappropriate and I learnt later that the psychiatrists call that “incongruity of affect”. Anyway, that put me off psychiatry.
It is not surprising that people with psychiatric problems feel isolated and abused and find it very difficult to talk about their problems, so all credit to Alastair Campbell, Stephen Fry and others who have spoken openly about their own illness. This has encouraged others to do the same. There is, of course, great misunderstanding about so much of mental illness. Take, for instance, Alzheimer’s. Over the years I have been consulted by many people, some of them in this House, about their relatives with Alzheimer’s and how they find it so irritating that they keep asking the same question and so on. The principles are quite simple: you do not ask a patient with Alzheimer’s any questions and you do not argue with them. When they do things that seem very inappropriate, you ask the question, “Does that matter in terms of eternity?”. I remember that once a patient was frying bacon in honey. I was just a very junior registrar in cooking, and I was not sure if this might be some recent recipe. The meal was delicious; it was impossible to clean the frying pan afterwards, but that did not seem to matter. I have also found it important that they have as much independence as possible. That sometimes means taking risks, but it is well worth it.
In the old days, in the 1950s and 1960s, I found it very difficult to get psychiatrists to come to the accident and emergency department. I do not know why that was, but they would never come. One day I was in trouble and I needed help in A&E. I rang the psychiatric department and a lady answered the phone. When I explained that I was in difficulty and asked her to come and help, she said, “I would be delighted to come”. I nearly fell on the floor; I had never had that response before. She was terrific. Her name was Ros Furlong, and she became a very distinguished psychiatrist. I mention that because it seemed to me that when women started coming into psychiatry, it changed things. Mind you, if you go back to 1945 or 1946, before there were many women in medicine, medical schools were a bit of a rough house. On one occasion a lecture was about to start and ex-Wing Commander Twistington-Higgins said to ex-Able Seaman Smith, who was wearing bell-bottomed trousers, “Smith, you’re improperly dressed”, whereupon ex-Able Seaman Smith stood up, picked up the ex-wing commander and knocked him straight out. However, when women came into medicine, the whole thing became rather more civilised.
My wife had Alzheimer’s for the last five years of her life. I pay tribute to the Maudsley Hospital, which was superb in all its help, especially Professor Simon Lovestone, who is a brilliant psychiatrist and a most kindly man. I got to know him quite well, and I told him the story of how I wanted to be a psychiatrist but was put off by the psychiatrists themselves. He said, “My experience is exactly the reverse”. He had wanted to be a surgeon but he met a psychiatrist called Colin Godber, who was a psychogeriatrician—the crème de la crème of the psychiatric world. Colin Godber asked him if he would like to come and visit a patient at home. They went there, the patient prepared a nice cream tea and then played the piano for half an hour, and then they went home. He said to Colin, “He didn’t seem to be much of a patient”. “Oh no, he wasn’t the patient,” said Godber, “It was his wife. I looked after her, and this week is the anniversary of her death. She died two years ago, and on the anniversary I always go and have tea with him”. Simon Lovestone was so amazed by this that he said, “That’s what I want to be; I shall be a psychiatrist”. It worked the other way round for him.
As the noble Lord, Lord Layard, has mentioned, one-third of the population has had a psychiatric illness. I have often wondered why that is so. A group of 50 ladies in their 40s met, and they all had eating disorders. Each of them told their story, and all of them as children had been sexually abused. At a meeting in No.10 Downing Street some years ago, there were 20 of us in a room discussing this very problem. Without thinking, I said, “Of course, at least 10% of children are sexually abused”. They were horrified and just would not believe it. In fact, one of them said, “There are 20 of us here. Do you mean that two are involved?”. I said, “Well, it does go across the board”. We now know that it is much higher than 10%. We know that one in four women is abused in one way or another, which means that millions of men are smashing up millions of women. It also means that millions of other people know about it and do nothing.
Mental health and well-being is a priority for this Government. The overarching goal is to ensure that mental health has equal priority with physical health and that everyone who needs it has timely access to the best available treatment. We have enshrined in law the equal importance of mental health alongside physical health. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 sets out the equal status of mental and physical health. We have made improvements in mental health and treating mental disease is a key priority for NHS England. One of NHS England’s 24 objectives is to put mental health on a par with physical health and close the gap between the two. On 29 June the Royal College of Psychiatrists published Whole-person Care: from Rhetoric to Reality, which is well worth reading. There is so much to be done in this field and we all have a role to play in encouraging the population to do its bit towards helping with this problem.
Lord Stone of Blackheath (Lab)
My Lords, there is a great deal of expertise here today on this subject. I am no expert, but I have two perspectives based on my particular experiences. The first is as chair of the award -winning health charity DIPEx. We have spent 10 years researching, in depth and on camera through the Health Experiences Research Group at Oxford University, patients’ experiences of illness. We publish them on the internet for free as www.healthtalkonline.org and www.youthhealthtalk.org. We have completed 75 separate modules of different illnesses, each with more than a year’s interviewing.
We have covered a wide range of physical illnesses, including most of the cancers, heart conditions, diabetes and osteoporosis. We have also researched mental conditions such as depression, experiences of psychosis, dementia and life on the autism spectrum, and we are about to launch a recently completed module on the use of antidepressants.
I want to relate here some of the observations from patients’ perspectives. First, patients living with physical, mental and social needs must be seen as actor-agents in their own recovery. The Centre for Mental Health has said that we should ensure that people using mental health services are equal partners in their care and support, with full respect for their needs, wishes and human rights.
Secondly, our senior researcher Susan Kirkpatrick, conducting interviews with the www.healthtalkonline.org patients from the recent antidepressant module to be launched in November, says that while people feel that an antidepressant may be helpful, most say that they benefit most from a combination of medication and therapeutic help. However, the effectiveness of therapeutic treatments seems not to be proven to the satisfaction of those prescribing these medications. The new charity, MQ, has said that to achieve parity of care, we must also have parity of research. MQ is one of the few organisations in the field that does not take sides. It believes that medication and therapies deserve equal research, and says that there is a huge gap between the cost of mental illness and its research funding, as has been mentioned. The UK should capitalise on its role as a leader in research and become one in developing better treatments for mental illness.
Thirdly, as my noble friend has mentioned, for some patients a long waiting time for therapeutic help proves frustrating and even debilitating, and in some mental health cases can be fatal. Here is a disparity. It seems that the system can understand the urgencies in a case of physical illness but with mental illness it feels that the patient can wait. The Centre for Mental Health has observed, as have many people whom we have interviewed, that appropriate waiting times must be established so that people with mental health problems know the maximum waiting time for a treatment, just as people with physical health problems know the longest that they can expect to wait for a treatment.
The NHS constitution has no requirements on waiting times for people with mental health problems, and in particular many psychological therapies are NICE approved and recommended in NICE clinical guidelines. However, due to the NHS constitution, people are not entitled to them in the same way as one is entitled to drugs approved by the NICE technology appraisals. That means that commissioners are not obliged to commission psychological therapies. Even when they do, as has been said, often a maximum number of treatments are prescribed. Can noble Lords imagine, for drugs for a physical illness or chemotherapy, being told, “When you’ve had a maximum of 20 of these injections or radiotherapy sessions, you’re on your own, mate”? Why should that be so for treatment for mental illnesses?
To return to medicines versus therapies, my second viewpoint is from my involvement in mindfulness practice. For centuries we have understood that there are practices we can adopt at an early age for our physical well-being that can be preventive and stop us getting ill, so that even if we contract an illness our physical fitness helps us to recover faster or at least helps us live more comfortably with the condition that we have. We have only recently become aware that the same is true for our mental health. With mindfulness-based practices, one can have a healthier, more enjoyable and productive way of life, and mindfulness can prevent depression and anxiety. It has been proven to NICE that to prevent people slipping back into depression, mindfulness practice can be more effective than drugs or talking methods.
Again, the Centre for Mental Health has said that we need to narrow the gap in the way people’s needs are met in physical and mental health, not only in health and social care but in education, employment and the criminal justice system. A mindfulness strategy for the UK is being designed and developed by my honourable friend Chris Ruane MP and my noble friend Lord Layard and others. It builds upon the work currently being done in this field by universities such as Bangor, Oxford and Exeter. They are working on mindfulness in the education system, for students and teachers in schools and universities, so that it exists in the same way as we have physical training, and are also working in the criminal justice system where, as has been said, we have systemic issues with mental health. Mindfulness practice could be enormously helpful for offenders and police.
Noble Lords may wish to know that in addition to the gymnasium for one’s physical health on the Parliamentary Estate, a mindfulness course operates in this building, including Members of the other place from all parties and a number of Peers. The course is conducted by Professor Mark Williams and Chris Cullen, using their scientifically proven method of training. We have a new series starting here next week, which noble Lords may wish to join. Mindfulness will allow people to understand that mind and body are one and that we should care for each for the development of the other. Thank you.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I want to start by saying why this is such an important debate and thank the noble Lord, Lord Layard, for securing it. Some of the biggest inequalities in health today are faced by people with mental health problems. Nothing illustrates that more starkly than the fact that we know that people affected by serious mental illness die on average 20 years earlier than the rest of the population from preventable physical health conditions—something I am sure we all regard as a scandal. Thus I strongly welcome the Government’s very clear commitment to achieve parity of esteem for mental health. The 2011 strategy document, No Health Without Mental Health, made an unambiguous commitment to parity of esteem and set a clear objective that more people with mental health problems will have good physical health, fewer people with mental health problems will die prematurely, and more people with physical ill health will have better mental health. In addition, of course, as we have heard, the NHS mandate commits to achieving this and will carry out a progress report in 2015.
I think, however, that in this Chamber we would all accept that there is still a long way to go. To make a reality of these very good intentions I contend that three things need to happen. First, people with mental health problems must have the same access to treatment and services as those with physical health problems; secondly, they must have the same rights within the NHS constitution; and thirdly, they must have equal patient voice as those with physical health problems. What more, then, can be done in practice?
I will start with something that I regard as very positive indeed, which we have heard spoken about so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Layard. I refer to the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme. We all know that in many places this programme has provided an invaluable service. It has achieved high recovery rates and has helped people both get back to work and stay well. Indeed, an IAPT service user recently told the mental health charity Mind that:
“Receiving psychological therapy turned out to be the best thing that could possibly happen for me, it was exactly what I needed … a place for me to finally look at my past and put the pieces together and come to understand why I felt the way I did”.
I shall now talk about how this affects people with complex needs. It was, of course, hoped that focusing additional resources on the more common mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, would free up waiting lists and resources for other forms of therapy for those with more complex needs, such as people with substance misuse problems and those with more severe mental health problems. As ever, there have been unintended consequences. It is worth emphasising that IAPT was never intended to act as a comprehensive service delivering all forms of psychological therapy. Indeed, Department of Health guidance made it clear that IAPT money should not be used to replace funding for other psychological therapies. Despite that, in 2010 the We need to talk report showed that this was happening in a number of areas, where non-IAPT services were either having their funding cut or being entirely decommissioned, so that IAPT was replacing, not improving, the provision of psychological therapies.
If this were a physical health problem we would not tolerate the lack of choice and treatment options given to people with mental health problems. In some places we are in danger of reaching the point where if you do not get better after a course of CBT there is simply nowhere else for you to go—and we all recognise that for some people, CBT is not the right choice of therapy in the first place. There are other NICE-approved therapeutic interventions that should also be available.
I shall ask the Minister two questions. First, do the Government recognise the need to provide a full choice of evidence-based psychological therapies on a sufficient scale to meet the requirements of people with more complex mental health problems? Secondly—this echoes something that the noble Lord, Lord Layard, said—what plans do the Government have to introduce standards for waiting times for mental health equivalent to those for physical health, and, in particular, to amend the NHS constitution to ensure the availability of psychological therapies within 28 days of a referral?
I now turn to preventive approaches, and in particular to intervening early in a child’s or a young person’s life. There is now clear evidence of the importance of intervening early to promote resilience in young people, to prevent mental illness and to promote well-being. The children with the poorest life chances of all are those who have early-starting behavioural problems. They are 19 times more likely than their peers to be in prison by their mid-20s, and have high rates of school exclusion, unemployment, gang membership—especially among girls—suicide, and a range of physical health problems during their lifetime.
Cost-effective parenting programmes are now available for families whose children have behavioural problems, to help them manage them from an early age. These include family nurse partnerships for the most vulnerable families and parent training programmes. Of course, availability of these programmes is patchy and they are not always delivered as intended for maximum effectiveness.
For parity to extend to children with behavioural problems, two things are necessary. First, maternity services, health visitors, GPs and schools should regularly look out for families at risk and routinely assess healthy child development to identify children with early signs of behavioural problems. Secondly, parenting programmes should be made available to families who really need them, targeted towards those in greatest need but with easy referral routes to prevent them from becoming stigmatised.
I now turn to how primary care and mental health services are configured. I do not think that it will be a surprise if I say that they often do not work well together. How could primary care services be designed so as to encourage better integration with mental health services? There are three potential big improvements. The first would be mental health support for the 4.6 million people in England with major physical conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, and a concurrent mental health problem—most likely to be depression—by offering psychological therapies, as I described earlier, and help with self-management. The second would be physical health support for people with severe mental illness—for example, those who may need help with weight management, particularly those on anti-psychotic medication, and with smoking cessation. Finally, there is care for people with medically unexplained symptoms. At least one-quarter of hospital outpatients who have physical symptoms with no explained physical cause may very well benefit from psychological support.
Breaking down the barriers between primary care and mental health is vital to achieve the changes that we want to see. I contend that GPs need clear incentives to address the overlaps between physical and mental health—for example, through the Quality and Outcomes Framework for general practice—and that payment systems for mental and physical healthcare need to be better aligned to prevent mental health budgets being raided when there is pressure on acute hospital spending. On that issue, we hear almost daily of the pressure on A&E departments. There are growing concerns about the quality of care and support that people with mental health problems receive when in crisis. Recently published research showed that people using mental health services were twice as likely as others to present in A&E, causing all the problems that we have heard so much about.
In the comprehensive spending review of June 2013, the Chancellor committed to every A&E department having constant access to mental health professionals to ensure that people with mental health problems got the best possible care. That is something that I very much support. It is vital that all hospitals put in place comprehensive liaison psychiatry services, available 24/7 to all hospital wards for people of all ages, from children with emergency admissions for self-harm to older people with dementia. Can the Minister update us on progress in this area?
I stress the very important and key role that family, friends and the wider community can play in mental health and well-being. In many areas, we have seen good projects and approaches. There is support and care for the families and carers of those with mental health problems, as well as, in some cases, carers having their own recovery plan, which is a very interesting idea. Finally, I emphasise the important role that health and well-being boards should be playing to embrace mental health, seeing it as a key aspect of public health. I know that in local government its profile is being raised, and some local authorities are now having a local authority mental health champion. That is very positive—to have a member who can champion mental health issues in every single area of council business—and I hope that we hear of more such examples today.
Baroness Murphy (CB)
My Lords, the sustained commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Layard, to improving mental health care has had a profound impact on mental health services since 2008, and I admire him for it. If today I challenge some of the priorities, this in no way detracts from his remarkable achievements in addressing the needs of a long-neglected group of patients who, after all, make up the vast majority of a GP’s mental health load. But I return to patients with severe mental illness, including schizophrenia, the recurring psychoses, and those with mixed substance abuse and psychosis. As the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, said, the importance of achieving parity of access and healthcare for them is shown starkly by the increased mortality and physical morbidity that they suffer. As Professor Graham Thornicroft from the Institute of Psychiatry has memorably observed, patients with long-term psychoses have third-world mortality in a first-world country, dying on average 20 years earlier than the general population, often of preventable smoking-related diseases and treatable cancers as well as the obvious suicides and accidents. This is completely unacceptable in a country such as ours, so I would like to know what are we doing for them and whether we are truly prioritising those greatest in need.
There have been considerable successes in the mental health strategy that has been adopted in recent years, and I mention in particular the increased services for people with dementia, which has undoubtedly risen up the Government’s awareness scale. That has been a great help for families which have a person with dementia. We have also had some success in trying to improve the assessment of risk to others posed by some severely mentally ill patients. This year’s annual report of the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness by Professor Louis Appleby and his colleagues shows that homicide by mental health patients has fallen substantially since a peak in 2006. The most recent figures are the lowest since data collection began, albeit in a setting of a national reduction in homicides. This is especially true for people with schizophrenia. The homicide statistics are tiny, in spite of what might have been heard on the news in the past week—they are now extremely small—but they are very important as an indicator of the cultural attitude of mental health workers to assessment of risk.
But all is not well. Suicide by mental health patients has risen again. There were more than 1,300 deaths in England in 2011, after a previous fall. The rise partly echoes the rise in suicide in the general population, probably related to the economic downturn, as has happened in every previous recession that we can measure. But in recent years there have been more suicides in those undergoing home treatment or crisis resolution than in-patient care, which used to be one of the areas with the greatest risks. A substantial proportion of these deaths occurred in patients who live alone, have refused treatment, or are accepting only partial treatment. Services simply are not providing enough round-the-clock care of the right kind to the very severely ill. The mantra of home treatment needs better thinking through if we are to keep patients out of hospital and safe.
So we have made substantial gains in some areas but are losing pace in others. I have concerns about the direction that mental health services are now taking. I do not want to disparage the value of treating patients with common mental health episodes with cognitive behavioural therapy and other NICE-recommended therapies, but we have to be aware that the budget for psychological therapies has gone up from £100 million annually to £400 million without even reaching a high proportion of sufferers of the milder forms of distress, as the noble Lord, Lord Layard, has said. I do not dispute the efficacy of such treatment; with good CBT, faithful to the model delivered by a good therapist, 40% get better, of those who accept the offer of treatment, which is 15% better than doing nothing. For mildly to moderately unwell patients it is effective. But we have to recognise that the studies do not include patients who never accept treatment because of chaotic lives, intrusive events, a dislike of sitting down and talking, a failure of faith in the referrer, which is all too often the case, and sometimes also because people have learning disabilities and are unable to value the treatments, in spite of those patients having a very high order of risk of depression and anxiety. These factors significantly reduce the efficacy of treatments. We would surely get better value for money from addressing the problems which still beset people with more serious long-term mental illness. I accept the economic argument from the noble Lord, Lord Layard, for treating lesser forms of disorder; it is very compelling. But the only true justification for treating patients is the overall reduction in patient suffering and the burden of disability overall in the community, which is worse for those with the most severe illness.
The USA introduced a parity of esteem law in 1996. It was meant to improve the investment in mental health services through Medicaid and other insurance and to bring it up to the level of physical health services. I accept that managed care solutions funded by the public purse in the United States are not entirely analogous to publicly funded systems here, but they are similar enough. There is now worrying evidence that, in the States, the greater access to services for the less severely affected has impacted negatively on the care of the seriously mentally ill. A recent study by the well-known sociologists David Mechanic and Donna McAlpine, who for many years have been experts in the United States on the provision of mental health care, demonstrated that this apparent increased democratisation of mental health has simply shifted money from the severely ill to the lesser forms of illness, away from those with the least chance of ever being able to work and those with the highest excess mortality and suicide rates.
These findings are deeply worrying and should give us pause. There is some evidence that this is already happening here. In 2011-12 there was a reduction in spending on crisis resolution and on outreach services for those in acute crisis, while spending on psychological therapies rose by 6%. Total spending on mental health has increased by a massive 60% in real terms over the decade. That is something for us to celebrate, but now we are beginning to see a fall in investment in the acute care end.
It seems to me that the NHS and social care services should listen more to Mind, Rethink and SANE, and listen to what their priorities are. If true parity of esteem is to be promoted then we must look at the way that these acute and crisis services are running. Four in 10 trusts have staffing levels well below established benchmarks. There are serious issues around safety, respect and dignity in in-patient care. There are still insufficient non-hospital options.
As long as 10% of patients with schizophrenia kill themselves, we have not got our priorities right. As long as the rate of psychosis in prisons is 50 times higher than in the general population, then we have not got our funding priorities right. If we are really to make headway with mental health services, we must first and foremost concentrate on those who pose the highest risk to themselves or the highest risk to others, and try to improve the lives of people whose lives are truly blighted by long-term psychotic illnesses.
Lord Alderdice (LD)
My Lords, I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Layard, on achieving this substantial debate and indeed, as he himself mentioned, on the timing of the debate. He has been pressing the case for some time, and in doing so he has my support and that of many in this House. I identify myself very much with the speeches of my noble friend Lady Tyler of Enfield and the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy. I wish to touch upon many of the things that they mentioned and I strongly support others, although I will not refer to them.
As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Layard, in many ways this debate comes from the crucial decision by your Lordships’ House to press the case for parity of esteem between physical and mental illness to be included in the Bill which passed through this House. I well remember that reassurances were given, both in negotiations outside the House and on the Floor of the House, that this was not necessary. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Howe, who has made it very clear on a number of occasions since the Bill became an Act that it does make a difference, that it is a legal requirement, that health commissioners now have to address this question, and that others who need care can turn to it in various ways as a matter of law in this country. We must now press the case as strongly as we can. I welcome this debate because it is part of the process of pressing the case.
The noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, reminisced about his experience as a medical student, and inevitably encouraged me to think in the same way. I remember quite a different experience. As a young medical student I went to work for a psychiatrist, Dr Artie Kerr, for a number of weeks. I was enormously impressed by the way in which he could understand what was going on behind the scenes with the patient. He was able to pick up—and to help me to understand in a way that I simply had not seen at all—how sometimes the person who came along smiling was actually deeply depressed inside, and how in fact much could be done even with those people who had been ill for a long time, not least in caring for them when you could not cure them.
What an extraordinary business it is that we think that if you cannot cure someone with a mental illness you should not bother to look after them. If this was a patient with diabetes, which we cannot cure, would we say, “Ah well, we should forget about it”? Take a child with cystic fibrosis. We know that they are likely to die early, but should we say that we should not bother putting any money into caring for them? Yet if someone has a mental illness, and they are not going to get better in a short time or perhaps not at all, then caring does not seem to matter. It is all about cure. Let us not be seduced by those kinds of arguments. They take humanity out of our service, and they take humanity out of ourselves. It was that understanding from Dr Kerr which made me feel that that is the kind of work which I want to pick up on.
As a junior psychiatrist I used to spend a lot of time going round NGOs and charitable bodies, giving lectures and doing radio and television work at home in Northern Ireland, trying to get across this whole question. I remember very well doing a programme with a very senior surgeon, Professor Rodgers. He had been a surgeon all his life, and was a very eminent man. He listened to me for a little while, and then he said, “You know, I have treated many people with terminal illnesses, very painful illnesses, who were having a very hard time. Very, very few of them ever decided to end their life; some did, but very few. But I know that a large percentage of people with mental illness find life so intolerable that they want to bring it to an end. In many ways, the suffering of mental illness is so much greater than the suffering of even some of the dreadful cancers I have had to treat”. I have never forgotten that. It was a very human response, and a very real one.
One of the striking causes of mortality in mental illness is of course when people take their own life, in suicide or in self-harm that goes further. We are talking about something that really does mean a life-threatening disturbance. That is why I was commissioned, with a number of colleagues, by the royal college to produce a report on suicide and self-harm, and what we can do for patients. That report was produced in June 2010, and it was not just a matter of a few of us sitting down and thinking about it. We did a survey of a large number of members of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and we concluded that,
“there is enough evidence to demonstrate that we are far from achieving the level of care that service users need or the standards set out in policies and guidelines. Poor assessments, relying too much on risk issues, staff unskilled in dealing with patients who harm themselves, inappropriate discharge arrangements, lack of follow-up of patients, lack of care pathways, insufficient access to psychological treatments and poor access to services for particular groups amount to inadequate standards of care that impact on the lives of service users and their families. There is a serious problem relating to the deployment and availability of senior staff, with adequate psychotherapy and psychiatry training. It is likely that because of these services and staffing defects, the majority of self-harm remains invisible until a crisis occurs, adding to human misery and to the stress on hospital services.”
The noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, pointed out that since that time in 2010 the incidence of suicide has actually increased rather than decreased. I therefore ask my noble friend the Minister if he would agree to meet with me and a small number of colleagues from the Royal College of Psychiatrists to look at how far the findings of that report have been taken up and implemented by Her Majesty’s Government since then and how far they have not, and to explore how some more progress might be made on the findings of that report.
While something dramatic such as self-harm or suicide is clearly a crisis, there are all sorts of ways in which mental disturbances differ from each other. This is not a homogenous group of people with a homogenous group of disorders, which is one of the reasons why we run into problems. On the physical side we are very aware of the difference between symptoms and a disorder. If I run up the stairs to the Principal Floor I will probably be breathless; I am not terribly fit, you see. That is a reaction to physical exertion, but it is not a sign of illness. It is a sign of unfitness, but not a sign of illness. However, if I am sitting on the Bench here and I become breathless, that is wholly another matter.
There are many ways in which we experience psychological symptoms. It always seems curious to me that we accept that we will all have physical illnesses, mild and more severe, during our lives, yet we pretend to ourselves that we will not have mental and emotional disturbances—every single one of us, not just the ones who have to be referred for treatment. However, many of the emotional reactions that we have are not a sign of illness or disturbance. If someone is down and depressed and is not sleeping very well three weeks after the death of their spouse, that is not a sign of illness; it is a sign of an appropriate reaction to a bereavement. If, three years later, they are in the same state, that is another matter. However, we have to differentiate those people who can get better with a little help from their family and friends and whose condition does not need to be medicalised, as well as those who suffer from relatively moderate disorders, from those who have very severe disorders, as the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, pointed out. It is clear that if we do not do that, we will be so swamped that it will be impossible to deal with the problems. What will happen is that those with the more severe illnesses will end up being set to the side because they have illnesses from which it is difficult to get better. That is a very serious problem for us.
I should like to believe that we have begun to think not only about treating the illnesses but about how to prevent them. We are clear that government policy should say that we should not smoke, drink too much or eat too much and that obesity needs to be addressed. However, what about bullying behaviour in government departments? It sometimes almost seemed to be a policy approach that the way to increase productivity was to drive people into the ground, and I have absolutely no doubt about the adverse mental health impacts of that. Surely preventive health plays a part in the way that we approach things in government and set as an example to people outside government.
Worst of all is the feeling that somehow things are getting worse—that we are taking less of an interest in certain areas. I shall give your Lordships one example and, from that, pose a question to my noble friend. In the early 1960s, a chair of mental health was created at Queen’s University in Belfast. For the next 30 or more years, psychiatry and mental health was developed as a crucial component of the training of young doctors in Belfast. There is now no professor of psychiatry or mental health in Belfast. Massive amounts of money go into cancer research but there is not even a professor of mental health. Will my noble friend approach the GMC and ask it to insist that no medical faculty trains young doctors without having a professor of psychiatry in its medical faculty? It seems a very simple thing to ask.
Lord Adebowale (CB)
I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Layard, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for bringing forward this debate on what is a vital issue not only for our health and social care systems but for society more widely. I should declare my interest as the chief executive of a health and social organisation called Turning Point, and I will draw on some cases that Turning Point has come across to illustrate why parity of esteem is so important. I should also declare my interest as a non-executive director of NHS England. Many of the points made by other speakers, including the noble Lords, Lord Layard, Lord Alderdice and Lord Stone, and the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, I take to heart, and they can be assured that I will be making those points around the table of NHS England.
The strategy, No Health Without Mental Health, and the subsequent implementation framework make it clear that mental health is everyone’s business: one in four adults and one in 10 children in the UK are experiencing mental health issues at any given time; 30% of the 15 million people with a long-term health condition also have mental health problems; and, as has been pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, within a prison environment up to 90% of the population experience one or more mental health conditions, often alongside substance misuse and/or a learning disability. Given this and the costs of mental health, calculated by the Centre for Mental Health to be £105 billion, it is frankly shocking that huge disparity still exists between those with a diagnosable mental health issue and those without. As has already been mentioned in the debate, this results in there being an unacceptable difference in the life expectancy of those with a severe mental health condition and those without of between 16 and 25 years.
I want to illustrate my contribution to this debate from the perspective of people who have mental health issues, and perhaps I may do so by presenting to the House three very short vignettes. The first is a case that has come to the attention of Turning Point. It illustrates a lack of consideration of an individual’s whole needs. It concerns a chap called Fred, although I have changed his name. He has a learning disability and a history of poor eyesight, which staff assessed as contributing towards his high levels of anxiety. Staff working closely with Fred arranged for him to access specialist optical services. It was found that he had a detached retina and cataracts were diagnosed, leading to surgery. Following this surgery, a decrease in what had been perceived as “challenging behaviour” was clearly evidenced. This is someone who, because of a physical illness, had been classed as severely problematic.
The second case concerns professionals failing to work together. Alan had enduring mental health issues when he experienced a stroke and was admitted to the local hospital from one of our residential services. While in hospital undergoing rehabilitation, Alan had all medication reviewed by a ward doctor. The doctor, knowing that Alan had a mental health condition, decided without any discussion with him, the care manager or psychiatrist to stop his medication, even though it had a multiple purpose. It could be used to reduce mood swings and also to treat epilepsy. The hospital doctor stated that, as Alan did not have epilepsy, the medication could be stopped with immediate effect. This had a detrimental effect on his mental health—something that the doctor appeared to be ambivalent about, having not once discussed anything other than Alan’s physical needs with any member of his care team.
The final case is, I think, the most shocking example and most immediate in case we have any doubt that these issues are taking place right now. It involves a support worker who just happened to be at the bedside of one of our clients. They noticed that the file was open and that there was a “Do Not Resuscitate” note in it. Luckily, the care worker knew that no such thing had been discussed with the individual’s next of kin. The support worker challenged hospital staff and was told that because the individual was a mental health patient and under a Home Office order, he had “no priority of life”. Because our member of staff challenged this, the DNR note was removed, but the fact that it was there in the first place highlights the discriminatory treatment that people with a mental health condition can face, which is compounded when other complex needs are applicable, such as offending behaviours or a learning disability.
The implications of introducing parity of esteem are wide-ranging and they highlight the vast amount of work still required to make it real. Rhetoric, commitments and case studies have highlighted the need for parity but there are certain things that have to happen if this is to be embedded throughout the health and care system.
We will simply not achieve parity of esteem without first addressing equality of access and experience. This means breaking down the cultural barriers that still prohibit people from black and minority ethnic communities receiving the support that they need. As the Mental Health Foundation has found, people from BME groups are more likely to be diagnosed with mental health problems, more likely to be diagnosed and admitted to hospital, more likely to experience a poor outcome from treatment—this has been repeated in annual surveys of people in mental health institutions —and more likely to disengage from mainstream mental health services, leading to social exclusion and a deterioration in their mental health.
Staff at all levels of the health system, including GPs and A&E staff, must receive adequate training in mental health. So, too, should the police—something that was brought very much into my experience when I chaired the Commission on Mental Health and Policing. The police are too often the first point of contact for people experiencing a mental health crisis.
The commission reported that one of the clearest examples of disparity between physical and mental health was in regard to how the police and ambulance service respond to a crisis. If I or one of your Lordships had a heart attack—heaven forfend—I can guarantee that an ambulance would arrive within eight minutes. If I had a mental health crisis, it is more likely that I would be carted away by the police and it is highly likely that I would be put in the back of a police van. Such disparity has led to the deaths of too many people, particularly from BME groups. Responding to crisis is a whole other debate but, for me, it is the very start of any definition of parity of esteem. If you cannot have parity of esteem when you are in crisis, when can you have it?
Finally, I turn to something that I spoke about a lot when the Health and Social Care Bill was going through the House: the issue of integration. Until we have a health and care system that looks at the whole person and designs, commissions and delivers services in conjunction with the community to ensure that they are fit for purpose, fragmentation will persist. People will continue to receive disjointed care where their mental health issue is not considered alongside their physical health condition because it is not a priority or is not understood well enough.
The implications of embedding parity certainly will be challenging and require people to work differently, but if we do what we have always done, we will get what we have always got, and the experiences of the people that I have highlighted show why this is no longer acceptable.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Layard for providing this opportunity on World Mental Health Day to focus our attention on how we treat mental health in our National Health Service.
The prevalence of mental illness in the UK was starkly set out in the Government’s mental health strategy, No Health Without Mental Health. I have no expertise in this area, but the figures are desperately worrying. Others have mentioned them, so I will just single out three: almost half of all adults will experience at least one episode of depression during their lifetime, and depression affects one in five older people; about 10% of children have a mental health problem at any one time; the UK has one of the highest rates for self-harming in Europe—400 per 100,000 population. Perhaps I should add that only one in 10 prisoners has no mental disorder.
These numbers have far-reaching impact. As we have been reminded, people with severe mental illnesses die on average 20 years earlier than the general population. People with mental health problems often have fewer qualifications, find it harder to find and stay in work, are more likely to be homeless and have poor physical health. We know that higher levels of insecurity and stress due to the recession, the poor job market and major upheavals in the welfare system have all had an impact on the mental health of the nation in recent years. It is no wonder that mental health services—what my right honourable friend the leader of the Opposition recently called the “afterthought” of the NHS—are straining at the seams.
As others have noted, mental illness is responsible for the largest proportion of the disease burden in the UK at 22.8%, larger than cardiovascular disease at 16.2% and cancer at 15.9%. Yet only 11% of the NHS budget was spent on NHS services to treat mental health problems for all ages during 2010-11. While figures show that investment in mental health services for adults of working age has increased by 1.2% in cash terms, this in fact amounts to a real-terms decrease.
My noble friends Lord Layard and Lord Stone drew attention to the poverty of investment in research into mental health issues, on which I hope that the Minister will comment in his reply.
A report last month from the Mental Health Foundation, Starting Today, showed how demand is rising just as investment in mental health services is falling. It reminds us that these services face even greater pressures in the future: a growing and aging population, increasing levels of simultaneous mental and physical health problems and, of course, funding constraints that have no end in sight. One of its key findings was the need for mental health to be treated as a core public health issue, with a public health workforce that sees mental health as one of its core responsibilities so that,
“it will be as normal for everyone to look after their mental health as it is to look after their physical health”.
This finding is at the heart of today’s debate. I support the Mental Health Foundation in its call on the coalition Government to prioritise investment in our nation’s mental health services. There is an overwhelming need for the aims of parity of esteem to be speeded up and given even higher priority.
The MHF report generated some useful media coverage. However, I am afraid that many more people will have read the stories just days later about the appalling “mental patient” and “psycho ward” Halloween costumes briefly released by two supermarkets, Tesco and Asda, offering customers the chance to dress up as a terrifying, straitjacketed crazy person covered in blood and brandishing a meat cleaver, or in an orange boiler suit, complete with jaw restraint and optional machete. The retailers withdrew the products and apologised with donations to the charity, Mind.
However, then came this week’s front-page headline in a tabloid newspaper, the Sun, giving a shock figure about the numbers “killed by mental patients” over the past decade. The headline plays on precisely the kind of prejudice that people with mental health problems have come to fear most, implying that they are violent, unstable monsters. Of course, the reality is that people with mental illnesses are three times more likely to be victims of crime than the general population, they are five times more likely to be victims of assault and severely mentally ill women are 10 times more likely to be assaulted.
Appallingly, victims say that their reports to the police are often dismissed or disbelieved. So it was good to see, earlier this summer, that there is to be an extension of the pilot scheme for mental health nurses to accompany police officers on emergency calls, to try to improve the way that people with mental health problems are treated during emergencies. This might go some way to avoiding incidents such as those referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, and one that a friend of mine recently reported to me. A colleague of hers had a husband who was finding it difficult to manage his bipolar medication. He had gone missing during a particularly distressing bipolar episode and the wife’s sister, a GP, had alerted the local police about his condition. Nevertheless, when he was found, banging on the locked door of a church, he was handcuffed, mistreated and kept in a police cell overnight on the assumption that he was drunk and would be sober in the morning.
We must tackle the stigma attached to mental illness. That stigma feeds prejudice and can lead to discrimination, particularly at work. For me, this comes close to home. A senior member of my staff told me only years later that she had left out her own brief history of clinical depression on the HR department’s health declaration form, for fear of being considered not capable of doing the job. That fear of discrimination remains. As someone told me recently, “If you phone work saying you’re staying in bed for a few days with flu, employers will be understanding. You’re not likely to get the same response if you say you’re staying in bed because you’re depressed, or feeling suicidal”.
Stigma and discrimination ruin lives and prevent people with mental health problems using their full potential and playing an active part in society. Mind and Rethink Mental Illness are campaigning to change this, but, sadly, it is still true that we view mental illness differently from physical illness and that has a direct, negative impact on people with mental illness and on the understanding and services that they receive.
The Mental Health Network says that parity of esteem for mental health will happen only if services and organisations work together. The Royal College of Psychiatrists’ trenchant Whole-Person Care report earlier this year sets out what it believes a parity approach should look like. Crucially, it emphasises that there should be investment in the prevention of mental health problems and in the promotion of mental well-being, in proportion to need. Yet only five strategic health authority regions were able to report increased investment in mental health in 2011-12. Underinvestment in the mental health care system, when those in most need often miss out on essential care, is a disgrace. While we have heard much about the Government’s commitment to ensuring parity between services for physical and mental illness, it is abundantly clear that we need to do much more to bring this parity about. There used to be a taboo about speaking about cancer —“the big C”—as which, thankfully, has now disappeared. The same must happen with mental illness.
To end, I will echo the concerns of my noble friend Lord Layard about the new commissioning systems. Will the Minister, in his reply, tell us how the new GP commissioning process, as a front-line service, will respond to the need for parity? How will CCGs be helped to improve their mental health commissioning capability and the quality of the mental health services that they are commissioning? What assurance can he give us that the new NHS commissioning systems will truly deliver for mental health?
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)
My Lords, I think that we are all very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Layard, for securing this debate. It is a theme of such enormous dimensions that it is almost tempting to avoid how centrally serious it is. He has concentrated on this area for many years, and I am sure that many of us have learnt from his work. I declare an interest as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which has among its responsibilities helping to reduce—of course, one hopes, to eliminate—unlawful discrimination on the basis of disability, including unlawful discrimination on the basis of mental health disability.
Speaking in June this year, the Minister with responsibility for care services, Norman Lamb, commented on the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ report, to which reference has been repeatedly been made, Whole-Person Care: From Rhetoric to Reality (Achieving Parity Between Mental and Physical Health). He said:
“What do we mean by parity of esteem? … I think the report—in its definition and vision for parity—has it right. It’s about equality in how we think about mental health and physical health care—it’s about how they’re valued. We need to ‘close the gap’ with physical health services—whether that’s a gap in access, in quality, in research, or even in the aspirations we have for people”.
As the Minister made very clear, this is an extremely large agenda ranging from the commissioning of services and the integration of services to interventions to reduce premature mortality among those suffering from mental health conditions. It is also an agenda that stretches far beyond the NHS. Indeed, it is an agenda to which anybody and everybody, particularly employers, communities and schools, can make a large contribution.
Parity of esteem is not just a matter of ensuring that different conditions are treated with the expertise appropriate to them, although that is, of course, central. It is not just a matter of concern within the health and care systems that the people who suffer these conditions are treated with dignity and respect. It extends far beyond medical treatment and care, and many non-medical approaches are also of great importance.
First, I shall give a brief reminder of how stark and bitter the absence of parity of esteem and all that goes with it can be for those who suffer mental health conditions and for their friends and family. I have been permitted by a colleague to quote from an account from a family with two sons who are both young adults. One is in an advanced stage of muscular dystrophy and the other is diagnosed as chronically mentally ill. The family said:
“The son who is physically disabled has many special needs. He gets emotional support everywhere he turns. His handicap is visible and obvious and the community, family and friends open their hearts to him and go out of their way to make his life better. My other son, on the other hand, is misunderstood and shunned by all. He is also terribly disabled … but his disability is not visible.”
At least, it is not visible in the same way. The extended family,
“all think that he’s lazy, stupid, weird and naughty. They suggest that somehow we have made some terrible mistake in his upbringing. When they call on the phone they ask how his brother is and talk to his brother but they never inquire about him. He upsets them. They … wish that he’d go away”.
That is poignant and sad, and shows how stark the absence of parity of esteem and all that goes with it can be for those who suffer mental health conditions. That probably is an extreme case, all the more poignant for being in one family, but it reminds us of a lot.
Of course, these conditions and their diagnoses are complex and highly varied. Many conditions have both mental and physical aspects. For example—I know that this also is a very large area of need—difficulties with communication are not easily classified as mental or physical, and there are many other conditions that combine both sorts of symptom. We have to agree that there are physical conditions—for example, disfigurement —where sufferers may encounter reactions from others that are as harsh as those sometimes faced by people with mental health conditions.
We also have to remember that there are many conditions which people do not want to disclose. We have very little idea how many of those we live among may be coping on a daily basis with physical and mental conditions that are invisible to us, that they manage more or less adequately and that they try to keep to themselves, be it diabetes or depression, digestive problems or severe phobias. Nor do we have much idea how much physical or mental pain, or both, others are often managing, whether day-in, day-out or episodically. Much of the burden of disease is invisible to others, and much of it is not solely mental or solely physical.
We also must not forget the cases where the conditions are all too visible. One of the difficulties is that the person who has the condition becomes invisible because people focus on the wrong thing. One only has to witness the many terrible stories of the condescension to which wheelchair users are subject, as though the use of a wheelchair somehow rendered one incapable of speaking.
For all those reasons, I believe that, while changes in the way in which we organise health and social care are essential for securing parity of esteem for persons with different sorts of health conditions, much also depends on the social and economic arrangements that we have, and in making sure that they recognise and include those with varying health conditions.
I shall make just a few illustrative comments on the way in which wider employment and community arrangements can make a difference. Let me start with something that perhaps is mainly a concern of schools; namely, speech and language difficulties. It has long been recognised that this is a major area in which complex interventions and social support matter greatly. The Bercow report, A Review of Services for Children and Young People (0-19) with Speech, Language and Communication Needs, was published a few years ago but its findings bear repetition. It states:
“Approximately 7% of five year olds entering school in England—nearly 40,000 children in 2007—have significant difficulties with speech and/or language. These children are likely to need specialist and/or targeted intervention at key points in their development. Approximately 1% of five year olds … more than 5,500 children in 2007—have … severe and complex”,
difficulties in this area.
“They may not understand much of what is said to them … may have very little spoken language”,
and are at risk of other mental health conditions.
Specialist intervention is, of course, what is important for such children and young people but again it is not all that is needed. For those with communication difficulties, the reaction of others can be one of the worst hurdles. The parents of such children,
“expressed concern that their children’s ability to communicate, to speak and to understand was taken for granted”.
They said that,
“their children often looked like any ‘normal’ child and yet behaved differently”.
One parent commented:
“They don’t think quickly and they can’t express themselves quickly, but they look as if they can manage. All my children stare at people because they are looking for cues, and that causes fights”.
Here we can see very clearly that a great deal of what matters for partly invisible conditions is inclusion; that is, including the child with communication difficulties in activities, in school, in play, in the community and, later, in the workplace.
A final example is one that employers can foster. I believe that the example of really energetic ways to develop flexible working can make a great difference to many people. The British Telecom report, Flexible Working: Can Your Company Compete Without It?, states:
“At BT, flexible working is business as usual. Already seven out of 10 people work flexibly and nearly 10% are home-based. It has saved the company millions in terms of increased productivity and cut costs. It has also motivated our people and released more potential … we are attempting nothing less than the complete transformation of the way in which the company runs, the way we communicate, and the way we work together”.
For BT, that saves costs and improves productivity. I think that we must all acknowledge that it is in an advantageous position because telecommunications allows for distant working more easily, but remote working, even if harder in other areas, can have many benefits—above all, the benefit of the possibility of including many people who either could not travel to work or could not work as many hours as some others. It has great benefits for carers, including the benefit of a working life of self-respect and money they have earned.
There are many other examples of businesses making creative and effective use of specific disabilities, including mental health disabilities. There are companies that have found ways to use the distinctive capacities of some people with high functioning autism spectrum disorders to carry out tasks that require focused accuracy and have given them preferential employment in these areas. For example, the Danish company—I may mispronounce it—Specialisterne, is almost entirely staffed by people with autism spectrum disorders. They specialise in the high precision task of quality checking software. Apparently, those of us who do not have those disorders would be less good at it.
The benefits of inclusion matter greatly for those with mental conditions as well as those with physical conditions. We should make efforts to secure as much inclusion in schools, at work and in community life for those with disabilities of all sorts as we possibly can.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Layard, has taken a long and influential interest in mental health; not least as a leading economist, he has made a powerful economic case for parity of esteem. We are very grateful to him for securing this debate.
I notice that the noble Lord is sitting alongside the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, on what I suppose one could describe as the polymath Bench this afternoon. This morning, the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, presented a most interesting Radio 4 programme featuring the life of Galen, the extraordinary second century Roman doctor. Galen discovered many things about medicine. One was that he realised that much of the variation in physical health and in human behaviour can be explained by temperament and stress, as he put it. He identified the inseparable links between physical pathology and psychopathology 1,900 years ago. To some people suffering from mental illness in this country and in particular to those who live with them, it can sometimes appear as though little more has been learnt in the past 2,000 years.
Of course, that is unfair. Generally speaking, huge advances have been made in the treatment of mental illness. Drugs are available which, for example, have vastly improved the quality of life for patients suffering from bipolar disorder and, more recently, for patients suffering from acute schizophrenia and other conditions. Therapies, not always involving drugs, have had a remarkable and beneficial impact on many individuals—albeit, I am afraid, with patchy availability in this country. I had the privilege of serving as Member of Parliament for a constituency in rural mid-Wales for some years. This is a bit historic, but even today I understand that the availability of therapies is very uneven in an area like that. You can get a therapy, but not necessarily the right therapy. Providing the correct therapy is extremely important.
The stigma of mental illness remains an obstacle to progress. The fear of telling an employer of a psychiatric diagnosis remains much greater than revealing a physical illness, however serious. In my own legal profession, I have seen careers destroyed by a psychiatric illness of limited duration, whereas a physical illness of similar duration has been received with sympathy and patience and people have been able to return to practice.
There has been some progress. The media have taken a commendable lead. I do not only listen to the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, on the radio; sometimes I watch television drama. Storylines in recent crime noir series, in “Homeland” and elsewhere, have highlighted that anyone, including the at least apparently heroic, can suffer from a mental illness and still lead a perfectly normal life and provide service to society.
Recently, I enjoyed the privilege of co-chairing with Professor Dinesh Bhugra an investigation for the Mental Health Foundation into the future of mental health services. Our report, Starting Today, was produced last month. There is not enough time in a debate such as this to go into the detail of the report, but one of its foundations was pleasure at the 2011 English mental health strategy, which rightly committed this country to parity of esteem. However, the declaration, welcome as it is, has not been matched by progress, which has been variable and not yet quick.
The Mental Health Foundation report has headlined a number of issues which could develop parity of esteem in the coming years. I will refer to a few of them. We certainly took the view that we need to look at fresh ways of implementing known best practice alongside developing technology. Above all, I would like to highlight mental health in primary care. GPs should become—but in only a few cases have become—leaders in mental health care, providing quickly accessible services in their surgeries.
I referred earlier to rural mid-Wales. I know of one practice which years ago introduced a psychotherapist into the health centre in a small Welsh market town. It had a remarkable effect. It meant that the doctor could say to the patient, “I think you need to go down the corridor and talk to my colleague”. An intervention was made which beneficially affected the life of the patient concerned. We need to see more of that. By the way, a two-week wait for an appointment with a doctor just will not do for someone suffering from a growing mental condition. GPs need to know as much about mental illness as about physical illness. So far as possible, primary and secondary mental health services should merge to produce early treatment and the value for money that the noble Lord, Lord Layard, has identified in some of the work he has done over the years on mental health.
The Mental Health Foundation report also found that there is value in self-management. So far as possible, patients in a personalised service should be encouraged to take training in the management of their own care in partnership with therapists and clinicians. A stake in your own recovery is a real incentive for a person who is suffering from mental health problems, but it needs some formal help.
Turning to crisis care and community support, every accident and emergency facility should be equipped to deal with emergency mental health issues, to be followed up by community support. They are not. All over the country, they are not equipped. That is not acceptable.
On collaborative working, I emphasise something that I have encountered in other areas, such as child safeguarding, which is the sharing of information. When somebody with a mental illness goes into an accident and emergency department, a solicitor’s office, a police station or a school, they go into a silo. That is not acceptable. Data protection is used as an excuse for not sharing information. Actually, it is near criminal not to share information for people who have needs that are demonstrated by mental illness. We must ensure that those who have information to share do not sit in silos and that the ability to pool funds from different funding streams into a single integrated care budget, shared protocols and partnership agreements, co-location of services, multi-disciplinary teams and liaison services becomes a reality.
The Mental Health Foundation report also emphasised the beginning and the end of life as key areas where mental health interventions should be made available quickly and fully. Early interventions in schools can identify mental health issues that affect not only the child but the child’s parents and carers. Many cases have been highlighted in some terrible reports that have been produced after fatal events that show that to be the case.
The final issue that I want to raise in the time available concerns the elderly. Perhaps this is an issue that we can raise comfortably in your Lordships’ House because so many of us are OAPs these days. There is a growing issue, as we all know, about elderly care. Many of us have enjoyed having parents who lived into their late 90s and indeed, happily, there are Members of this House in their late 90s, but we know that this issue needs a great deal more work than it has received. It will enable elderly people to lead a full life albeit while suffering from some incipient dementia.
There are many challenges and this debate highlights them. It allows us to show Parliament’s determination that parity of esteem should be a must and not merely a phrase.
Baroness Hollins (CB)
My Lords,
“No health without mental health”,
was the strap line adopted by the Royal College of Psychiatrists during my presidency and now for the Government’s mental health strategy. Dividing a person’s health into either physical or mental is a false dichotomy and one that has for too long encouraged us to focus on parts of a person rather than on that person as a whole. I remember as a medical student being asked to, “See the spleen in bed six”. Things have moved on a little since then, but psychiatric patients still find themselves being referred to as schizophrenics or manic depressives.
Parity of esteem is not, of course, a new concept. As long ago as 1946, the World Health Organisation defined health as,
“a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.
Some 67 years later, billions of pounds in resources have been poured into physical health. We have created sophisticated cancer drugs, mapped the human genome and surgery can be done through tiny incisions. We do not even think of these things as remarkable any more. But the unequal allocation of funding and resources has left mental health some way behind physical health. Parity is not just about increasing resources for those with serious mental illness, but about attending to the physical health of people with mental illness or people with learning disabilities and attending to the mental health of people with physical illnesses.
As an example, GPs receive a payment for offering a health check to people with learning disabilities each year, but although this has been policy for some time, less than 50% of people with learning disabilities have yet had one—no wonder their life expectancy is so much lower than others when the reactive approach to physical health and mental health does not take account of the extra needs of some members of society in order to achieve good health. I would welcome a comment from the Minister about this point.
Parity is something that most people have not even started to think about. The BMA Board of Science, which I chair, is preparing a report on parity of esteem for its members at the moment. But as a colleague at the BMA recently commented, giving parity to mental health is a massive paradigm shift, which will have huge effects for many years to come. Despite the Equality Act, few healthcare staff understand that it applies to disabled people, including those with mental disorders, who are using mainstream health services. Sadly, discrimination is too often alive and well with respect to mental illness and learning disability.
Parity will have an effect on the training and education of all healthcare staff. It will have an effect on the commissioning and organisation of whole person healthcare. Just think: the time may have come to employ psychiatrists in acute hospitals, not just as part of liaison teams, but on the same terms and in the same numbers as other consultants so that more timely assessments and treatments can be offered. There could be psychiatrists who work with children, women, pregnant mothers, older people and adults, working alongside paediatricians, obstetricians, physicians, in the accident and emergency department and so on.
To focus so many of our resources on merely one aspect of health not only leaves other aspects untreated, it makes it difficult to treat physical illness properly. To use an analogy, it is like a three-legged stool, which supports the physical, mental and social health of a well-functioning human being. To take any one of those legs away or to shorten one leg is to leave the stool unbalanced and potentially unable to stand up at all.
I have spent most of my working life in the field of learning disability, both as a psychiatrist and as a parent, and I have often said that if you get it right for people with a learning disability, you will get it right for everyone. People with learning disabilities have complex needs and the interplay and overlap between physical and mental health is inescapable in this patient group. Not only that, but people with learning disabilities have higher levels of both physical and mental health needs than the general population. For example, they are twice as likely to suffer from depression and three times as likely to suffer from schizophrenia. The life expectancy of someone with a learning disability is 20 years less than the general population, even when factors directly related to the learning disability are removed. One in five people with a learning disability will not see their 50th birthday, and half of all people with a learning disability will die from pneumonia, often caused by choking on the wrong type of food or drink or aspirating it and getting pneumonia as a consequence.
This health inequality is often caused by a failure to consider both physical and mental causes of a deterioration in functioning, or to attribute any difficulties to the underlying learning disability—a type of diagnostic overshadowing in that it must be due to the learning disability. The health needs of this group are significant, but if you get it right for them, you get it right for others too.
Take, for example, John. John was admitted to hospital for an investigation of his physical deterioration, but in order to investigate the problems fully, he needed some investigations, some of them uncomfortable, unpleasant or painful. The staff made an attempt to get John to comply, but they were busy and did not know what to do. They shouted at him, begged him, offered him chocolate and called the consultant, but they did not make effective reasonable adjustments to facilitate his care. They did not understand his particular needs. After two weeks, John had had no investigations and his bed was needed, so he was sent home.
Once back at home, John remained listless, tired and kept losing weight. His worried carers eventually persuaded John to go to his GP where he was diagnosed with depression. He took anti-depressives but, crucially, was also given the time to talk about the things that were worrying him. That is unusual, because few psychological therapists have developed the skills to adapt their treatment to meet the individual communication needs of people with learning disabilities or autism.
The second time he went into hospital, because he continued to deteriorate, John had a hospital passport. This is an innovative idea to give hospital staff some guidance about his particular needs. He also had an understanding of what to expect and his depression had been treated. This time he had a successful hospital admission. He was diagnosed with cancer of the bowel, fortunately quite early. He was operated on and has made a successful recovery.
I do not just tell noble Lords that as a story with a happy ending—it could so easily have been different. The importance of this story is that you absolutely cannot adequately treat someone's physical illness without an understanding of that person as a whole. People with a learning disability are often unable to tell us in words about what is wrong and that is why we need to be alert to all the reasons why someone may be ill. But if we get that right, how much easier it will be to remember to ask other people about themselves as a whole.
Failures such as Winterbourne View and Mid Staffs happened because people were not seen as whole people. No one took the time to find out what the problem really was or how to fix it. In the case of Winterbourne View, it was so much easier to send people away to some specialist service than to really think about what was wrong.
You would not build a stool with only one leg and you absolutely cannot build an effective, equitable health system by focusing just on one aspect of health—by not giving parity of esteem to mental health. I have one word of caution. Our mental health is not all down to good assessment and good treatment. Prevention, and mentally healthy lifestyles, are key. That is why cross-government initiatives that recognise the relationship between, for example, poverty, unemployment and mental illness, are important.
In congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Layard, on securing this debate, which manages to coincide with World Mental Health Day, and for his sustained commitment to mental health, I would like to add my support to his suggestion that a senior Minister for mental health be appointed to work across all relevant departments. This is not just a matter for the Department of Health. Will our Government’s foresight in committing to achieve parity of esteem be demonstrable in our international policy and influence as well?
Finally, I hope that the Minister will agree with me that DfID really could help to influence attitudes internationally. There are estimates that 20% of the world’s population will be seriously depressed by 2020; yet only 1% of aid budgets has been committed to mental health services. Can that be right?
Lord Bragg (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Layard for securing this important debate and for his comprehensive and definitive speech, one of many erudite and moving contributions. Mental health—or, rather, its opposite—is a subject that impinged on me personally and crucially, some years ago. It was partly for that reason that I joined Mind and eventually became its president for 15 years. I handed over to Stephen Fry a year or so ago. I have talked to my friend, Paul Farmer, Mind’s chief executive, about this debate.
The bleak statistics have been set out clearly by many of your Lordships. The list of lacks is long. Six million adults suffer from different forms of depression; the cost of poor treatment is pain, distress and, we are told, £60 billion. As we have heard eloquently and graphically today, the injustice is intolerable, the neglect is shameful and the effects are often disastrous and on many levels.
The cleverness of this proposal, in my view, lies in the phrase “parity of esteem”. That is key; it opens up several doors, some of which lead to better prospects than others. We all agree that this parity must be based on parity of treatment with physical illness, as has been well said again and again. Progress depends on investment, but it also depends on something just as important, which is a fundamental change of attitude and the will to bring it about. The ancient stigma is dissolving, but very slowly, and is still, I suggest, however unconsciously, the major impediment to the parity that my noble friend Lord Layard seeks.
In terms of investment there is a deep problem; perhaps that is the elephant in the Chamber. We have an outstandingly good health service. I experienced it recently through myself, my family and two of my friends over the past 18 months, in the north-west of England, in Edinburgh and here in London. In every case we met high skills, courtesy and care—and still free, as Bevan intended. It is an amazing asset and a flagship for this country’s decency.
Today, however, this is accompanied in general terms by a rarely and uneasily articulated, yet growing, fear that this noble ideal—this vow in our country to deliver such a service, from however difficult a childbirth to however lingering a death—is now under serious threat, failing, falling and going. The extensive and inclusive nature of our health service is both its greatness and, in some people’s view, is proving to be its weakness. From the latest intricate and expensive surgery to looking after dumb Saturday night drunks; from the increasing flood of the complex ailments of old age to cosmetic surgery; and from dialysis to a small bruise, it serves a multiplying range of complaints and demands. As the needs increase, can we continue to afford it? Do Governments want to afford it? We read about subtraction, but rarely about additions: cutting is the sound of the day.
In that context I suggest that at present, sadly, mental health is low down on the list of priorities. It is a very demanding aspect of national health and of the utmost concern to all of us here, as it should be to everyone in the country. All of us here are trying to improve the position of those afflicted, at whatever level. Although we must keep up the pressure, it seems that we cannot merely reach out to the Treasury. We have to find other ways, if only as interim measures.
The direction to which my noble friend Lord Layard points us is as much in the human as in the economic sphere. Mind’s steady encouragement of people in the public eye to admit to mental health problems is one useful method. I did so myself when I became president of Mind 17 years ago; the public reaction was one of overwhelming relief. “I found that I was not alone”, people said, again and again. Too many people still are alone.
Next to increased investment, one of the best ways to meet this challenge is to find parity in the workplace, which gives people esteem in the eyes of others and of themselves. The knock-on effects are extremely encouraging. This has already been tried and encouraged by Mind. I will give one example. As part of Mind’s employee support programme, EDF offered psychological support—cognitive behavioural therapy—to employees and trained more than a thousand managers to recognise mental health problems among staff and develop support strategies. Job satisfaction has already, over a couple of years, risen from 36% to 68%. There also have been marked savings through increased productivity and increased profits. All this is a reason for some optimism this afternoon.
This programme could be developed further and would benefit from a higher profile. Does the Civil Service, do local authorities and do we here in Parliament take on and help people in the workplace with mental health problems in that way? Could we introduce legislation to move that along? It could help, and would be widely welcomed as a positive move; it could set an example. Could we not find a way to develop that?
In short, we need more money, more understanding and more resources. However, we also need more attempts to integrate people into the workforce and to educate those more privileged in health to understand and throw out a new lifeline. Parity of esteem might come most surely of all from friends at work and the respect gained by working with other people. I believe that many people in this country are ready to support that.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, this is one of those debates in which, having put down your name to speak, by halfway through you are convinced that you do not have much to contribute. However, the main thing that attracted me to the debate in the first place was that it concerned parity of esteem between mental health and physical health. It has always struck me that the two are absolutely inseparable: you cannot remove one from the other. This is not just about the healthy mind and the healthy body; it is about the fact that you cannot access either one without paying attention to the other.
As has already been said in the debate, we had the problem that mental health was something that happened to other people and thus was something that did not concern us. We removed ourselves from it as a society. It is only over a comparatively recent time that we have started to realise that it is a mainstream problem. The similarities between that and some of the work I have done in other fields—for instance, on hidden disabilities, particularly dyslexia—are many. If what I do is normal or what I perceive to be normal, everything else will not be addressed. There are two things going on: the perception that it is nothing to do with me—I do not understand it, and I do not want to understand it because it is unpleasant—and the idea, as has been referred to in the debate, that we all know exactly what the mentally ill are like. They are basically people running around with meat cleavers and chasing around or shrieking at people on buses; they are not people who are in a state of depression. I almost said “unhappiness”, but it is being depressed, or functioning below par. Perhaps it is making the lives of those around them unpleasant; not fulfilling their greatest function; not interacting with family members. With depression, the field is far too wide to cover everything. That person is more than likely to be the standard person who has a mental health problem; he is not somebody who is in any way dramatic. That person is also going to be very bad at getting over the fact that he is ill and suffering from a long-term condition. As has been mentioned before, the life expectancy of those with mental illness is considerably lower than those without it.
So how do we get into this? Part of the work, clearly, has already been done by the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, who started off by saying that this is not that unusual, please open your minds to the possibility that this could be a very normal part of life. Furthermore, the rest of us will have to work a little harder, first, to take on new ideas and, secondly, to access the potential of those people to get the best out of it for us—the economy and the selfish principle within it. If those people are to have an episode of depression, for example, they will get over it, particularly if we give them the correct help and understanding and do not decide, “Oh, they have had a bout of depression. They will never be able to hold a job again”. If we can get over that, we will do well. We will benefit from that as a society. In my work outside dealing with hidden disabilities, I have found that embracing small changes in attitude and approach benefits the whole of society, not just that person. That process is not easy.
I must make a small confession to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. When I first heard in my work with disabilities that mental health was to be put in with disabilities, I was a little frightened. I thought, “Wait a minute. With illness, you either get better or you die. It is not something that is with you for life”. I was rapidly disabused of that, because the prejudice that goes with it will be with you for life, as with cancer, which has been mentioned. The idea that it marks you out as different and other is incredibly important. I came to the conclusion: “It ain’t a perfect fit, but it—putting them together—is definitely the best show in town”.
We must try to get this across and start to engage with the rest of society about it. On the similarity between physical conditions and mental ones, I discovered many years ago, backed up by my personal experience, that many things that we do to prevent physical ill health work for mental ill health. There is lots of evidence, as Mind has recognised, that physical exercise releases hormones that help with many conditions. If you are physically healthy, you are considerably less likely to suffer from many forms of mental ill health. Encouraging physical activity can help many mental health conditions. The interrelationship between the two types of health is so close that it is ridiculous that we have to go through this process, but we clearly do.
The Government have taken this on board and are moving forward. I hope that we are not merely travelling with the tide but trying to inject some pace ourselves—running up a sail or putting an oar in the water—to go a little faster than general public opinion. There is a time lag within government and certainly in legislation. When Parliament becomes aware of a problem and then has to do something about it, it tends to jump ahead on the problem. I hope that we are seeing the first stage of that here. I am reasonably convinced that we are, but unless the Government now act and use the tide of public opinion, we will always lag behind.
We are dealing with a normal process here, a normal part of society. Unless the Government not only take the administrative steps but add to public awareness, we will be missing an opportunity to deal with a problem that will be with us for a long time. It is not going to go away, and unless we take coherent and sensible action now, we will be dealing with it for ever, normally within our prisons and hospitals.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
I should like to begin with a very brief response to my noble friend Lady Murphy. The answer to this debate, in my view, is not a redistribution of resources from the secondary mental health services to the primary but, rather, to seek to focus resources on to or into NICE-recommended treatments in both the primary and secondary sectors. An enormous amount can be achieved if we really focus on that objective.
Despite having worked in the secondary mental health services for about a quarter of a century, on and off, I shall concentrate my brief remarks on the lack of parity of esteem in the availability of treatment for children with mental as against physical disorders. I applaud the Government for at least introducing the objective of parity of esteem. I think it is fair to say that we have never had it before.
I have the benefit of access to the draft of a new book on mental health to be published by my noble kinsman Lord Layard and David Clark. You could say that I have access to insider information without which I should not be making this particular speech but doing something completely different.
The need for psychological treatment services for children is overwhelming. Indeed, the evidence suggests that the incidence of emotional and behavioural problems in 15 and 16 year-olds approximately doubled between 1974 and 2004—a 30 year period, of course—and has remained fairly stable since. Today, about 10% of 15 and 16 year-olds suffer with emotional or behavioural problems.
We now have a situation where these problems can be resolved but, tragically, generally they are not. My noble kinsman Lord Layard has talked about the undertreatment of adults, but for children the situation is equally bad. We know that nine out of 10 children with a physical illness will be treated. As my noble kinsman mentioned in relation to adults, only a quarter of children with a psychological problem will be treated. We are talking about children who are just not treated for a problem.
In 2010, Britain’s Royal College of General Practitioners conducted a survey of its members. One question was: “When children are suffering from depression or another disorder requiring specialist psychological therapy, are you able to get them the treatment within two months?”. The results were truly appalling. Only 6% of GPs could get the service they needed for their child patients within the specified time. The timeframe is important, just as it is for physical illness. We have maximum waiting times for specialist treatment for physical conditions, but none for depression and anxiety. Can the noble Earl give the House some reassurance that the Government will extend maximum waiting times to psychological therapies for children, not only for adults?
I applaud the coalition Government’s establishment in 2010 of a new priority for early intervention for children at risk. That followed the release of figures for the number of suicides. However, within two years there were cuts in half of our mental health services, which have surely undermined the Government’s objective. Again, can the noble Earl give the House any assurance about reversing that trend?
Why is our failure to prioritise children’s mental health so important? The answer is simple. Children with mental health problems go on to become adults with mental health problems. Surely it is better to treat children when the problems arise, rather than waiting for them to waste years of their lives in misery and unable to contribute effectively to society. That is obvious from the point of view not only of the individual but of the taxpayer. Our failure in this field is extremely costly. To give just one example, a child with a conduct disorder will cost the taxpayer roughly £150,000 more than if the child did not have the behaviour disorder. We can look at it the other way. If we spend £7,500 on a child with a behaviour problem, the cost is absolutely zero if a mere one in 20 of those children is helped. Of course, the figures are much better than that.
Some might think that the reason that the Government do not invest in those treatments is that they do not work, but we now know that, for children too, there are psychological treatments that have been shown to be effective. The treatments are very similar to those recommended for adults—cognitive behavioural therapy, in particular, and interpersonal therapy—for the common mental disorders. For conduct disorder, however—the single most common mental health problem in childhood —there is now a well established treatment, which is structured parent training. One of the biggest trials in England showed that after seven years the children whose parents had this treatment were 80% less likely to be defined as having oppositional defiant disorder than those not treated. This is a huge success rate. Even for the most difficult children, multi-systemic therapy has produced good results. So there are effective treatments available, if only they are commissioned, for our children. In 2008, however, less than half of children’s services were implementing NICE guidelines—hence my point at the beginning of these short remarks. In another survey, half the therapists said they use CBT for less than one fifth of their patients.
The Minister, as always, knows all these arguments. It will be very encouraging if he can give some assurances to the House today that improvements are being made to the availability of NICE-recommended psychological therapies for children. We are, of course, aware of the IAPT programme for children. I hope the noble Earl can assure the House that this programme will reach all our communities in sufficient depth to ensure that nine out of 10 children with psychological problems can be helped, just as their friends with physical problems are helped in nine out of 10 cases.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I very much welcome this very high quality debate. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Layard not just for the speech he made but for his outstanding work in this area.
Many noble Lords have articulated current inequalities in service provision and poor outcomes for so many people affected by mental illness. The statistics are striking. There is no question that people with serious mental illness have increased levels of morbidity and are at greater risk of premature death. A link between smoking and mental health is stark. For example, some 42% of all cigarettes smoked in England are smoked by people with a mental health condition, including alcohol and drug dependency, and up to 70% of people in mental health units smoke. It has been estimated that around 30% of those suffering from a long-term physical health condition simultaneously have a mental condition. This is equivalent to around 4.6 million people in England alone and about 46% of people with mental health problems. People with schizophrenia may die up to 25 years before the average. People with a mental illness are almost twice as likely to die from coronary heart disease as the general population, four times more likely to die from respiratory disease, and are at higher risk of being overweight or obese.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, that these kinds of figures are shocking. In the context of parity of esteem, they suggest that we need, as the noble Lord described it, a whole-person care approach. For 65 years we have had an almost tripartite system of meeting one person’s need through not one service but three services—the mainstream NHS, mental health and social care. We have also had a different funding system between health and social care, often with perverse incentives towards getting an integrated approach. This cannot go on.
As we live longer and the demographics change, people’s needs become a complex blur of the physical, the mental and the social. Wherever people are in this disjointed system, some or all of one person’s needs are being unmet. Every noble Lord brought forward illustrations of where that need is not being met. We know, as some noble Lords have said, that in acute hospitals social and mental health needs can be neglected. It may explain why we have so many problems with older people in our hospitals, how their condition can go downhill, and how they can often get stuck in an acute hospital because discharge becomes so much more difficult. In mental health care settings, people can have their physical health overlooked, which in part explains why those with serious mental health problems die younger than the rest of the population.
I am convinced that we need to integrate services and budgets, but we also need to see immediate action on parity of esteem. I will put a number of questions to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, about how he considers the Government and the health service are going to ensure that parity of esteem is actually delivered.
First, what are the Government’s intentions about securing fast and fair access to mental health treatment? The noble Earl’s honourable friend the Care Services Minister has already acknowledged that it is unfair that waiting times for psychological therapies are not given the same importance as those for hospital treatment. The noble Lord, Lord Layard, mentioned this in his opening remarks. We know that long waits can do enormous damage, particularly for children and young people, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, pointed out to us. Yet clinical commissioning groups are not required to secure treatment within a fixed timescale. There is a real question to the Government about whether NHS England will be asked to set out meaningful standards for access and waiting in order to place this on a par with other services.
The second question is about how the Government will ensure that mental health crisis care is given the same priority as other urgent care services. Recent reports have highlighted the paucity of mental health crisis care. Too many people in a mental health crisis end up in police custody. People with mental health problems also attend A&E at twice the average rate and 24/7 access to crisis resolution home treatment teams is still patchy. I understand, and the noble Earl will know, that NHS England is carrying out an urgent care review which follows on from the current problems within A&E. As part of that urgent care review, will mental health crisis care be treated on a par with other issues?
In the West Midlands, indeed in Birmingham, we have a system called RAID, which has been developed to ensure that there is consultant psychiatric presence within A&E departments. That has proven to be successful but has also highlighted that, unless there is a service or a facility to which a patient who has come into A&E and is diagnosed as having mental health problems can be referred, you are still left with the problem about what to do with this patient. If we are going to solve the urgent care crisis we have to bring in mental health services and mental health commissioning as equal partners.
I want to ask the Minister about funding. My noble friend Lord Bragg said that funding for mental health is too far down the list of priorities. The noble Earl will know that the recent national survey of investment in adult mental health care showed the first real-terms fall in a decade. This was especially pronounced in older people’s mental health care. Of course, we do not have a tariff for mental health services. What will the Government do about this? I have heard that the department has discontinued the national survey of investment in mental health services. Can the Minister confirm that? If it is true, I ask him to reconsider. Surely it is very important for us, if we are going to be able to indentify whether parity of esteem is actually implemented, that we have the facts to look at the funding relativities between different health services.
I ask the Minister for his response to my noble friend Lord Layard and the noble Lord, Lord Stone, about how we can extend parity to investment and research. In the health service the research budget is very skewed towards medical research. Clearly medical research is very important. We have had debates about the investment in nursing research but we have not focused very much on research in mental health services. The point has been put persuasively here that, given the scale of mental health illness in this country, to starve ourselves of a large mental health research capacity seems to be a real mistake. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to say something more about this.
My noble friend Lady Warwick, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, talked very movingly about the issue of stigma. There are some wonderful examples of how people have sought bravely to cope with the issue of stigma and have been very successful. There is, however, an awful long way to go. I would be interested to know how the Government think they might encourage this in the future.
Clinical commissioning groups clearly have the main responsibility for commissioning mental health services in the future. Is the noble Earl satisfied that CCGs have the capacity and, if not, what are they going to do about ensuring that they are given access to people who can help them commission services effectively? The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, asked about primary care capacity in terms of both accessibility and the skills of primary care physicians and other staff. Again, perhaps the Minister could say something about that.
The question that my noble friend Lord Bragg raised about employment was very important. In the main, we have been talking about services but we know that the links between employment and good health are very strong and I wondered whether the Department of Health was working with other government departments to encourage employers to be much more progressive in the way that they treat mental illness.
Finally, I declare my interests as chair of a foundation trust, a consultant trainer with Cumberlege Connections and the president of GS1.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Layard, for his tireless efforts in ensuring that evidence-based psychological therapy is available for everyone who needs it, and for convening this debate and providing me with an opportunity to assert once again this Government’s commitment to parity of esteem for mental and physical health.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists, in its recent report, Whole Person Care, describes parity as,
“valuing mental health equally with physical health”.
Equality is certainly the principle which underpins parity. As the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, said, equality is not just how we think about mental and physical healthcare but how they are valued. Parity of esteem is not just an abstract concept. It is the subject of an active and ongoing programme between the Department of Health and its system partners, dedicated to closing the gap with physical health services and to translating rhetoric into reality. We made our commitment explicit in the Health and Social Care Act 2012, as my noble friend Lord McColl reminded us, where we enshrined in law the equal importance of mental health alongside physical health. My noble friend Lord Alderdice was right to say that this explicit statement in statute does matter.
The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, asked how we will improve the skills of GPs and the ability of CCGs to commission mental health services. We have made putting mental health on a par with physical health one of NHS England’s key priorities, as well as ensuring that everyone who needs it has timely access to the best available treatment. The mandate to NHS England is strong on mental health. It makes it clear that everyone who needs it should have that timely access to evidence-based services, and I can tell noble Lords that we are determined that mental health should play a similarly pivotal role in the forthcoming refresh of the mandate for 2014-15. Of course this needs investment, a point which again was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick. We must remember the role of government here: as she knows, the Government set the outcomes that they expect the NHS to achieve in the NHS outcomes framework. There are a number of outcomes specifically for people with mental health problems and others about the quality of services, and patients’ experience of them, which apply equally to mental health services.
One crucial measure is that of excess mortality. It is up to commissioners to prioritise their resources to meet these outcomes for the population, based on assessments of health need, while taking into account the mandates requirement to make demonstrable progress in achieving parity of esteem for mental health services. We will hold the NHS to account for the quality of services and outcomes for mental health patients through the outcomes framework but it is worth noting that in 2011-12, the total invested in mental health services for working-age adults was £6.629 billion, or £193.30 per head of weighted working-age population.
The noble Lord, Lord Layard, my noble friend Lady Tyler and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, raised waiting times for mental health and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, was particularly concerned about waiting times for children. We are clear that mental health treatment should be available for those who need it and we have asked NHS England, through the current mandate to the NHS, to look into waiting times for mental health treatments. We will be expecting progress on this and my honourable friend Norman Lamb will be taking a close interest in the progress that is made.
The noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, reminded us that too many people with mental health problems die prematurely. We know that people living with significant or persistent mental illness have significantly reduced health and quality of life. They live on average 16 to 25 years less than the general population. That is why reducing premature death in people with serious mental illness is defined as an improvement area in the NHS outcomes framework and why the NHS operating framework specifically focuses on the physical healthcare of people affected by mental illness for the coming year.
The noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, reminded us of the disproportionate burden of mental illness experienced by people from BME communities. We know that black and African-Caribbean men are more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act. The reasons for this are complex. I can present him with no simple answers; we recognise that more work needs to be done to establish the causes of higher rates of mental illness in some communities and how communities access early intervention services. We are in discussion with a number of BME leaders and influencers on this. I recognise the concerns about incidents in recent years where someone with a mental health condition has either died or been seriously injured after police contact. I welcome the report of the independent review led by the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, and I echo his view that it is important to get to the truth of matters with clarity of focus and to remove any excuses for not taking the chance to improve practice.
I listened with care to the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, who called for more psychiatrists. We are supporting local organisations in taking effective action to improve mental health. Our mental health strategy and implementation framework and our suicide prevention strategy focus on specific actions which specific local organisations can take to improve mental health across the life course in their areas. We are investing more than £400 million to give thousands of people, in all areas of the country, access to NICE-approved psychological therapies. The mandate to NHS England makes it clear, as I have said, that everyone who needs it should have timely access to evidence-based services. This will involve extending and ensuring more open access to the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programmes, in particular for children and young people and for those out of work. My honourable friend the Minister of State for Care Services will be meeting system partners monthly to ensure that IAPT is being delivered.
My noble friends Lady Tyler and Lord Carlile and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, spoke about the importance of parity for children and adolescents. Children’s mental health is a priority for the Government. We are investing £54 million over four years in the Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme, giving children and young people improved and timely access to the best mental health care. It will of course be up to NHS England, working with local commissioners, to decide how to spend this money in the most effective way.
Parity is also core business for the reformed health and care system. Key bodies within the system are addressing this. NHS England is working with national clinical directors and others to develop a programme of work with the dual objectives of delivering parity of esteem across the health and care system and supporting NHS England, as an employer, to promote parity of esteem. The priorities here include: support for people with mental health problems following early diagnosis, particularly through appropriate use of primary care and supporting the roll-out of health checks; ensuring people have access to the right treatment at the right time; and measuring and publicising outcome data for all major services by 2015. In other words, they are making every contact with patients count. There will be a statement very soon from NHS England on this. I obviously cannot pre-empt that here but it will set out the detail of this programme of work.
In that context, I pick up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Stone, about NICE. NICE clinical guidelines are, I put it to him, in no way inferior products to technology appraisals; they often perform a valuable role in putting NICE’s technology appraisal recommendations into the context of the overall care pathway for patients.
My noble friend Lord Carlile rightly emphasised the importance of attending to the mental health of the elderly, but here again it is right for me to point out that the mental health strategy No Health Without Mental Health is an all-age strategy: that is the approach that it adopts and it means that its focus is equally on all members of the population from the young to the old—all are equally important.
My noble friend Lady Tyler spoke about those with complex needs, particularly those who indulge in alcohol and drug misuse. Improving co-ordination between mental health, drugs and alcohol services is vital for improving outcomes for the most vulnerable and excluded. Practitioners may also be involved in the design, planning and delivery of high quality services and are well placed to help GPs and local partners in commissioning high quality services.
My noble friend Lord Carlile spoke of the need for therapists in the community and I listened with care to what he said. Secondary mental health services have been reorganised to improve care in the community and in hospital and timely care and treatment is increasingly offered in the most suitable and least restrictive environment. Even though there are more people being treated in secondary mental health services, the proportion who needed to be admitted to in-patient psychiatric care fell by 2.9% in 2010-11. Acute beds have got to be there for those who need them, but providers have a responsibility to listen to patients and offer care in the community as well as in hospital.
Public Health England is embedding mental health across its work, including developing a national programme for public health mental health. This will support No Health Without Mental Health, prioritising the promotion of mental well-being, the prevention of mental health problems, the prevention of suicide and the promotion of well-being for people living with and recovering from mental illness. I refer to an issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, about a focus on reducing smoking. Public Health England’s work plan in relation to mental health and well-being will include a specific part on smoking cessation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, and my noble friend Lord Alderdice spoke about suicides. Suicide rates in England are low compared to those in other European countries but we are not complacent about these figures, which is why we launched the new suicide prevention strategy in September of last year. The strategy can help sustain and reduce further the relatively low rates. As well as targeting high-risk groups, improving the mental health of the whole population can, of course, prevent suicide and the mental health strategy has that all-population approach, as I mentioned earlier.
Supporting parity is also a key objective of Health Education England. The Government’s mandate to Health Education England recognises the importance of professional culture to achieving parity. It tasks them with ensuring that the mental health workforce has the skills and values to improve services and to promote a culture of recovery and aspiration for their patients. It also notes the importance of mental health awareness in the wider health workforce. My noble friend Lady Tyler argued that maternity services need to look for early signs of mental ill health; I do, of course, agree with that. Mental health is a matter for all health professionals including midwives and health visitors. The Government’s mandate to Health Education England includes the commitment to ensure that all healthcare staff are equipped to treat mental and physical conditions with equal priority.
The noble Lord, Lord Layard, referred to the need for research. As a prerequisite for parity of esteem, ensuring that we have the right data, the right measures, is absolutely essential. One of the most important roles the centre can play is gathering and distributing information about mental health in order to inform evidence-based commissioning and service delivery and that is why NHS England and Public Health England are jointly working to establish a national mental health intelligence network which will be a key driver of continuous improvement in mental health intelligence and information. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked whether the Government are discontinuing the adult psychiatric morbidity survey. The department and the Health & Social Care Information Centre are currently discussing plans for the next survey which should take place in 2014.
My noble friend Lord Carlile spoke about stigma. True parity also requires a shift in attitudes, not just in service providers but across society as a whole. That is why we are investing up to £16 million in the Time to Change programme, supplemented by a further £4 million from Comic Relief. This ground-breaking programme works to empower people to talk about mental health problems and to tackle the discrimination that they face. We aim to make Time to Change reach 29 million people and increase the confidence of 100,000 people with mental health problems to challenge stigma and discrimination.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, that the mental health needs of people in the workplace have not been overlooked. Helping people with mental illness find and sustain work is a priority across the health and care system. A measure of employment for people with mental health problems features in all three outcomes frameworks. We are also challenging the stigma and discrimination experienced by people with mental health problems, as I mentioned, in the Time to Change programme and I regard that programme as very much aimed at employers and those whom they employ.
The noble Lord, Lord Layard, suggested that there should be a Cabinet Minister for mental health. While there is not a Cabinet Minister whose sole responsibility is mental health, this does form an important part of the portfolio of the Minister for Care and Support, my colleague Norman Lamb, and I know that this is also one of his personal priorities. We are actively encouraging every government department to pledge its support for the Time to Change campaign and ensure that mental health issues are taken into consideration in policy-making and planning across government.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Layard, will think I am right to celebrate some of the achievements to date, but the scale of the challenge ahead should not be underestimated. It will require significant changes to the way mental health services are delivered locally, based on a clear understanding of local needs and with the accent firmly on delivering better outcomes for users. There are exceptional services that others can learn from, but as we move forward a focal point must be more effective collaboration between public services, to enable early identification of mental health problems and to provide more co-ordinated care.
In that context, I pick up a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stone, about the police and their interactions with those with mental health issues. I referred to this briefly earlier. We know that we have to have an effective emergency mental health response system in place and we have asked all the relevant organisations, including the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers, to draw up an agreed plan to tackle this problem. Street triage teams, currently being piloted around the country, partner mental health clinicians with police officers to attend emergency responses involving those with suspected mental health problems.
Of course, more needs to be done for acute and crisis care, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale. Improving acute mental health services is a key priority for the Government, as identified in the first mandate to NHS England and underpinned by the outcomes framework. As I have said, we are clear that where someone needs an acute bed, it has to be there for them and there has been significant capital investment in the mental health in-patient environment in the past decade.
All of this matters, because achieving parity is a challenge which extends far beyond health and social care. It requires a genuinely cross-government approach, involving all aspects of public service delivery as well as many partners across the voluntary sector. Momentum is gathering and over the months to come I am confident that we will progress further and faster towards our end goal.
Lord Layard
My Lords, I thank everyone who has spoken in this substantial debate. We have had 15 excellent contributions and somehow, miraculously, they have been almost entirely complementary to each other, so in some way we have written a pretty good textbook on the subject in these three hours. As everyone has said, this issue is a massive problem, which is why we are all extremely grateful to the Minister for taking this problem seriously today, and indeed I know that he takes it seriously on all occasions.
I am grateful for what people have said and I agreed with almost everything, including most of what the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, said, on which I, too, would like to comment. It is quite misleading to suppose that there is something called the mental health budget, which is then allocated between psychotic illness and common mental health problems. We have never argued for more expenditure on anxiety and depression at the expense of severe mental illness. What we have pointed out is the remarkable fact that a mentally ill person with a physical illness of given severity costs the NHS 50% more in physical healthcare than someone without mental illness in the same physical condition. If we can cure the mental illness or alleviate it, there is an awful lot to be saved on unnecessary physical healthcare.
Most commissioners should be able to fund the extra psychological therapy out of the savings that they can expect from their physical healthcare bills, particularly their references to the secondary sector. One could document how those are affected immediately when someone’s mental health improves. There is a huge amount of evidence on all that. On top of that, of course, taking the Government as a whole, there are the savings on benefits and lost taxes. When we can say that it certainly costs the Government—and probably costs local commissioners—nothing to expand treatment for people with depression and anxiety disorders, which are extremely serious problems, it makes no sense to say that we should be concentrating only on people with even more serious problems. Both groups must be helped.
As I said, there have been many wonderful speeches. I thought that the letter read out by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, really says it all; it caught the basic point that everyone is making. I was also delighted when the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, raised the issue of the comparative suffering from mental and physical pain. I have been trying to look into that topic and have found quite a lot of research on it. Many studies show that when people are asked how happy they are with their lives and then record the different dimensions of their health situation, it is found that mental pain reduces happiness more on average than physical illness. In a way, we have to justify our argument for parity of esteem, and I think that that is the justification: these are extremely serious conditions affecting the well-being of the people affected. Many people have made that point, and it is a central argument for parity.
I think that if in decades hence we look back on where we are today, we shall be able to see a lot of progress. I think that people will be amazed when they look at how mentally ill people were treated, even now, and they will find it quite difficult, just like we find it difficult to believe how slaves and so on were treated, to believe that we treated mentally ill people with as much blindness and cruelty as we have been up till recently.
Housing: Co-operative Housing
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
That this House takes note of the development of the co-operative housing sector in the United Kingdom.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, it is with great pleasure that I open this debate on the co-operative housing sector in the United Kingdom. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, on her appointment as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government. In her time in this House she has proved herself to be an able communicator at the Dispatch Box, and I wish her well in her new job and the great responsibilities that it brings.
It is also a great pleasure for me to speak in this House as a Labour and Co-operative Member of the House of Lords. The Labour Party and the Co-operative Party have an electoral agreement going back to 1927, and today there are 32 Labour and Co-operative MPs and 17 Labour and Co-operative Lords. The Co-operative Party can quite rightly claim to be the fourth largest party in Parliament.
I have been a co-operator all my adult life, and I firmly believe that co-operation and co-operative values and principles are playing an increasingly important part in the economy, business and the community and have a really important role to play in the social housing sector. I grew up in social housing in the 1960s and 1970s, and as a family we were very lucky: we always lived in a home that was warm, safe and dry. Southwark Council, as the biggest social landlord in London and one of the biggest in the country, always sought to deliver for its residents in often very challenging circumstances.
I believe that everyone should have access to a home that is decent, safe and affordable to buy or rent and to maintain or run. I am delighted at the commitment that Mr Ed Miliband made to build more homes by 2020. Homes are desperately needed by young families, older people and key workers. The present situation is desperate, with demand far outstripping supply. House building is at its lowest ebb since the 1920s. Struggling families are being squeezed by house prices beyond their means, rising rents, housing benefit cuts and inaccessible mortgages.
The crisis in the supply of and access to affordable housing is a major political and social issue facing the country. It is of particular concern to the many squeezed households for whom the only housing option is high-cost, low quality, insecure private rented housing. A growing number of people are worried about the ability of their children to afford a decent home. Increasing numbers of newly formed households are stuck in the high-cost private rented sector, and do not consider that they will ever be able to buy a home of their own.
There has been a decline in the number of first-time buyers. Saving the now typical 20% deposit required for first-time buyers to buy their first home is currently impossible for many working households. Statutory homelessness is increasing, and ever greater numbers of people are being forced into substandard housing. Poor housing is linked to poor health and poor educational outcomes, leading to increased costs to the state.
The post-crisis landscape presents all concerned with affordable housing supply with new challenges that demand new solutions. The role of co-operative housing models in meeting those challenges has not been recognised. Co-operative housing could be making a contribution to achieving a housing supply that was more stable and sustainable. Around 10% of Europeans live in housing co-operatives, compared to 0.6% in the UK. This alone shows the contribution that housing co-operatives can make.
There are different models of co-operative housing available, giving the opportunity to deliver housing tailored to local need, be it developing market-value mutual retirement co-operatives specifically designed for the changing needs of older people or to meet the housing needs of students and young people, or limited equity co-operatives for squeezed families priced out of the housing market. The work to achieve this needs to be inspired and kick-started by government action, better access to finance and local authorities supporting co-operative housing projects to deliver solutions in each of these areas.
There are three types of housing co-operatives that the Government should seek to support: market-value co-operatives, where members are free to trade their legal right of occupation at a free market price, subject to the rules of the co-operative, giving older people the opportunity to release capital and move into a home that can be adapted to their changing needs while also gaining assistance from other members of their co-operative community; limited-equity co-operatives, such as mutual home ownership, where members own a limited equity stake, allowing squeezed families currently stuck in the private rented sector unable to get on to the housing ladder a chance to build property equity; and rental co-operatives in which members rent their home, having democratic control over service budgets and how their homes are managed, but do not have an equity stake, which offer an affordable alternative to those who wish to have greater freedom and control over their housing.
In the UK, the role of community land trusts has emerged with the potential to provide a better balance of housing supply. They work in rural and urban areas and are a flexible tool to meet a variety of community needs. They offer not only a number of options for rent and low-cost home ownership, but also provide a mechanism for generating an income stream for reinvestment by the community. In areas where a rising population, economic investment and limited stocks of affordable homes threaten to exclude people from the areas in which they live and work, community land trusts could ensure a supply of affordable housing through the control of housing costs and resale prices.
This model can make a significant contribution to the supply of homes. It separates the cost of the land from the purchase price by taking it out of the market place through a community land trust. It ensures affordability through flexible monthly payments that are based on an affordable percentage of income. Any public subsidy is locked in and preserved for future generations due to the structure of equity arrangements.
Unlike individual home ownership, where residents have a personal mortgage loan to buy a home, homes in this case are financed by a corporate loan borrowed by the co-operative. The value of the buildings is divided into shares. When members leave the co-operative they are entitled to take the equity that they have built up with them. The net value of the shares is calculated by reference to a fair valuation formula set out in the departing members’ occupancy agreement or lease, which is the same for all members. The valuation formula in the lease requires resident members to look on property ownership in a new and different way. Mutual home owners will be at far less risk of falling into negative equity, where their houses are worth less than the outstanding mortgage loan. They will also have the benefit of lower transaction costs when they move into and out of their home.
There needs to be greater understanding by national and local government of the role that these models can play in bringing balance back into meeting the goal of everyone being able to find and afford a decent home in a good neighbourhood. There is a growing body of evidence to show that housing co-operatives are good for people and society. In particular, studies show that co-operatives outperform all other types of social landlord on all measures of performance. They create housing in neighbourhoods that are socially, economically and environmentally sustainable. Housing remains community-owned and affordable for future generations. Their grassroots nature helps co-operatives to create community buy-in. They help to maintain the independence of older residents through mutual aid and support, reducing the demand on the state.
With community support, co-operatives can achieve more for less by helping to bring into use public land assets that would otherwise not be developed for housing. Co-operatives have the capacity to increase the supply of housing that is genuinely affordable for working households, enabling the Government to deliver greater numbers of affordable homes.
Co-operatives contributing an average of 25,000 additional new affordable homes per year over the next two Parliaments is a realistic and achievable vision if it is given the support needed. Given the right framework for success and proper support from the Government, people could have the opportunity to participate in creating co-operatives to help meet local housing needs. Through their active involvement they will be committed to making their locality the best that it can be.
Co-operatives and mutual forms of ownership can ensure that homes remain permanently affordable and give residents an equity stake. Instead of paying increasingly high rents for housing over which they have little control, people could enjoy housing that benefits them and wider society. Through housing co-operatives and other mutual organisations, tenants and residents have taken control over decisions that affect their lives and created strong and cohesive communities.
All the available evidence shows that co-operative forms of housing perform well in terms of value for money compared to housing association and local authority provision of housing. Additionally, they have proved themselves to be a successful model of genuine community empowerment, providing a range of social and community benefits due to the large framework of mutual support that they create.
Lack of secure tenure has emerged as a big issue with the growth of the buy-to-let market. In a co-operative, the members are in control and have the security of their democratic rights and the security of the contract, which currently has to be a tenancy because of a lack of appropriate co-op housing legislation. In a co-op, a long-term, enduring right of occupation of a member’s home is always granted. This can be ended only if the member is in breach of its terms and the co-op has obtained an order for possession from the court. This is a very secure form of occupancy. Although not protected by statute, it has the protection of a member’s democratic rights.
Local authorities have a vital role to play in restoring balance to the supply of housing in their areas. The strengths and weaknesses of the housing supply situation vary from authority to authority, and across the country and in different localities. There is a marked difference between the north and the south of England, and in Scotland and Wales.
Co-op housing is a model of community housing to which people will aspire because of the significant benefits it brings. Councils need to develop an understanding of the different ways in which co-operative housing models can help them fulfil their responsibility to ensure a balance in the mix of housing available in their areas and to achieve strong communities. Local councils have the power to help, through ensuring that their local development frameworks include references to the development of community land trusts and co-operative mutual housing models as a means of increasing affordable housing.
Where local authorities hold ballots on stock transfers, residents should have the option to vote for community-led stock transfers under a co-operative model, such as the community mutual, which was developed by the think tank Mutuo, is endorsed by the Welsh Assembly and offers active membership opportunities to all tenants, the community gateway model, which was developed by the Confederation of Co-operative Housing and Co-operatives UK—there are currently community gateway housing mutuals in Preston, Watford, Lewisham and Braintree—or a hybrid mutual scheme such as has been developed in Rochdale.
Local authorities, housing associations and housing mutuals can also convert to a mixed-tenure version. Residents in this type of mutual home-ownership development would be able to start on a standard rented tenancy with the right to buy equity shares as and when their income permitted them to do so. They would have the right to participate in the democratic governance of their home just like any other member of the mutual. The right to buy equity would mean that the home would not become unaffordable for future generations of occupants.
In some areas, tenants will prefer their housing to remain under local authority control. Where this is the case, tenants could be encouraged and assisted to form tenant management co-operatives to take control of the management of the council-owned housing in their neighbourhood. The right to manage could be extended to housing- association tenants, who could also be given the support and encouragement to take over control and management of their homes through management co-operatives.
The Government have an important role. Among other things, it includes recognising co-operative housing in law and placing a duty on local councils and the Homes and Communities Agency to promote mutual housing and report annually on how they are doing. It is important to ensure that new co-operative homes are as affordable as possible for squeezed working households.
I could go on. We are in a housing crisis. Co-operative housing has an important role to play in helping to solve the crisis. It is for both local and national government to recognise the important role that they can play, and to provide support and the tools to do the job. I look forward to contributions from all noble Lords in this debate, to which we will come back again and again. I beg to move.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, for initiating this debate. I also warmly welcome my noble friend Lady Stowell to the Dispatch Box.
In the past 25 years the co-operative housing movement has demonstrated that the application of the co-operative principles to the provision and management of housing delivers cost-effective housing services and creates sustainable communities. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has said, in spite of its proven benefits the housing co-operative sector remains small.
Housing co-operatives are concerned to ensure that members are educated and informed about the principles and practices of co-operation. This can be demonstrated in a concrete way. One example of the success of a tenant management co-operative is in Glasgow. It dramatically illustrates the benefits of housing co-operatives. The Speirs Housing Management Co-operative has successfully managed its council-owned housing at the end of one street for 20 years. It is a vibrant community contributing to the wider regeneration of the neighbourhood. At the other end of the street, council-managed housing, which has received the same capital investment as that managed by Speirs, has been vandalised, abandoned and ultimately demolished. This is a classic demonstration of best value being delivered by a housing co-operative.
The various types and models of co-operative and mutual housing operate across a range of tenures. The various forms of co-operative and community-led housing are united by having a democratic community membership that has control over their housing in some way. It is from this community membership that the benefits derive.
There are many social and community benefits to providing homes through co-operative and mutual housing, including: the development of community self-responsibility and self-help; much higher levels of satisfaction compared to other housing providers; good, if not better, management, quicker repairs, and so on; provision of forms of intermediate housing that could be attractive to those who would formerly have been first-time buyers; development of local care and community support networks that combat loneliness and help to support active, independent living; and the development of local community vision and of entrepreneurialism, which often inspire people who would not otherwise have been motivated to make local change.
There are a number of models of co-operative housing, some of which have already been mentioned by the noble Lord. Ownership housing co-operatives are co-ops that are owned, managed and controlled democratically by their members and tenants, and usually all tenants are members of the co-op. The majority of ownership co-ops are, at least partially, funded through the government organisation the Housing Corporation, which monitors them in the same way as housing associations. Ownership co-ops are traditionally quite small, but they give the greatest amount of control of any of the housing co-op models. Research carried out in 1996 found that they were the most successful housing providers in the country. We have tenant management organisations—TMOs—which are democratic organisations that are formed by tenants to take on the management of their homes. Council tenants have a legal right—the right to manage—and access to specific funding that enables them to set up a co-op. These regulations were simplified for everyone’s benefit in 2012.
A management co-op has a management agreement with their landlord—the council or housing association, or in some cases both—and receives a management allowance that enables it to run the co-op. Self-build co-operatives are housing organisations where the tenants have been involved in the building of the properties. The labour that they put into the building of the properties gives them equity, and they pay rent for the rest. We also have short-life co-operatives. These take over properties that are in some way unlettable, for a fixed period of time that can sometimes extend for many years. The co-op does not own the properties but has a lease with the landlords. Tenant-controlled housing associations also have a major contribution to make. There are a small number of housing associations registered with the Housing Corporation which are tenant-controlled, having a majority of tenants on the board of the association alongside other representatives.
If your Lordships are particularly interested in specific examples of co-operative housing, Redditch Co-operative Homes provides new-build affordable housing through a co-operative. Winyates Co-operative, one of the self-managed neighbourhoods in Redditch, won an award for innovation and excellence in 2010 and currently manages 57 properties in an area that is home to approximately 14,650 people. Kensington and Chelsea TMO manages around 10,000 properties on behalf of the council and is also an ALMO, which was set up in 1996. Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, formed in 2012, took over housing formerly run by the council. It is a membership organisation owned by staff and tenants and is a charitable registered provider of social housing. The organisation owns and acts as landlord for 13,700 homes in the borough.
The Government are particularly interested in and concerned about tenant involvement in housing, and the Homes and Communities Agency has issued a regulatory framework that places a focus on co-regulation. This means that landlords are responsible for the delivery of housing in line with regulatory standards. It also means that tenants should have opportunities to shape service delivery and to hold the responsible boards and councillors to account. There is a standard on tenant involvement. The HCA is responsible for enforcing proactively against all standards for registered providers. Local authorities are required to meet the consumer standards set out in the framework. However, the HCA will intervene only in cases of serious detriment.
To support the establishment of tenant involvement and tenant panels, the Local Government Association, of which I am a vice-president, worked with the Tenant Participation Advisory Service and other housing bodies on the publication Tenant Panels: Options for Accountability, which sets out the role tenant panels can play to ensure that tenants are provided with a meaningful route to shape service delivery, as well as resolving complaints locally under the new democratic filter set out in the Localism Act.
As we as a society anticipate the need for suitable housing for older people, co-operative and mutual housing for older people could be a more suitable alterative to some of the more current models. If the housing demand in this country is to be satisfied, there will need to be a plural approach to the housing provision, using a variety of approaches to provide homes. There is a need for a greater diversity of supply and for people and communities to be able to innovate, both in tenure and products, to give people more options and flexibility. There is a particular need for greater supply for non-profit driven housebuilding models that enable communities to determine how many houses are needed and for them to be built.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I, too, welcome the debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, which is a welcome opportunity to discuss what might be done by developing co-operative housing in the context of our overall housing policy. I also welcome the new Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston; I am sure that she recognises the importance of housing and in particular affordable housing, and how important it is to social inclusion. I wish her every success in her new ministerial position. Since my noble friend Lady Hanham is sitting on the Benches, I thank her enormously for her contribution as a Minister of DCLG for a number of years. It has been hugely appreciated by all of us.
It is clear from opinion research that housing is moving up the list of concerns of the general public; in a recent poll I saw it had entered the top five. It is some years since that was the case. That reflects a growing realisation on the part of the general public that we do not have enough homes to meet need or demand; that owner occupation has been in decline in recent years; that house prices are very expensive; that it is very hard for young people to get on to the housing ladder right across the UK; and that building for social rent has been inadequate for many years, with a million social homes lost since 1977.
I am therefore grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, for reminding us of a number of things. One is the amount of co-operative housing in Scandinavia—some 18% of homes in Sweden and some 15% of homes in Norway—and the potential that might, therefore, exist in the United Kingdom, where the figure is below 1%. There are also the statutory issues that affect the expansion of the co-operative model here, together with the variations possible under a co-operative model, which I do not seek to repeat.
First, I will put this debate into its context. House prices are rising again and we seem to be at the start of yet another housing bubble. The underlying problem is lack of supply. Housebuilding is less than half of what it needs to be to match the rate of household formation and this imbalance now seems likely to continue for three years at least. Last year saw the lowest house completion rate since 1923. However, since 1990, annual housing completions have never exceeded 170,000 and have averaged 140,000, of which four out of five homes have been for owner-occupation. At present the Government expect to increase the rate of building to 170,000 new homes in 2015, but even if they achieve that, we need to go much further.
Important as Help to Buy is, unless supply is increased prices will rise, putting further pressure on young people and putting the potential of home ownership out of reach for even more of them. Demand will then continue to grow in the private rented sector, pushing up rents to unaffordable levels for many. Despite the 22% increase in private housing starts this year, and despite the many initiatives the Government have taken, which are certainly helping to increase demand, there remains an urgent need for more social housing for rent.
There are 1.8 million families on social housing waiting lists. In addition, many people who are on low incomes and subject to the new under-occupancy rules want to move to a smaller home but they cannot because the smaller homes do not exist. We simply must build more homes for social rent, and if part of the solution is the co-operative housing sector, that is a very good thing, as would be raising the borrowing cap on local authorities, which would also increase the pool of rented homes.
Around a third of households will need to rent for the foreseeable future despite Help to Buy, with its mortgage indemnity or shared equity requiring 75% of a property’s value to be in the form of a mortgage. Inevitably, Help to Buy will reach only those who can afford to pay a mortgage.
The shared ownership proposals recently published by Shelter should be commended, because they would help buyers to take out the maximum share that they could afford on a mortgage, with the remainder rented, so that their share of ownership might be as low as one-eighth, or 12.5%.
We should welcome last month’s announcement on self-build, under which more people who want to start a building project, including affordable home projects, will receive support. It will prove an important element of the Government’s drive to increase affordable housing, with new grants from a budget worth £65 million, and with redundant public sector land available for self-build projects. I understand that some 50 councils are already coming forward with sites. In the past year some 11,000 homes were self-built. This could double within a decade. Presumably many of these self-build homes could be constructed on the co-operative principle.
The Government have done a lot to promote localism, and co-operative housing should be seen as part of their localist agenda. Devolution comes in many forms. In housing, owner occupation is the purest form of devolution from the state because it empowers the individual. Being a tenant dependent on a landlord is not empowering, despite a variety of legal protections. Co-operative housing, too, should be seen as empowering for tenants, because those tenants would exercise control, not a landlord.
There are three reasons why I hope the Government will consider further support for this sector. First, it could increase housebuilding. Secondly, it would exist for the benefit of its members, not of somebody else. As we have heard, a fully mutual housing co-operative has all its tenants as members, and all its members as tenants. They decide equally and together how the co-op is to be run. The third reason is that the sector is a success. As we have also heard, it performs well in terms of member and tenant satisfaction.
However, I understand from the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and from some of my reading, that there is not full recognition of co-operative housing in law, because tenure is based on landlord and tenant law, which limits the ability of true co-operative principles to work. In law, repairs lie with landlords because members are legally defined as tenants. That does not seem right. A dedicated new form of tenure would help to create a truly co-operative environment, building on the successes of a wide variety of existing co-ops, tenant management schemes, trusts and mutuals.
There are currently some 200 housing co-operatives registered with the Homes and Communities Agency to provide affordable homes and, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, they are building around 25,000 a year. There are 200 housing co-operatives registered, but it strikes me that there could be many more. Just think what that might mean for the potential for an increased housebuilding programme. If there were many more housing co-operatives, think of the gain in terms of sustainable communities—because we would be building social capital, with all that that implies for the strength of our neighbourhoods.
Lord Graham of Edmonton (Lab)
My Lords, it is a joy and a pleasure to take part in this debate—and, of course, to pay a warm tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, for all that she has done in local government and here, on the Front Bench and on the Back Benches, over many years. I am grateful to be able to pay that tribute to her, and also of course to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell—who is always known to me as Beeston.
I have been bowled over by the tenor of what the earlier speakers have said, and by their knowledge of the problems. I can go back to 1939—a long time ago—when I worked for the Newcastle Co-operative Society. One of our departments was the mortgage department, in Newgate street, where the headquarters of the society were. At that time the co-ops in Newcastle were involved in encouraging their members to take out mortgages, under proper safeguards. I remind the House that the Nationwide Building Society was emerging out of the Co-operative Permanent Building Society in the 1950s and 1960s, when for their own good reasons they changed the name. The Co-operative movement, which is well known to me and to many others, has long been involved in dealing with what I would simply call the desperate need of people to be well housed.
I cannot imagine that there is anyone in this Chamber today who would not say that, on the whole, they are well housed. But I recall, twice in the 10 years for which I was the Member of Parliament for Edmonton, going out to my car after my surgery and crying. I cried because of the tales told to me by my constituents about their desperate need for better housing—or indeed for any housing. That memory has always stayed with me. We in this Chamber are fortunate to have the kind of largesse that we have enjoyed for many years.
The illustration of co-operative housing that I want to give to the House comes from an organisation called CDS—the Co-operative Development Society. It has just had a change of chief officer. For 33 years its chief officer was David Rodgers, who was a power in the land for co-operative housing—and not just in this land but internationally, because he was the chairman of the International Co-operative Alliance housing division. The new chief officer is a lady called Linda Wallace. I welcome her. She has a good record, having been a managing director of the Notting Hill Housing Trust and a great many other things. I look forward to the CDS continuing to do its good work.
Although there are politics in housing, this is not a political debate. It is a debate in which attention is drawn to a provision that could be improved and extended within the limits. We all know what the limits are, and I will not bore the House by going through them all. By Ministers and civil servants, the difference between a co-operative and non-co-operative entity has yet to be fully grasped and understood. The Co-operative movement, as everyone here knows, has a fine record in most communities, where they change their names and allegiance. I say to the Minister that I am not here with a stick to beat her good self—and I know what would happen to me; she would fight me back. I am here to support the idea that many things can and should be done to extend the principle of co-operative housing.
Most people gravitate towards the idea of becoming, and hope that they can become, an owner-occupier. As the leader of the Enfield Council 50 years ago, I remember the interest and the place that good housing played in people’s lives. Then we had the sale of council houses, and how welcome that was to those who were able to buy their council house. But the whirlwind sown by that has now been reaped by their children and grandchildren. Inevitably, the council house that has been sold has then been sold on and on, and one that was bought for £6,000 or £7,000 in Edmonton is now retailing for £200,000. That is not a good idea.
A co-operative ethos is something that we ought to encourage. The Minister will see this in Hansard, but I ask her and her colleagues to reflect on what we see in the Co-operative movement and the ways in which the Government could become more involved in stimulating the co-operative aspect. I shall have to rattle through these ideas. We want legislation to create co-operative housing tenure as a distinct form of tenure in UK property and housing law. We want to enable the creation of a financial intermediary to raise and manage institutional investment in developing co-operatives in mutual housing and operate an insurance fund to reduce investment risk.
One problem in co-operative housing and in other areas is the excitement that people have when they get a little power and involvement. Very often their heart rules their head. There needs to be some thought given by the Government to make it possible for education, guidance or stimulation—call it what you will—on the structures. Very few housing co-operatives to my knowledge go out of existence because of bad management, but there are some. We need to avoid the waste of public money and other money in that way.
I am very heartened by the debate so far. A small but select band of parliamentarians are simply trailing their coat in front of the Minister and the civil servants, who play a vital part in priorities, simply to say that we have a good record in co-operative housing, and there is better to come. The democracy of co-operative housing is very important indeed, with one member, one vote. There is democracy in the CDS, which I mentioned; it has a management committee of 15 members, and half of them are actual occupants of the properties, not just committee members, and are involved in giving their ideas and making suggestions.
A point that I have raised in other debates is about the assistance to make land available for communities wanting to develop co-operative homes. That is something that we should encourage. The profit that is made from the sale of land is obscene; no matter how you look at it, it is awful. At the end of the day, the people who pay for that will be either tenants or owner-occupiers. If it is possible to have land gifted to a community on the basis that it is theirs in perpetuity, I think that that is one of the ways in which we should go. I know which way I should go—my time is up.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, like other noble Lords I start by welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, to her new role, and offering our congratulations on a promotion thoroughly deserved. Like other noble Lords, I also say that we on these Benches will miss the good humour and engagement of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, on the Front Bench, but I have no doubt that she will continue to play a role and deploy her expertise—born of many years of local government service—in the cause of her party. Let me also thank my noble friend Lord Kennedy for initiating this debate, which has been short but excellent. It is wonderful to hear from my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton, a lifelong supporter of the co-operative movement, and somebody who has been an integral part of its rich history.
All families deserve a safe, secure and affordable home. Debate around any aspect of housing is important given the undoubted crisis we face at the present time. It is timely to focus on co-operative housing, to examine its current contribution and what further contribution it might make to alleviate that crisis. We know that the number of households in England is projected to increase to 5.8 million by 2033, an increase of 232,000 each year. Yet in the year to 31 March 2013, this Government’s policies led to only 108,000 completions, just matching a similar dismal output in 2010-11. This is significantly below the 170,000 completions achieved by the previous Government in 2007-08, which was still too low, as I think was intimated by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. Moreover, a report last year identified that English local authorities are planning some 270,000 fewer homes than were provided for under the 2010 regional spatial strategies; a worrying prospect indeed.
The lack of new houses being built combined with the biggest squeeze on living standards in a generation have meant that home ownership has moved out of the reach of many families. It is difficult to see the Help to Buy scheme—details of the second phase of which were announced earlier this week and greeted with underwhelming enthusiasm—doing much to help, other than to push up prices in the housing bubble referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, so we have the rise of generation rent, with more and more people living in the private rented sector, which is now bigger than the social sector, where too many lack security, have to pay ever increasing rents and suffer poor-quality accommodation.
The inevitable consequence is that homelessness is on the rise, as are rough sleeping and the number of families living in temporary accommodation. Nearly a third of privately renting households are families with children, almost half are over 35 and for many of them the sector does not provide the stability they need. It is inevitable that for the foreseeable future the private rental sector will grow and will play an important part in meeting housing need. However, there must be a system of a national register of landlords, with powers provided to local councils to drive up standards.
Of course, on coming to office the Government cut the budget for new affordable homes by 60%, leading to the collapse in affordable housing starts. They fell to under 16,000 in 2010-11. Funding from an 80% of market rent programme has exacerbated housing benefit numbers, but is a formulation which is simply not affordable in many parts of the country. As the Co-operative Party points out, the housing crisis is particularly acute in London, with the added dimension of overseas buyers pushing up the cost of buying and renting. It says that the majority of Londoners are being squeezed out because house prices and rents are increasing faster than incomes, and not enough houses are being built. With high rents in the private sector and so-called affordable rents for new homes and re-lets in the social housing sector, a growing number of working households depend on housing benefit to meet their rent. This is of course at a time when such benefits are being cut, and the horrors of the bedroom tax are played out on a daily basis.
It did not have to be like this. We have set out how an enhanced affordable homes programme could be funded, and Labour councils are now leading the way in building new council houses for rent, providing not only homes but jobs. The crisis in the supply of and access to affordable housing is a major political and social issue facing our country. I think the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, referred specifically to it moving up to number five on the list of public concerns. The reality is that it will require action on a number of fronts, and we are strongly supportive of the approach which embraces co-operative housing models. As my noble friend Lord Kennedy explained, we are of course instinctively supportive of co-operative principles. The Co-operative Party is our sister party, and we share its values and its commitment to social justice as well as its history.
We have been greatly helped for this debate by information from the Co-operative Party itself and by the House of Lords briefing material. The latter in particular contains key extracts from the independent Commission on Co-operative and Mutual Housing, which was launched in 2008 to research the English co-operative and mutual housing sector and to draw conclusions about its relevance to national housing strategy. This research showed that the sector in England is tiny—less than 1% of housing supply—in stark contrast to a number of other European countries. This is attributed, among other things, to the dearth of information and support for those who would be minded to adopt a co-operative model.
There are of course different models of co-operative and mutual housing, about which my noble friend Lord Kennedy and others, including the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, have spoken knowledgeably. However, the common factor is that they are democratically and legally owned and controlled by a service-user membership. This has a fundamental benefit: by taking responsibility, people develop a sense of belonging and identity, as well as ownership, and this leads to high levels of satisfaction. The co-operative model gives residents democratic control of the property in which they live and a greater say over its management and maintenance. The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, spoke strongly about the benefit of that ethos. It is acknowledged that the Government see this approach as in tune with their localism agenda, with powers being returned to communities and local neighbourhoods. However, like so much of that agenda, we need to see it working in practice.
Like the commission, we do not consider that co-operation and mutuality are the only routes to a community-based approach, but we acknowledge the powerful opportunity that they present. Other benefits which it brings include stimulating individual and community resilience through active and democratic citizenship, and enabling collective influence over what happens beyond the immediate boundary of an individual while supporting the individual household interest in housing.
What seems clear is that the proposition that housing policy can develop only along one of three routes—ownership, social rented housing or private sector renting—is too restrictive in the current environment. Where people are priced out of ownership and cannot afford escalating private rents, and where the wait for social rented housing can be interminable, there needs to be another way.
What has to happen to enable a co-operative and mutual housing sector to play a greater role? It certainly needs the co-operative movement itself to be more focused on housing possibilities. The commission refers to housing remaining the poor relation of the co-operative family, and it looks that way. There is a strong English co-operative and mutual sector, with nearly 5,000 businesses democratically controlled and owned by some 11 million people, but this strength has not yet manifested itself in the housing sector. Perhaps more can be done by the movement to use its financial, organisational and political strength to encourage the development of co-operative housing.
That should obviously entail embracing new developments, be they community gateway associations developed in response to the large-scale voluntary transfer of local authority housing stock, community land trusts or mutual home ownership, as well as the existing models of rental housing co-ops and co-ownership associations. As well as support from the co-operative movement itself, it requires national and local government to develop supportive frameworks. It is particularly suggested that it requires legislative change to create a co-operative housing tenure as a distinct form of tenure in UK property and housing law. Several noble Lords referred to this.
The Minister will be aware of the debate initiated in the other place by Jonathan Reynolds MP following his unsuccessful introduction of a 10-minute rule Bill. That debate, in July last year, focused on the consequences of the Berrisford decision, which, it was suggested, undermined the type of tenancies commonly available in housing co-operatives. The problem arises because co-operatives cannot grant secure or assured tenancies, and the Supreme Court determined that the periodic tenancies could in fact be treated as tenancies for life. In responding to that debate, the Minister in another place put forward the view that legislative change was unnecessary and advised that, if the guidance of the Confederation of Co-operative Housing were followed, tenancies could be structured in such a way that they could be brought to an end. Can the Minister give us an update and say whether this is still the Government’s view?
Can the Minister also confirm the position with regard to housing benefit? Is this in principle available, assuming of course that other criteria are satisfied, for what were assumed to be periodic tenancies pre the Berrisford decision?
Funding will always be an issue, and we acknowledge that funding opportunities remain available from the HCA through various funding streams, including the affordable homes guarantee. Perhaps the Minister can say something about the emphasis that the HCA currently places on inculcating co-operative housing strategies in its support for affordable housing and whether the Government would wish to see more done in this regard.
More generally, if it is the Government’s declared aim to support the spread of strong, financially robust and democratically accountable housing co-operatives—an aim that we would share—can the Minister spell out for us the details of that support?
Given the huge challenges that we face in tackling the country’s housing crisis, it is more important than ever that we grasp the opportunities for a greater contribution from co-operative housing. My noble friend Lord Kennedy is right to focus our attention on this and we give him our thanks.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for initiating this debate. I will say straight away to him, and to all noble Lords, that the Government support the co-operative housing sector. I will speak in more detail about how we support it and why in a moment.
Some noble Lords have raised matters in their contributions that I plan to address in the next debate and I will try not to steal the thunder of that debate by addressing them now. However, if there is any matter that I do not come to in my responses today, I will follow up in writing.
Before I get stuck in to all of that, I thank all noble Lords for their very warm welcome to me in my new responsibilities as Minister at the Department for Communities and Local Government. I also echo the very warm tributes that have been paid to my noble friend Lady Hanham. I saw her slip away very quietly just a few moments ago, but that will not deter me from putting on record just how fantastic she has been as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State whom I have the great pleasure to follow. She has been in that position, as we know, for three years, since the Government were first elected. She has been on the Front Bench in opposition since 2000—I think that most of her time in the House so far has been on the Front Bench. As other noble Lords have acknowledged, she brought to her role at the DCLG a huge amount of experience, both leading and serving on Kensington and Chelsea council. I am grateful to her for her personal support to me and for her ongoing involvement in these areas—as the fact that she was here for most of the debate today indicates—which is of great benefit to your Lordships’ House. I am delighted that she was here and able to keep her eye on this matter and we look forward to her contributions in the future.
She leaves very big shoes to fill and I might lack some detail today in responding to this debate. If I do, that responsibility is all mine. I have a lot to learn but I have already been briefed on the Government’s housing strategy and the impact of it. As this was raised by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and my noble friend Lord Shipley in their contributions, I would like first of all to offer some headlines about the Government’s work on housing, as I take exception to some of the doom and gloom that has been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie.
On the supply side—to be clear, we are talking about housing in general—334,000 new homes have been built over the past three years. Housing starts are actually up by 33% on last year—I think that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, suggested the opposite. The Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply has stated that homes are now being built at the fastest rate for 10 years. More homes are being approved through planning. The latest quarterly figures show a 45% year-on-year increase in the number of planning approvals for new homes. In saying all that, as my noble friend said, the fact that we are making great headway is to be welcomed, but I recognise that there is always more to be done.
On the demand side, the Help to Buy equity loan so far has helped more than 15,000 families to reserve a new-build home. The Help to Buy mortgage guarantee was brought forward and launched only this week and has been warmly welcomed, contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said. The number of first-time buyers is at a five-year high and there is no evidence of a housing bubble across the country, as transactions remain 40% below pre-crunch average and in many places prices went up by less than inflation last year.
In the context of this debate, my intention has been to find out what this Government are doing to help provide housing in the social sector and homes for those who, for various reasons and in different ways, need assistance to make them affordable. I always enjoy listening to the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton. I am pleased that he calls me “Beeston” because, as he knows, I like to fly the flag for Beeston, so I am grateful to him for that. Contrary to what he said—I know that this is not something of which the opposition Front Bench want to be reminded—under the previous Labour Government, the number of affordable rented homes fell by 420,000, whereas, and in stark contrast to what the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, has said, since this Government came to office, 150,000 new affordable homes have been delivered.
Investment of £19.5 billion of public and private funds will deliver 170,000 new affordable homes by 2015. In the next spending period, a further £3.3 billion of government investment and £20 billion of private finance will deliver 165,000 more new homes over three years from 2015. We plan to start construction on 200,000 new affordable homes over the four years from 2014-15, which is the highest number of new-build homes in any four-year period for the past 20 years.
However, this issue is not about just building. In terms of the changes that this Government have brought in, local communities are getting greater control over what happens where they live, which will mean that people are able to build the houses that the community needs and not what someone else dictates. Just over a year ago, the Localism Act gave communities access to a number of new rights: the right to challenge, the right to bid, the right to manage and the right to build. The combination of these new rights and access to funding has led more than 700 communities to get together to start neighbourhood planning and to make decisions on what gets built and where.
As we have heard, those who take this initiative are committed people who know what development they want and they want to retain control over that development. Under the umbrella of what we are referring to as community-led housing, the co-operative housing movement has never had a greater opportunity to show what it can do and to make its contribution.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, gave a comprehensive summary of how co-operative housing groups operate, and their value to their local communities and to their members who are living in co-operative housing. That was echoed by all noble Lords who contributed to today’s debate. My noble friend Lady Eaton drew a comparison with housing run by local authorities and that run by co-operative housing groups. She gave a stark illustration of one in Scotland. Noble Lords have put forward a compelling case about co-operative housing. As I have said, this Government really do support co-operative housing. We want it to make as much of a contribution as it can to affordable housing and the housing sector generally in this country.
My department, DCLG, has a good relationship with the Confederation of Co-operative Housing and Nic Bliss.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
I am very sure that Nic Bliss knows the noble Lord. He is chair of the Confederation of Co-operative Housing and was moved to set out his experience of working with this Government in a statement to my noble friend and predecessor. He said that,
“we are pleased that the Coalition Government has worked with our sector to demonstrate its ongoing support for community-led housing”.
I am happy to share his statement in full by placing a copy in the Library.
Perhaps I may highlight two points that he made. He made the specific point that by working with this Government, along with others, and because of new initiatives, the co-operative housing sector will meet and hopefully exceed its own targets for new homes by 2017. He referred positively to a recent meeting with the former Housing Minister, Mark Prisk. Basically, I am trying to make the point that we are working with the co-operative housing movement and that we support it very much.
Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, referred specifically to community land trusts. I welcome the support for community land trusts. My honourable friend Nick Boles, the Minister for Planning, has recently visited the St Clements CLT in Bow and Dittisham in Devon.
In order to realise their ambitions, community-led groups were able to access the initial affordable housing programme, which I have already mentioned. However, in starting that programme and making it accessible to community-led groups, we knew that not all such groups would be able to put in a bid at that time, so we set aside £25 million for them to bid when they were ready. Some community-led housing schemes have already taken advantage of this. One such group is the Bomarsund Co-op, which started a scheme this year in Seghill, Northumberland, providing 12 new two-bedroom apartments. Another is Queen Camel Community Land Trust in Somerset, which has funding to develop 20 affordable homes. These are communities that have identified that they need more homes. They have worked together to develop a scheme that meets their needs, and their hard work and commitment are now being rewarded with delivery on the ground.
There is also £17 million available to support these groups in the hard task of getting their proposals to planning permission. I would encourage co-operatives to apply for that funding so that they can get to the point where they are in a strong position to move to the next stage. I would also encourage groups that are interested in pursuing their ambitions more generally to note the latest fund which was launched in the summer, the Affordable Homes Guarantees Programme, which provides £65 million for new housing. The Homes and Communities Agency is available and ready to help and assist in that area.
Noble Lords raised some very specific points in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and others raised the issue of a new legal tenure for co-operatives. This is something that others have argued for—indeed, they believe their arguments have been strengthened by the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Berrisford v Mexfield. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked specifically what the Government’s position is. We have no current plans to introduce a new legal tenure. It is worth making two points. First, any change to tenure could not be applied retrospectively so would not assist co-operatives in resolving issues that may have been raised by the decision in the case that I have just mentioned. It is worth being clear about that because there is a tendency to think that a new legal tenure would be able to address any historic issues, when that would not be the case.
I am also aware that the idea of a new legal tenure has been raised by the Law Commission as a possible matter for review. I am not in a position to comment on that at all. The Government’s position has not changed, but this is clearly of ongoing interest to people and I am aware of that.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked about allowing communities to vote for community-led organisations on a stock transfer. All stock transfers require a majority of tenants in favour. We will shortly introduce a new statutory right for council tenants to take forward transfer from a local authority landlord.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham, raised a number of points on which I will reflect carefully, but I am able to respond to a couple of them now. He asked about the proposal for an investment fund. Officials at the Homes and Communities Agency have been working closely with the Mutual Housing Group on the proposal for an investment fund. That group is chaired by Nic Bliss, whom the noble Lord, Lord Graham, says that he already knows.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham, also raised the issue of access to public land for building purposes by the co-operative housing groups. We have identified land with capacity for more than 100,000 homes and to date we have released land with capacity for more than 58,000 homes. Ministers have met with community-led affordable housing groups to discuss how they can access land from this source. Basically, the noble Lord raises an important point, which we are live to. We are already trying to take steps to release land where possible.
My noble friend Lord Shipley talked about local authority borrowing and lifting the cap. He ventured into an area which has a level of detail that is currently beyond my day-three-in-the-job capacity. But I can tell him that the 167 stock-holding authorities have just under £3 billion borrowing headroom. As I am sure he knows, the Government’s first priority is to reduce the national deficit. That is why borrowing arising from self-financing must be affordable within national fiscal policies as well as locally, which the prudential borrowing rules do not address. Additional local authority borrowing could have broader macroeconomic implications for the Government’s deficit reduction programme. Some councils that are subject to the cap are building new homes now and obviously we welcome that. We all acknowledge that the building of new homes is important and something that we want to continue to increase.
This Government have recognised that the co-operative housing movement can play a part in meeting housing need. We have a strong record in working with the housing sector to ensure that communities, including co-operatives, can access funding. The funding is there. Support in getting planning permission is there and I know from all noble Lords’ contributions today that the enthusiasm is most certainly there. The challenge now is to get the houses built. Indeed, in doing so, co-operative housing has the Government’s full support.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, first, I join in the tributes to the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, that were made in the House. I should have said that in my earlier remarks. I thank all noble Lords for speaking in the debate today. I agree with many of the comments made by noble Lords on all sides of the House. I am delighted that the Government support co-operative housing. I look forward to seeing the sector grow, in that case, which would be good. Co-operative housing has an important role to play and if the Government support it and create the conditions in which it can flourish, it can make a positive difference to many people’s lives.
Some of the statistics put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, are interesting and only time will tell on these things. Lots of people living in social housing do not particularly believe that the Government are on their side at the moment. We need only look at the decisions that have been taken in the three years that they have been in office. Having said that, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to the debate today, which have been very useful. I will certainly come back again and again on this issue.
Housing: Impact on Child Development
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Baroness King of Bow
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of low-quality housing on child development.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will open the debate on behalf of my noble friend Lady King of Bow. Her surrogate is presently in labour so she cannot be in the House this afternoon.
When my noble friend was first elected to the other place 15 years ago, she was inundated with pamphlets and reports from her constituency and beyond. One grabbed her attention. It was called, I Mustn’t Laugh Too Much.
Now I, like my noble friend, like to laugh a lot. She wanted to understand why anyone would post such silly advice to people. As she read the report, she discovered that the title was based on advice given by a doctor to a young woman in a cold, damp and overcrowded flat at the top of a tower block on the Ocean estate in Stepney. The report went on to detail the housing conditions that the family was living in. Despite the heating being on constantly, everyone suffered from the cold in the winter and frequently fell ill. There were no drying facilities and clothes had to be dried in the bathroom and hallway. There was severe damp which produced black mould and the windows were always dripping wet. The three eldest children had asthma and used inhalers; the youngest boy had heart trouble and had suffered from persistent colds and coughs since birth. The doctor warned the family that asthma attacks could be precipitated by fits of laughing—hence the doctorly advice.
My noble friend grew up in north London. She had already seen plenty of run-down housing before becoming Labour’s candidate in Bethnal Green and Bow in 1997. Families on low incomes are as proud as anyone else and always tried to put on a good show when visited during that first election campaign. The intense and grinding daily impact of living in such conditions was really only truly brought home to her for the first time on reading that report. In surveys of 100 families on the Ocean and Limehouse Fields estates, it calculated the number of days lost in work or school through sickness and described the extent of damp throughout badly constructed and poorly maintained tower blocks. It revealed that many buildings were running alive with mice and cockroaches; exposed that the lifts were constantly broken and took weeks to repair; and showed that the stairwells of those blocks were plagued by drug users. Most of all, it painted a vivid picture of how bad housing affected the health, education and well-being of children and undermined their long-term life chances. At that moment my noble friend became a complete convert to the central importance of decent, secure and affordable housing in ending child poverty.
In the years that followed 1997, the blocks in which the young woman and her neighbours lived were demolished and replaced by excellent, family-sized social housing built by Bethnal Green & Victoria Park Housing Association under the single regeneration budget programme—the kind of homes Nye Bevan would have been proud to be associated with.
In 2000, my noble friend received a follow-up research report, A Drop in the Ocean, which showed that the health gain of the families who had moved into the first new homes on those estates was already dramatic. Finding and staying in work continued to be a problem, but the children were healthier and doing much better in school. Its most important recommendation was that that the SRB needed to be extended to benefit families in the rest of Stepney too.
My noble friend was delighted when the Ocean estate was included in the New Deal for Communities programme, with a £55 million budget to transform the area. Thanks to that initiative and much extra schools funding besides, the exam results at Stepney Green and Sir John Cass secondary schools are now well above the national average. Those children have a real chance to fulfil their potential.
The ideas behind the single regeneration budget and the New Deal for Communities programme were not new or even very innovative. The East End is the birthplace of council housing; many of you will have heard of the Boundary estate. Some of you even may have read Arthur Morrison’s novel A Child of the Jago, which was based around life in the Old Nichol slum on which the estate was built. The London County Council built the Boundary estate out of its desire to improve the squalid and overcrowded housing conditions in which children were growing up. The challenge then, as now, was how to roll that out borough-wide, city-wide and nation-wide. Our predecessors in central and local government determined that a decent, secure and affordable home was essential for children to fulfil their potential. The funding followed that political priority.
At some point in the 1980s or 1990s, however, those governing our country—and some local authorities—lost sight of that objective. Investment was salami-sliced away and councils stopped building. I would be the first to admit that it took the Labour Government whom I supported far too long to rediscover that objective. However, rediscover it they did, especially after the 2004 spending review, to the extent that almost 50,000 new social homes were completed in England in 2010-11 —more than 1,000 of them in Tower Hamlets alone. Tower Hamlets Council was granted a further £43 million to complete the physical regeneration of the Ocean estate and was promised £222 million to bring its remaining council homes up to a decent standard.
My noble friend tells me of the Liberal Democrat MPs who stood alongside her in many debates, calling for Labour’s Ministers to increase investment in housing. All that makes the housing policy and budgetary decisions taken by this coalition Government the more dispiriting. There has been a two-thirds cut in the Homes and Communities Agency’s budget; a benefit cap that punishes tenants for the greed of their landlords; “affordable” rents at 80% of market levels, which most of my noble friend’s former constituents who are working cannot afford to pay and so do not bid for; and an end to proper security of tenure in social housing.
There are clearly individuals in this Government who recognise the value of building social housing to give children the home they need to succeed in life. But the Deputy Prime Minister’s hopelessly inadequate announcement last year of just £300 million—a fig leaf for tearing up Section 106 agreements for social homes—shows that he is not one of them.
This country urgently needs a proper housebuilding programme. I am delighted that the leader of the Opposition, in his excellent speech to the Labour Party conference last month, promised that we will deliver it. Two hundred thousand new homes a year is double the number achieved by the coalition in any of its years in power.
The report to which I referred at the beginning of my speech was written by Professor Peter Ambrose. Some of your Lordships may know Peter through his tireless work and support for the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust campaign on behalf of families in poverty. Sadly, Peter passed away last summer. His passion and compassion are sadly missed, especially in Stepney, but I and my noble friend are confident that his work will continue to inspire a new generation campaigning on behalf of homeless and overcrowded families. Over the summer, my noble friend received a briefing note from the Zacchaeus Trust reminding us that 2 million children still live in bad housing. They live in cold, damp homes that result in their missing far too many school days off sick and falling behind in their studies, or growing up in overcrowded conditions of three or four children to a bedroom, with no quiet place in which to study. For those children who go on to secondary school, the overcrowding at home will make it almost impossible for them to find the quiet space that they need to concentrate on their homework properly and study for exams.
The cuts to housing benefit mean that homeless families are again spending months on end in totally unsuitable bed-and-breakfast accommodation, cooped up in single rooms where babies do not have even the space to learn to crawl and toddlers are at risk from all sorts of hazards in the communal areas, as well as inside the room. The previous Labour Government banned that practice for a reason, but the coalition Government allow it to arise again and again. Mr Pickles’s offer of £1.9 million to all councils struggling with the pressures of increased homelessness was totally inadequate. It was no surprise that Ministers gave Tower Hamlets not a penny, while Westminster Council got another big wodge of cash.
I am very grateful for the chance to initiate this debate on behalf on my noble friend and look forward to the contributions of others. I urge Ministers to think again about the devastating cuts to the Home and Communities Agency budget and to start building the homes that our children need so that the next generation of children does not have to worry about laughing too much.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
Again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for introducing this important debate today.
The quality of the home has a substantial impact on health. A warm, dry and secure home is associated with better health. In addition to basic housing requirements, other factors that help to improve well-being include the neighbourhood, security of tenure and modifications for those with disabilities. Poor quality housing, which could include overcrowding, dilapidation or dampness, can impact on children’s development in a range of ways—on their physical and mental health and educational attainment—and can have a knock-on effect in adulthood as well as causing them problems in childhood.
The list of health conditions associated with bad, damp housing is indeed distressing, and a reason why we should all be committed to the provision of good housing stock. Poor housing conditions increase the risk of severe ill health or disability by up to 25% during childhood and early adulthood. Children in overcrowded housing are up to 10 times more likely to contract meningitis than children in general. Children living in overcrowded and unfit conditions are more likely to experience respiratory problems such as asthma and wheezing. Overcrowded conditions have been linked to slow growth in childhood, which is associated with an increase in coronary heart disease in later life. Almost half of all childhood accidents are associated with physical conditions in the home. Mental health issues such as anxiety and depression have been linked to overcrowding and unfit housing. Children living in bad housing are more susceptible to developing behavioural problems such as hyperactivity and aggression.
Bad housing affects children’s ability to learn at school and study at home. Children in unfit and overcrowded homes miss school more frequently due to illness and infection. The lower educational attainment and health problems associated with bad housing in childhood impact on opportunities in adulthood, including increasing the likelihood of unemployment or working in low-paid jobs.
In 1997, there were 2.1 million houses owned by local authorities and housing associations which did not meet the decent homes standard. By the end of 2010, 92% of social housing met the standards of being warm and weatherproof with reasonably modern facilities. The Local Government Association, working with ARCH and other housing providers, surveyed local authorities with their own stock last year. Councils reported that their top priority was investment in their existing stock to ensure that it meets and maintains the decent homes standard. In many cases, local authorities are going beyond this standard. In the private rented sector, energy efficiency has improved in recent years, but 11.4% of properties received F and G ratings for energy efficiency compared to 7.7% across all tenures.
The incidence of homes failing to meet decent homes standards is highest in the private rented sector. HHSRS safety hazards were present in 21% of private rented sector dwellings compared to 7% in the social sector. They also have a high incidence of damp problems, linked to the age of the stock. Where quality standards reach unacceptable levels, local authorities have regulatory and enforcement tools available with regard to the private rented sector. Using these tools is often a last resort with a focus on engagement with good quality landlords through forums, accreditation schemes and training. Councils will seek a dual approach, where good behaviour is encouraged through licensing and support to follow enforcement processes. The other side of this is action against poor behaviour, for example by using powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
There are a number of ways that the Government could support local authorities in their work with the private rented sector. They could help reduce the amount of bureaucracy involved in working with the private rented sector to raise standards and free up front-line services. They could be realistic about the scale of the challenge. Any new requirements for local authorities on the private rented sector must be properly resourced and funded, without creating additional burdens. We should help create streamlined and improved enforcement tools so that local authorities can tackle criminal landlords, for example in the rise of illegally rented outbuildings or “beds in sheds”.
It is quite clear from what I have said so far that poor quality bricks and mortar have a detrimental effect on children’s health. What is also of great interest is the work of John Pitts, Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Bedfordshire. He has done considerable research into the well-being of children and has come to the very interesting conclusion that the neighbourhood where a child lives has more influence than the family circumstances. A child from a family that works hard to provide a good home with good parenting will develop less well if the neighbourhood is a bad one than where a child from a bad or dysfunctional family lives in a good neighbourhood. Of course, housing conditions are very important. I am in no way understating their importance, but other things seen and observed can be as, if not more, damaging to a child. Bad neighbourhoods where there is a gang culture, low educational attainment, high levels of addiction, a dependency culture, and poor schooling will be equally, if not more, damaging to child development.
There are complex links between housing and education; however, disentangling the relationship between them is difficult. Neither housing nor education operates in discrete ways and each is affected by a range of other cross-cutting areas, such as health, transport, unemployment, crime and anti-social behaviour, as well as the state of the economy, political decisions and allocation of resources. The work established by the current Government, working with troubled families, is showing many ways in which society can help families which have found the provision of a stable and health background for their children difficult. The emphasis in the Localism Act on giving communities more control over their future existence helps to create safer and more suitable environments, with areas and neighbourhoods in which to bring up children.
Housing is a crucial element and while we can argue about the figures—I know that the statistics are always a difficult area—as we have heard, supply is now at its highest in new housing since 2008-09. New orders for housing are at their highest level since September 2013, with £19.5 billion having been invested in affordable housing, creating 160,000 new affordable homes for rent and ownership. There has been £15 billion invested in the voluntary sector and £4.5 billion in the public sector, while more council houses have been built under the present Government than under the 13 years of the previous Government.
Regenerating housing is a critical policy and the present Government recognise that good quality homes in a safe, clean environment provide all children with the best start in life. We have heard from my noble friend Lady Stowell, as the Minister, of a number of ways in which the Government are addressing and are committed to the development of safe, affordable housing. They are rising to the challenge.
Lord Graham of Edmonton (Lab)
My Lords, first, I have to say how very sorry I am not to have my noble friend Lady King here with us today. There are obviously reasons but, relatively speaking, I have known her for a very long time. I will leave that pun for your Lordships to ponder.
I want to congratulate the Library of this House which, in preparation for this debate, made available a document that was, substantially, prepared by Shelter. It is on the impact of bad housing on physical health, mental health and education. It is very timely and while it is a horror story, it is a bestseller and I soundly urge any Member who is interested in this aspect of our work to ask for a copy because it will certainly come in handy.
I referred briefly in the debate earlier this afternoon to background: where we have come from and what we can expect. We are cocooned in this Chamber and we have got where we are, on either side of the House, because we have some substantial attributes. However, during my life as a Member of Parliament for Edmonton many years ago and as a councillor in the same part of the world, I came across situations which are very much reflected in the report from Shelter. I want to quote from it at length and I hope that the House will understand.
As far as physical health is concerned, the report says that:
“25 per cent of children who persistently lived in accommodation in poor state of repair had a long-standing illness or disability compared to 19% who lived in this type of bad housing on a short-term basis … Children living in bad housing are almost twice as likely to suffer from poor health as other children … Children living in unfit and overcrowded accommodation are almost a third more likely to suffer respiratory problems such as chest problems, breathing difficulties, asthma and bronchitis than other children … There is a direct link between childhood tuberculosis and overcrowding … Fifty-eight per cent of respondents to a Shelter survey said their health or their family’s health had suffered as a result of living in temporary accommodation”.
Those are the impacts as far as health is concerned. For mental health there is another grim picture:
“Mothers living in bad housing are almost three times as likely as other mothers to be clinically depressed … Homeless children are three or four times more likely to have mental health problems than other children … More than 60% of respondents to a Shelter survey said that living in temporary accommodation had worsened depression and other mental health problems”.
As for education:
“Children living in bad housing are nearly twice as likely as other children to leave school without any GCSEs … Children living in acutely bad housing are twice as likely not to attend school as other children … Children who live in bad housing are five times as likely to lack a quiet place to do their homework as other children”.
I shall finish my quoting there. There must be 35 conclusions. It is a brilliant piece of research and quite frankly, until I read it I had not appreciated just how desperate the situation is. The report also tells us that there are 1 million children living in what we might call poverty. My heart bleeds for them. I have a background on Tyneside, where from 1930-39 my father was out of work. I was the eldest of five children. I passed what was called the secondary school exam—I was going to an elementary school then—but could not go because my dad was out of work. I finally made it to a degree through the Open University, for which I say very many thanks. The fact that one is born into poverty or lives in poverty does not exclude you from rising above your poverty, by one means or another, and making an impression in some place or another. All I can say to the Minister, and I am grateful that she is here in her capacity, is that these are not sticks to beat the Government or to beat society. I believe that the value of this report is that as it is used by politicians and others it should strike a chord somewhere among our communities.
At the end of the day, I know all about resources, priorities, budgets—I have been involved in those all my adult life—but the situation we face is that the generation that is coming through our schools and living in our conditions now, as outlined in that report, have a very steep hill to climb. I hope that the Government have some kind words to say about their priorities and initiatives because our children and grandchildren will need them very badly.
Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow my noble friend. He comes to this House with many years’ experience, but he can talk with passion, understanding and experience of being brought up in poverty, and that enriches our debate and helps us understand the difficulties that many families face.
This debate is of fundamental importance because of the poor standard of housing that thousands of children will return home to this evening, housing that will adversely affect them and society for years to come. The World Health Organisation notes that early childhood development is the most important factor in,
“the quality of health, well-being, learning and behaviour across the life span”.
The impact of low quality housing upon these youngsters in their early years is both severe and lasting. In the short term, it adversely affects their health and well-being and hinders their learning. In the long term, it diminishes their chances and opportunities, causing problems which society must later address. A clear example of this is the disruption that overcrowding causes to children’s education and learning.
The Catholic Children’s Society (Westminster) recently highlighted cases not so very far from this Chamber, where a shortage of adequate social housing for families means that children simply do not have the space to sit and study at a table. In one household, typical of many, the two youngest children share a room with their parents, while the teenaged children have to lie on their beds and do homework in a cramped adjoining room. For any effective studying, they must find space at school early in the morning or before it is locked up in the evening. How can they realistically be expected to keep up with classmates who have the simple benefits of a desk, a work surface or some quiet space in their own home? How can they properly develop the skills and knowledge required to compete in a difficult job market when their physical surroundings obstruct their studies? Children in these circumstances are being dealt an unacceptable blow to their life chances from a young age. However, the true impact is likely to be even wider, as pressure on the education system increases and employment opportunities are hampered.
Overcrowded housing not only causes immediate harm to children but causes long-term societal problems, whether in our schools or, eventually, in our economy. A 2003 study considering the cumulative lost earnings of children growing up in poor quality housing compared to their peers projected that the figure would stand at £14 billion. This figure starkly illustrates how the childhood impacts of low-quality housing continue into adult life and the hard cost of needlessly diminished life chances and lost opportunities.
The correlation between substandard housing and poor health is indisputable, with the burden more often than not falling upon the National Health Service. I shall give just one example, that of a family in Liverpool who are helped by a charity, Nugent Care. Its report on them shows how problems of poor housing blight the health and well-being of entire families. Over the years this family had reported various problems to their housing officers, from damp and cracked walls to the front door not shutting properly and the windows being smashed by a local gang. The mother, Anne, informed her support worker that she had given up on painting and decorating as she simply could not see the point any more. She had come to despair of her own home, if it could be called a home. Every time she put up new wallpaper or freshly painted, it simply cracked or peeled off due to damp and poor construction. At the age of 17, her daughter Leanne developed severe clinical depression, which, according to the Nugent report, was,
“possibly brought on by her mum’s depression, possibly by her own experiences and certainly not helped by sitting in an unloved house in need of repair”.
Not only is this a tragedy for Leanne and her family, tarnishing what should have been happy and formative teenage years, but it also requires considerable public healthcare provision, otherwise unnecessary if she had simply been given the decent housing that every child deserves.
The impact of low quality housing on the mental health of children and young people is shocking and tragic. The impact on children’s physical health is, sadly, just as shocking. Multiple housing problems increase the risk of illness or disability by up to 25%. Children living in cold homes are more than twice as likely to suffer from a variety of respiratory diseases than those with adequate heating, and children living in damp and mouldy homes are up to three times more prone to coughing and wheezing.
Of course, no one is under any illusion about the scale of the challenge that we face when it comes to ensuring that children grow up in an environment that nurtures their health, education and overall well-being. It is imperative not to make the situation worse, particularly with regard to policies where all the indications point to significant long-term harm. An impact assessment carried out by the Department for Work and Pensions in 2010 on the local housing allowance found that families,
“could be affected by overcrowding, particularly where they downsize to find affordable accommodation. This could have an adverse affect on health and mental well being … For children, particularly those of school age, overcrowded conditions could hamper their ability to do homework and affect educational attainment”.
It went on to warn of particular dangers for the children of younger mothers, stating that,
“Even if their re-housing is managed so they do not become homeless, teenage mothers affected are at risk of mental problems as a result of their isolation in their new location and poorer outcomes for their children”.
In spite of such warnings, the housing allowance changes were implemented and we are now witnessing the consequences, particularly in London, where instances of overcrowding are already worryingly high and the stock of decent, affordable homes is exceptionally low.
Based on a freedom of information request to local councils, the Caritas Social Action Network recently projected that in more than 20,000 households across London whole families are now sharing a single room, with potentially serious implications for their well-being. Beyond the immediate human impact of this, it is a concern that there has been little or no official analysis of the costs that will be incurred by the public services as a result of this. Factoring these in, it is likely that some of the cost-saving measures under way at present may in fact be having precisely the opposite effect.
It is therefore essential that as further changes to housing and welfare policy are considered and undertaken, the full range of short-term and long-term impacts on children are properly accounted for. The impact of low quality housing on the health, well-being and education of children across their entire lives, and for the whole of society, is stark. Proper accounting is morally and economically sound, and I hope that today’s debate will underscore the urgency of taking it into consideration. The Government must do more than take note. They must act.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to respond to this brief but important debate. It is also notable that we are having two debates on housing back to back on a Thursday. This may tell us how important the issue has become, not just in the lives of politicians, but in the country as a whole.
It is a pleasure to engage with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, on her first day out. She has certainly been put to work on day one of the new brief. I am sorry not be facing her across the Dispatch Box on DWP matters any more, but she has already noticed that although she has moved she has failed to escape the expert and determined ministrations and opposition of my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton, who is following her wherever she goes.
I am delighted to respond to this debate put down by my noble friend Lady King of Bow. I know that she will be disappointed not to be here, but she will be assiduously reading Hansard. When she next goes back, she can look her former constituents in the eye, having raised in the House of Lords those issues that she saw so early on in her political career. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Kennedy, who is doing double duty by staying on after his own debate on housing to introduce this debate so effectively.
At the heart of this debate is a moral issue. We are a developed country, rich by global standards, whose children should be able to live in homes that are fit for human habitation. It is, or should be, part of the social contract that we have with our citizens that families can expect to have a secure, warm, decent home to call their own is or should be part of the social contract that we have with our citizens. Thinking about this debate, I was reminded of the promise made by Lloyd George, almost 100 years ago, of “homes fit for heroes”, and I am sorry to see the Lib Dem Benches empty today. I was thinking of that coalition a century ago and wondering whether today’s coalition might have aspirations even a fraction as ambitious as those of that coalition Government so long ago.
In 2013, it is sad to think that we are still hearing so many horror stories, as my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton put it so well, of children’s home lives. We have heard a compelling case today from all the speakers about the impact of poor quality housing has in damaging outcomes for children. Many speakers have developed the themes that describe graphically the impact on children’s physical and mental health, their educational outcomes and their aspirations for the future. The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, and my noble friend Lord Touhig were very clear in setting out the impact on a child’s mental as well as physical health. This is something that we need to take very seriously.
My noble friend Lord Graham gave us those very worrying statistics from that rather impressive Shelter report about the risks to children. They are twice as likely to have poor health and asthmatics are twice as likely to live in a damp house. The report looked at the impact on children who live in temporary accommodation and at how much they suffer. The worry must be not just that these illnesses affect these children in childhood, but that these conditions follow them through into adulthood. There is a scarring effect on both the physical and mental health of children, and on their achievement, that goes right through into their adult lives.
We have also heard some horror stories about the impact on parents and children of living in an overcrowded home. I was shocked by the statistic from Caritas shared by my noble friend Lord Touhig. The idea of 20,000 families in London living in single rooms should be genuinely shocking to all of us. The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, and my noble friend Lord Touhig looked at some of the impacts of living in crowded accommodation: disturbed sleep, poor diet, and we know that children are more likely to have behavioural difficulties such as hyperactivity or aggression. Living in a tight space is stressful; children are more likely to have stress-related problems such as bed-wetting and soiling. Overcrowding affects family relationships as well as the mental health of both parents and children. It is challenging to keep happy and cheerful when your housing is insecure or your home or succession of homes is inadequate, damp or simply inappropriate.
Low aspirations are common for children in poor housing. I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, about how complex it is to understand the inter-relationship of factors. However, the evidence is pretty strong about the connection between housing and aspirations and outcomes. Even if we think about ourselves, how many of us would be confident that we could maintain morale and raise the aspirations of children if we were one of a couple raising two kids in a one-bed flat in a high rise building in a very hostile environment? I was also very glad to hear the comments made by various noble Lords, my noble friends Lord Kennedy and Lord Graham in particular, about the impact on children’s educational development and standards. I was very worried to hear the idea that children are five times more likely to have no quiet space for homework. Has anyone told Mr Gove? This must be rather worrying. We put such an emphasis as a country on the importance of homework and of children being given homework, and yet some of our own children are unable to do it because they do not have the space.
Children are missing school because of the ill health that is associated with bad housing, as we heard earlier. I also wish to highlight the difficulties caused by children who experience disruption to their schooling caused by moving homes, a point that was touched on by my noble friend. It is a particular problem for the 1.2 million families who live in the private rented sector, where the tenancies tend to be short. Moving repeatedly can cause children to miss more school, and as we heard earlier, parents can become depressed and the children insecure.
We have heard some real horror stories, but I was very moved to hear my noble friend Lord Graham describe how he was unable to go on to secondary school because his father was unemployed. Like my noble friend Lord Touhig, I find it a real privilege to hear him share his experience with us. I can only say to him that if his father is looking down now he must be so proud of what he has done and what he has come to, as indeed we all are to be sharing these Benches and, I am sure, this Chamber with him.
As well as hearing horror stories about specific cases, the truth is that we are living through the biggest housing crisis of a generation. Families are struggling to afford decent homes because of the combination of the crisis in living standards and the simple lack of housing. This debate has surfaced two or three key issues which I will be grateful if the Minister would respond to. First, on the point I just raised about the insecurity for children and families, tenancies in the private sector last on average 19 months. Many of them, of course, as a condition of the mortgages given to those who own them, are limited to a maximum of 12 months. However, families with children now make up a third of renters, so some solution has to be found to enable families with children to have longer tenancies, because the welfare of their children depends upon it. Will the Minister tell the House what the Government propose to do to ensure more secure tenancies for families?
Secondly, all noble Lords raised the issue of the quality of the housing stock, again, especially in the private rented sector. The consequences—the outcomes for children—have been very clear. However, we also know that some landlords are making plenty of money but are failing in their responsibilities to invest in maintaining their properties to a decent level. With so many new people entering the buy-to-let market, what are the Government doing to inform them and to enforce the responsibilities of landlords, and what are they doing to ensure that rogue landlords are tackled properly?
The broader issue of the role of local authorities in this area was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton. I shall be interested to hear how the Minister responds to her. I also wonder whether she has had the opportunity to look at the work of local authorities such as Newham, which has sought to tackle the problem of rogue landlords and poor quality housing head on, by measures such as establishing licence arrangements, fining unlicensed providers, setting clear expectations and standards and improving enforcement. Newham has found that families moving into the borough seeking cheaper housing has caused quite a lot of churn, so it has also been trying to find ways of supporting stability in those communities, to improve the quality of life for families. However, those problems cannot be tackled locally, so will the Minister please tell us what the Government are doing at a national level?
Finally, the biggest question is: what are the Government doing about the desperate shortage of housing in this country? I arrived at the end of the previous debate just in time to hear the Minister share a positive barrage of housing statistics, and I am sure that she will not want to repeat them. However, I shall simply put one statistic on the table: the number of households in England is projected to rise by more than 230,000 each year, yet David Cameron has presided over the lowest level of housebuilding of any peacetime Prime Minister since the 1920s.
I know what the next Labour Government will do to turn that round; we have been very clear about this. We are committed to increasing the supply of new homes by 200,000 a year by the end of the next Parliament. We will give councils “use it or lose it” powers to stop land hoarding, we will build the next generation of new towns and we will support communities that want to grow. We have asked Sir Michael Lyons to chair a housing commission to draw up a road map for delivering on these promises. But for the sake of this country, and of all those children we have heard about, I do not want to wait until May 2015 to see some action. I look forward to hearing from the Minister what the Government will do right now.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for introducing this Question for Short Debate on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady King of Bow, and I join others in wishing her and her family well. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for her remarks about my new role, and I welcome her to her leading role on Department for Work and Pensions matters on the Opposition Front Bench.
As I said in the previous debate, I always listen carefully when the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, contributes to our debates in this House. He is someone of huge experience and great wisdom, and I shall certainly reflect on the points that he made about those who have experienced poverty but have been able to go on and enjoy great success, and about how we must support people in their escape from poverty and acknowledge their achievements. I can tell the noble Lord that a person who offers me great inspiration in that regard is my own mother. I have someone in my own family whose experiences I am regularly reminded of, and reflect on.
There is no doubt that low-quality housing can have a terrible impact on child development. In 2006 Shelter conducted some powerful research that conclusively demonstrated the links between poor housing and poor outcomes. It is intuitive that that should be so, but Shelter provided evidence—much of which others have already mentioned, so I shall just mention a couple of points. Children living in damp housing are more likely to develop respiratory conditions, unsafe housing is linked to greater numbers of accidents and injuries, and children who become homeless are more likely to suffer with mental health problems and to struggle at school. None of this has any place in a modern society today. Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the best possible home in which to grow up to help them develop and achieve their potential.
There is much that the Government are doing to address the problems of endemic and intergenerational poverty that forces people to live in poor housing, whether by addressing the factors that trap people on benefits by helping them into work, or by tackling the failures in education that have meant that the children who most need the best schools have instead been let down for too long. There are also steps that we are specifically taking to ensure that every child grows up in suitable housing, and the first and most important is by simply building more homes. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, mentioned the detailed summary that I provided in the last debate about what the Government are doing in this area. We are doing a huge amount to increase the supply of new homes, both in the private sector and in the social housing sector. I shall not take time by going over them all in great detail. But while I take on board what the noble Lord, Lord Graham, said about housing and poverty not being political issues—and I agree with him on that—I still think that, if we are going to trade statistics, as we do in these debates, I have to respond to some of the points that are put to me.
It is worth reminding the House that the numbers for social housing fell under the last Labour Government and that, under this Government, we are taking big steps to reverse that decline. I shall not go through all the numbers and the stats again in detail, but that is an area in which we are reversing the trend substantially and making it a huge priority. As was mentioned in a previous debate, this is something of huge importance and great concern to everybody.
As has also been acknowledged, we do not just have to build new homes—we also have to improve the standard of the existing homes and ensure that all social housing meets a minimum standard of decency. We have invested £2 billion in this spending round to bring the remaining 127,000 of what were rather shockingly 217,000 non-decent homes up to standard. I note that my noble friend Lady Eaton referred to the efforts in this area that the local authorities are making. The funding that has been made available so far has led to more than 58,000 homes being upgraded which means that, outside of London—and London is slightly different—we are now nearly at 100% of council homes meeting the formal standard of decent homes. There is more work to do in London, and we have announced additional funding for London in the next spending round. Clearly, the noble Baroness, Lady King of Bow, if she was here, would be interested in what we are doing in that area, because of her personal history in representing Tower Hamlets.
Addressing supply and the quality of existing stock will not alone address the immediate problems of demand and overcrowding. It is worth noting that overcrowding is quoted extensively in the latest Shelter briefing, to which the noble Lord, Lord Graham, referred. Overcrowding is perhaps referred to more than anything else as one of the main factors for children suffering from a wide range of concerns and conditions. It was highlighted by all noble Lords, especially the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, in his contribution. It is important to recognise the facts here; waiting lists for social housing have doubled since 1998; there are now 1.8 million households on waiting lists. Nearly 250,000 of social homes in England are overcrowded, while nearly 390,000 are underoccupied by two bedrooms or more.
Overcrowding—a very important issue—was behind two important new measures in the Localism Act 2011. The first gives councils more freedom to innovate and develop local solutions, and make the best use of limited stock by using the private rented sector when it makes sense to do so. This gives councils more flexibility. Part of this involves making sure that we get the best use from what is available to us. The second measure gave councils powers to match the length of tenancy to the household need, and made it easier for social tenants to move house as their needs change.
It goes without saying that housing is a complex issue. Clearly, I am discovering this personally, having just taken over responsibility for the DCLG in your Lordships’ House. It is clear that there are no easy solutions, and we need a range of measures. It is fundamental to make the best use of all that is available, and to treat everyone fairly. I must say that, because of noble Lords’ focus on the issue of overcrowding, I am somewhat surprised that as far as I can recall no noble Lords have raised the Government’s decision to remove the spare room subsidy. That decision was very much part of a range of measures to tackle overcrowding, and the Opposition have now committed to reintroducing it.
It is probably worth placing some facts on the record, not least because this is the first time that I have raised this in my new role. The housing benefit bill doubled between 2000 and 2012-13, and we are now spending almost £24 billion per year. There are approaching 1 million extra rooms paid for by housing benefit for working-age social sector tenants. The removal of the spare room subsidy applies only to working-age people in receipt of housing benefit, and it means that the benefit meets the cost of accommodation appropriate to the household’s needs. Removing this subsidy brings estimated average savings of £500 million a year.
In removing the spare room subsidy we bring social sector benefit entitlements into line with long-standing private sector entitlements, which I think is really important. Before making this change there was a difference in treatment. People receiving housing benefit who live in private rented accommodation have not enjoyed the subsidy that those in the social sector have had for more than 20 years. This has not been tackled before. We believe that it is appropriate to do so, because it will reintroduce the important aspect of fairness between people in different kinds of housing. This must continue if we are to make the best use of the available stock.
In making those changes, there are of course special mitigations in place to safeguard the needs of particularly vulnerable children. There are also measures in place for disabled children. We have a special fund available, £180 million in this year alone, to enable local councils to make discretionary housing payments to ease the transition. This is about making sure that funding is there to deal with those special cases that may need proper attention by the local authorities in that area. We will measure the impact of these changes, and the first report is due next year.
This is an important area. Housing is absolutely essential. Noble Lords have raised several issues to which I have not had an opportunity to respond, and I will do so in writing. Finally, I will make a couple of brief points.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, raised an important point about the range of housing available and the effect on some families of what she described as insecurity through being housed in private rented accommodation as opposed to social sector accommodation. I would say two things to her on that. First, we recognise that, where possible, people want to own their own home—it provides the security and stability that is so important to families. That is why we are very committed to the right-to-buy scheme. Secondly, we have also introduced a new scheme called the right-to-rent fund, which is about providing £1 billion of investment for the building of specifically designed accommodation for rent. This new accommodation will be for rental and will not be subject to subsequent on-sale. Something that we have not done in this country until now is to create a market that people can take advantage of where renting is the only option for them, or indeed an option that they choose, but we have to make sure that it is done professionally and that it is never seen as second rate compared with owning the property.
All children deserve, as well as need, a safe, secure and loving home. The Government are committed to addressing the causes of child poverty and are doing so by helping parents to get back into work, improving education and building more new affordable homes. We are delivering, although there is still more to do. This issue is very important. I am grateful to all noble Lords and I shall certainly reflect on all the comments that have been made here today.