Grand Committee

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Grand Committee

Wednesday, 23 July 2014.

Arrangement of Business

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Grand Committee

Announcement

15:45

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

Good afternoon, my Lords. I remind the Committee that in the event of a vote in the Chamber, the Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes from the sound of the Division Bell.

Health: Stroke

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Grand Committee

Question for Short Debate

15:45

Asked by

[Baroness Wheeler]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to support children and young people who have had a stroke.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

My Lords, most of us, even if we have had first-hand experience of a family member or friend who has had a stroke, think of it as associated with older people. Indeed, when my partner, who was then 62 years old, had a major stroke nearly seven years ago, I was a bit surprised to see two patients on the stroke ward and in the physio room in their 20s and mid-30s who had had major strokes, suffering from effects just as debilitating as for an older person but, of course, with even longer-term impact.

However, later, as a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Stroke, I met the amazing Eliza Cooke, a 16 year-old ambassador for the Stroke Association, who has played a very important role in developing its key campaign to build awareness of child stroke, which has inspired the debate today. Eliza, who is here today, had a mild stroke aged 10 when she was on holiday in France, where an MRI brain scan, had it been available, could possibly have prevented the major stroke she suffered 10 days later on arriving back home. She had the classic symptoms of right-hand brain stroke but, here in Britain, she did not have the MRI scan straight away, because the health professionals she came into contact with were just not sufficiently aware that children have strokes.

By the time Eliza was referred to Great Ormond Street Hospital, 24 hours later, it was too late for surgery. She was completely paralysed down her left side and her brain was seriously injured. Eliza was an in-patient at the London Hospital for four months and had good physiotherapy, there relearning to walk, but she never regained the functioning of her left hand and has a weak left arm and leg, causing her to limp. School and study have been challenging because her memory was also affected, as was her ability to process things visually. However, she is an inspirational and determined girl and, and out of all that, is now doing her AS-levels—and, moreover, wants to study politics at university.

Eliza still has physio and occupational therapy, which she needs to ensure that she retains the movement that she has, but, like other young adults with disabilities, the key question and uncertainty for her is always: will the therapy continue when I am 18?

That children have strokes is the key message from the Stroke Association’s campaign. Awareness and recognition of the possible symptoms among health professionals and the public are vital so that, as with adult stroke, care and treatment can be fast and commence as soon as diagnosis is made. Children with suspected stroke should be seen by a consultant paediatric neurologist, paediatrician or neurosurgeon and have fast access to an MRI brain scan to determine whether it is a stroke and, if so, what type of stroke it is. Late diagnosis is a major problem with childhood stroke, and failure to get the right treatment can have a devastating impact on children and their families for the rest of their lives.

Childhood stroke is, thankfully, relatively rare. It has been estimated that about 400 children and young people in the UK have a stroke each year, and stroke is one of the top 10 causes of death in childhood. Indeed, reliable top estimates suggest that as many as 1,500 children a year could be affected by stroke.

The long-term outcomes of paediatric stroke are difficult to predict. More than half of children will be left with significant long-term disabilities after stroke—some well known, such as one-sided paralysis or weakness, or problems with speech and communication, but others less known, such as difficulties of perception and awareness and psychological and emotional changes.

The causes of childhood stroke are different from those in adults, more varied and often unknown, which is why early diagnosis can be so difficult. Those strokes occur as a result of a very diverse range of conditions—most commonly, congenital heart disease and sickle cell disease. Other underlying causes are infectious diseases, moyamoya syndrome, vasculitis and blood disorders. Childhood infections such as chicken pox, encephalitis and sepsis can also be linked to stroke in children and young people. Fear of the stroke recurring is a major concern for children and families. Ischaemic stroke, caused by a clot, recurs in between 6% and 20% of all children and in more than 60% of children with sickle cell disease.

Since tabling this debate, I have met a number of parents with their children who have suffered a stroke—Eliza and her mum, Liz, and Renee and her son Ollie, who had two strokes aged 13 and 14, are here today—all involved in the raising awareness campaign. I also want to mention eight year-old Caitlin McLaughlin, who had a stroke before she was born and now has a number of different conditions, including cerebral palsy, epilepsy and severe visual impairment. Caitlin’s 13 year- old big sister Cheyenne won the carer’s award at the Stroke Association’s recent Life after Stroke awards, for her commitment and dedication to helping to care for her sister and providing her with personal, physical and emotional support.

Sarah Scott was the deserving winner of the volunteering award. Now 23, she had a stroke while in the sixth-form class at school, at the age of 18. It resulted in right-side paralysis, from which she gradually recovered, but she was left with severe aphasia, affecting her speech, reading and writing skills. As we know, aphasia causes social isolation, particularly for someone of Sarah’s age, but she has benefited greatly from NHS speech therapy, which helped prepare her for working part-time in a local school. She has also set up a support group for young adults in her home city, and organises all their activities and outings as well as visiting other stroke survivors to provide support.

These are the inspirational stories on which I wanted to focus today, to reinforce the need for concerted action on child stroke to match the huge improvements we have seen in adult stroke care and support over the past decade. Three things need to happen. The lack of awareness of childhood stroke, its symptoms and impact—which contributes to the problem of late diagnosis—needs to be addressed; there needs to be more research into its causes, treatment and longer-term effects; and there needs to be a particular focus on improving specialist rehabilitation and longer-term services, as well as the provision of information and support for survivors and their families.

The Stroke Association and other excellent charities in this field, such as Different Strokes, Sickle Cell and Young Stroke Survivors and HemiHelp, have done tremendous work campaigning for action to raise awareness and to support parents and families. Different Strokes, for example, worked closely with the producers of the TV programme “Waterloo Road” on its recent storyline about a 14 year-old boy who had a stroke at school. When Sarah Scott had her stroke in the classroom at school, her classmates recognised the signs from the national Act FAST television adverts about strokes in adults, so an ambulance was called urgently.

Action to raise awareness needs to be taken nationally by the Government as part of an integrated strategy for childhood stroke. Does the Minister agree that plans should be put in place to build on the successful Act FAST campaign on adult stroke to raise public and professional awareness? The action of Sarah’s classmates showed how the campaign could have a very positive impact on young people. Does the Minister agree that a national strategy for childhood stroke needs to be urgently developed and fully integrated into the national cardiovascular disease outcomes strategy, which currently does not address this area? What action will the Government take to rectify this?

On awareness among health professionals, the parents I have talked to say they are often taken aback by the fact that so many doctors have not heard of childhood stroke, let alone nurses and paramedics. A recent study by Bristol University of children in the UK with ischaemic stroke found significant delays in the time from symptom onset to diagnosis, finding that diagnosis took longer than 24 hours in 51% of cases. Better implementation of national and international guidelines around the diagnosis, treatment and long-term management of childhood stroke is crucial here. What action are the Government taking to address this? What support will they give to the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and stroke organisations to develop new guidelines to replace the RCP’s 2004 document, which is now 10 years old? Does the Minister agree that bringing together the latest research and the views of children, families and health professionals in this way to develop new guidelines would be a major step forward in helping to address the cases of late diagnosis and misdiagnosis?

It is all-important for teachers and other schools staff to be aware of stroke symptoms and the need for rapid response, especially for children with sickle cell anaemia. They need to be part of a multiagency team which is involved in the return to school reintegration plan, and in the development of special needs education statements to allow the child to participate in school as fully as possible. Regarding research, there is widespread recognition that the best medical and rehabilitative treatment options in childhood stroke are significantly under-researched. I know other noble Lords will be addressing this, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Patel, whose experience and insights on the key issues and what needs to be done will be invaluable.

Finally, I turn to rehabilitation. Many parents of children who have had a stroke say they have to fight for their child to receive the care and treatment they should be getting. This is particularly the case for the frequency and intensity of contact with therapists, and delays in access to physio and occupational therapy. Of course, there are hospitals which do brilliant work in this area, such as the multidisciplinary child stroke services at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, and Great Ormond Street Hospital.

I recently sat in on a session at the Evelina with a three year-old girl who had suffered a stroke when she was nine months old, and her parents. The session was led by Dr Anne Gordon, the consultant paediatric occupational therapist, who is also here today. As a carer of a stroke survivor I do not need convincing about the importance and necessity of physio and occupational therapy, but watching specialist child stroke therapy in action underlines this.

The little girl had left-side paralysis and, although she could walk, she just was not aware of her left arm. Why should she be when she had never used it? So Dr Gordon was working and playing with her and the parents, encouraging her to move her shoulder and learn to see the arm as a tool that she might use to tuck things under or generally to assist her. It was a process of joint working with the child, the therapist and the parents, and fully involving the parents so that they could continue the physio exercises with her at home. Childhood stroke impacts the whole family including parents, siblings and grandparents. Health, social and education services need to work together to provide the multidisciplinary assessments and support that the child and their family need.

Finally, the Evelina has a dedicated childhood stroke co-ordinator, who provides direct support and information to children and their families while in hospital, during the transition from hospital to home and over the longer term, by helping the child receiving rehabilitation or with starting or returning to school. The co-ordinator works closely with health professionals and uses the parent carer networks to help them reach out and support each other. Sadly that is a one-off, made possible by three-year funding from a Stroke Association corporate sponsor. How does the Minister consider that such services can be sustained and made more widely available to childhood stroke survivors and their families?

There is so much to say, and I have run out of time, but I am confident that the noble Lords who are due to speak will flesh out and expand on the many issues I have raised. I thank them all for coming to speak in this important debate today.

15:55

[Lord Lingfield (Con)]

I thank greatly the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, for securing this valuable debate. I declare an interest in that I am the chairman of the charity Action for Rehabilitation from Neurological Injury. Last week, I was privileged to invite to your Lordships’ House a dozen distinguished professors and specialists in stroke rehabilitation from all areas of the United Kingdom. Their aim is to create a new UK stroke rehabilitation service which is specialised and effective enough to cope with the requirements of stroke survivors of all ages over the long term.

My guest at this panel was Andrew Marr, who, as your Lordships will know, suffered a debilitating stroke last year. I pay the greatest tribute to him for two things: first, his extraordinary and determined efforts, which are bearing fruit, to return himself to health and, secondly, his generous willingness to discuss his experiences in public. He shared with us some of the concerns that have reached him, since his own stroke, from other survivors and their carers. Many seemed to describe their treatment or that of their children by the multidisciplinary teams at the acute stroke phase as really excellent. However, their following therapy was time-limited and subsequent support for them or their children back in the community was very limited indeed. This was the third point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler: that they had to fight for it.

My connection to stroke and young people is personal. My son suffered a severe brain haemorrhage, causing a stroke, in 1997 when he was 21 years old. A few years after that, we started together the charity for stroke rehabilitation, which I have mentioned and which matches rehabilitation specialists and exercise professionals to stroke survivors after they have been discharged back to their communities. I have seen a number of the young people, from six year-olds upwards, who are brought by their parents to our centres or to visit our personal therapists. I have been hugely encouraged by the way that these young people can, with the proper treatment, do very well in conquering the effects of stroke. The ultimate aim for their rehabilitation is for children to start attending school or return to it, or other education, as normally as possible.

One of the limiting problems I see with the children who visit our centres—apart from speech and language difficulties, which often seem to be overcome more quickly—is weakness, particularly upper-limb spasticity. This seems to be the most devastating impediment, which needs consistent long-term affordable therapy because it has to be tackled head-on, often with the coerced use of the limb concerned. The evidence shows that whereas children have the advantage over adults of having a more flexible template for neuroplasticity to occur, with the younger brain adapting more easily to replace lost abilities, children can often simply decide not to use, for instance, an affected hand while playing. They do not understand why they must actively work hard on their limitations as adults, such as Andrew Marr, have done. I met a young boy recently, for instance, who had been allowed to put his stroke-disabled hand in his pocket and keep it there all day long.

That is why community charities are so crucial to continuing the work of the already stretched National Health Service, whose multidisciplinary teams have often completed their work as quickly as a few months from the initial stroke incident. Rehabilitation for children must be continuous, without let-up, to keep propped open the window of time that the brain is most plastic. A number of small charities across the country do this and there is an urgent priority for national support for their work. Many have proven records of successful rehabilitation which, of course, eventually saves the public purse huge sums in carer and ambulance call-out costs. Many are run by volunteers and operate on small private sponsorship. Yet it is to those very bodies that parents turn to request the provision of community therapy and training assistance for young stroke survivors.

We need the means effectively to help the young gain the post-stroke rehabilitation that they need to lead successful lives. A national rehabilitation service of the kind that my group hopes to see, co-ordinating the often disparate services that are currently available, would be an excellent way forward.

16:01

[Baroness Wall of New Barnet (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend for raising this serious issue. For many of us, hearing the numbers has come as a surprise. I acknowledge the support I have had from the Stroke Association in getting together some of the research. I had certainly not heard of young children having strokes before my noble friend Lady Wheeler brought this subject to our attention. Looking at the statistics, it is alarming that around 400 young children have a stroke every year. A significant proportion can easily die as a result, and those who survive the impact of a stroke can perhaps be immensely more disabled, physically and emotionally, than they would have been had they been seen sooner.

As with strokes affecting adults, a quick diagnosis and rapid treatment are essential to help save lives and reduce the longer-term impacts in children and younger people. However, research recently carried out into childhood strokes in the UK shows that significant delays exist in diagnosis, with more than half of cases taking longer than 24 hours to be confirmed. This is because, as I said earlier, it is not something that one automatically expects.

I am now chairman of Milton Keynes Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. I was chairman of Barnet and Chase Farm until a month ago. In preparation for speaking today and considering the seriousness of the subject, I was delighted that I had the opportunity to speak to Kate Swailes, who is matron of paediatrics. Although Milton Keynes does not have a children’s stroke unit, it has an incredible adult stroke unit. During our discussion I tried to understand exactly what she would see if a child came into A&E. She confirmed that it was very difficult to identify whether a young person had had a stroke. Her view was that if they knew the child had sickle cell disease, or had had a fall or an RTA, they certainly would scan them. However, she was concerned that because clinicians did not get a lot of exposure to this, they might not be up to speed with it.

Kate Swailes did a lot of homework over the weekend before speaking to me on Monday and rang me this morning to wish me luck with this debate. She told me that she and her fellow clinicians, working with the OTs, physios and speech and language therapists, have now designed a poster, like the Act FAST campaign, and have put “This could be a child” across the top. Nobody has done that before as far as they are aware, so I was thrilled to bits, as I am sure that everybody listening will be. They have done that at Milton Keynes and want to make sure that the Minister is aware of it. Perhaps it is one of the answers to the Stroke Association’s question about what other tools we can make available for the recognition of children’s stroke.

The noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, mentioned Andy Marr. The main shock of reading about this hit home when I listened to Jackie Ashley, his partner and a Guardian journalist, when she came to my trust just a fortnight ago to recognise one of the initiatives that one of our academic nurses has undertaken, to get all the occupational therapists, speech therapists and physios together. She has put an accredited module together. All the nurses working on stroke wards at Milton Keynes now have this additional training module which makes them even more conscious of what they are looking for when they see a stroke patient and what they can do to assist before and after the therapist has already attended.

We have already made gains in having this discussion, but I say to the Minister—and I am sure that he is receptive to this—that the recognition that this debate is giving to the issue must be raised much higher in the health service. Is it possible to do something inside the department?

16:06

[Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank (LD)]

My Lords, this week, in advance of today’s debate, I looked at my copy of the second edition of the manual, first published in 2000, that is simply called Stroke. It was written by a team headed by Anthony Rudd, now the distinguished Professor Rudd of St Thomas’ Hospital. I could find no reference to children and young people in the index. I also looked at the NHS Stroke Handbook put together by the NHS North Central London Cardiovascular and Stroke Network and published a couple of years ago. Again, I could find no reference to children and young people.

There have been rapid advances, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, mentioned, in dealing with stroke over the last dozen years, and books and documents may have been revised to take account of stroke problems for children and young people. I see, for example, that there has been a Royal College of Physicians paper dated 2004. Either way, I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, introduced this debate and pleased that the Stroke Association is making a stand.

Every six weeks or thereabouts I walk across Hampstead Heath to the Royal Free Hospital in north London for a blood test to regulate my warfarin. Most of the patients are elderly, although a few are middle-aged. Others are physically disabled. However, I have not seen any children and young people. The problem is not visible to those many adults who have suffered a stroke and learnt to live with its consequences.

The Stroke Association says that the causes of stroke and the recommended treatment for children are different. In that case, how often is stroke diagnosed in children and how quickly can the necessary action be taken? Over the years, in debates in the House, I have asked whether GPs are trained and equipped to recognise the symptoms of stroke. I remain concerned that many GPs know little about stroke in the absence of direct experience of handling their own patients. On the assumption that the Minister will share our concern, can he tell us how the message can be passed on to GPs and reach those who have day-to-day contact with the public through their surgeries?

The noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, expressly addressed the outcome of children and young people but the Stroke Association says that there needs to be research into the causes of childhood stroke. There is growing awareness of the characteristics and consequences of sickle cell disease and teachers should try to identify the potential signs of stroke. One of my daughters, a head teacher, tells me that among her 500 primary schoolchildren there is a girl who had a stroke at the age of two, resulting from moyamoya syndrome. She can understand but she cannot speak. Her teacher is almost one-to-one: she needs to communicate to the child in a very different way.

Seven years ago, my noble friend Lord Darzi set out a report called Health for London: A Framework For Action. It led to a major consultation and an agreement that certain hospitals should offer a top-quality service to stroke problems, recognising that all general hospitals could not offer the same level. I am not aware of how far this trend has successfully spread over and out of London and through the country. Given the need for services for children and young people, where are the services located—in general hospitals, existing stroke units or a high-quality specialist hospital?

There are many and rising demands on the National Health Service and costs have to be limited. The Stroke Association—a charity—has put £140,000 into research on childhood stroke at Bristol University. Does the NHS contribute to that Bristol fund? Can the Minister give an overall nationwide figure of money coming from public funds covering research on childhood stroke and where that research falls?

16:11

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I declare an interest: at one time I was a council member of the Stroke Association and I chaired Stroke Scotland for a while. After the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, sat down I decided that my speech was not much good, so I will take a different approach to today’s debate.

I want to look at what an ideal service for children with stroke might look like. The ideal service would be when both parents and GPs are aware that children might have a stroke, but especially when paramedics and medical staff in accident and emergency departments have the knowledge that stroke is one of the differential diagnoses to consider for children with particular symptoms. These children should have rapid access to MRI scanning; currently that is not happening. They should have access to specialist staff to inform early acute intervention, either on-site or known at tertiary level centres for district-level medical professionals to contact for advice; a multidisciplinary team experienced in early sub-acute neurorehabilitation to commence the child on a pathway of care, including parent support and guidance from day one after diagnosis; supported transition into a rehabilitation setting, with in-patient beds for children and young people available equitably nationally; tertiary level out-patient services to support and guide local teams in their management and support of children and families; and flexibility in service delivery to work around the family, for example being able to respond when a new issue arises in the longer term around school, socialising, mobility and so on. A family support worker with experience of stroke should be available to the families from diagnosis through to long-term recovery, to signpost families to services across the NHS, social, education and charitable sectors. I know that that is a long list; but that is what an ideal service would deliver for the best outcome for children.

We can begin by in the first instance—as the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, mentioned—getting the guidelines updated, this time from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, with the help of NICE, which would possibly set the standards, which would then improve the commissioning process. We will have to go further than that. One other way would be to carry out in the first instance a national audit of stroke in children, as that would inform us how the services perform.

I will briefly address research areas that might be useful to improve the services in future. Currently we do not know much about interventions at the early stage—even, for instance, when anti-coagulation or blood-clotting drugs should be used. Research might be in areas such as what therapeutic interventions work and the type of intervention and dosage of drugs that will be required, in particular in motor/movement interventions for preschoolers and infants, and social, emotional and behavioural input for adolescents.

Intervention effects could be evaluated at the level of neural pathways through innovations and MRI imaging. For instance, I know that two centres in the United States are currently carrying out research into MRI imaging through neural pathways—as well as clinical evaluation of functional change. Questions that could be answered, but realistically only through multicentre studies to support a large sample size, include, when is the optimal time after diagnosis to intervene? How old should a child be to gain maximum effect? How intensive a dose of intervention should there be? What models of remote access to intervention are effective, such as telehealth, for parents and for children and young people, to support parents in managing stress, build resilience in young people to manage daily life challenges, and enable people to meet each other and provide mutual support? Those are some of the key areas of research that are required and should be supported.

In conclusion, the current service is not ideal, but we can begin to make it ideal. We have, even in this city, the Evelina Children’s Hospital and Great Ormond Street, which will match up pretty closely to this ideal service. They could be used as good practice places which other units can learn from. I hope that we might hear some positive answers from the noble Earl; I have no questions for him.

16:17

[Baroness Rendell of Babergh (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, for initiating this debate on childhood stroke, a misfortune many will be surprised to learn children can suffer from. In fact, infants have the same risk of having a stroke as the old; an unborn child can have a stroke. One infant in every 4,000 live births has a stroke. It would be difficult to name an illness or disability more emotionally disturbing to a parent than a stroke occurring in a child. When it happens, a parent at first finds it hard to believe.

When I was young, both my parents died after having strokes, my father after several strokes. Between their deaths, someone I knew had a child of eight who suffered a stroke. Virtually nothing was done for my parents except to leave them to die in relative comfort. The little girl spent some time in hospital but was left partially paralysed, perhaps because it was a long time before what had happened to her was recognised and there was then no effective treatment. That was 40 years ago, and things have changed. Good care is now taken in hospitals and attention given to a parent’s psychological and emotional needs. There is recognition of the shock parents suffer when they learn of what has happened to their child.

The Evelina London Children’s Hospital, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, referred, is part of the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. It was founded in 1869 by Ferdinand de Rothschild, in memory of his English wife Evelina, who had died in childbirth. The hospital was restored and reopened in 2005 with 140 beds. At Evelina, the need of children to have their parents with them and the perhaps greater need of parents to be with their children is recognised, and there is no restriction on children and their parents being together. Parents can stay with their child at any time, and there is a pull-out bed next to the child’s bed.

Evelina collaborates with the Stroke Association in its Child Stroke Project. This provides tailored information for children, young people and families who are affected by stroke and offers emotional support in adjusting to the impact of stroke, while Scope runs a parenting befriending scheme called Face 2 Face. The Stroke Association has a helpline and provides support services across the country to help those affected by stroke to recover their lives.

Even more than the distress and anxiety caused to adults with stroke, childhood stroke brings fear and bewilderment to the parents of such children and it is they who need help and comfort. Apart from Scope’s Face 2 Face, the Stroke Association is now building a community of people who care about stroke and want to see people make the best recoveries. Emotional support is as crucial for recovery as physical rehabilitation, and stroke survivors’ emotional well-being should be a key part of their health and social care plans. Carers should be recognised as “partners in care” and included in the stroke survivor’s ongoing journey towards recovery. This must be especially true of stroke sufferers in childhood.

Investment needs to be increased in the provision of clinical psychologists, who should ideally be part of the multidisciplinary stroke team, both in hospital and in the community. Children and younger stroke survivors need ongoing support from diagnosis, through peer support groups and the transition to adult services, and this must include treatment of the emotional and psychological impact of stroke on children and their families. Specialist counselling is needed as children and their carers require individual attention specific to their needs.

The Stroke Association is asking health and social care providers to share their experience and successes. If such people are particularly proud of their service or the work they are doing to help people affected by stroke, they should get in touch with the Stroke Association’s campaigns website to share what they have discovered and achieved with others. Does the Minister agree that the passing on of such experience would be immensely beneficial to carers and parents of stroke-affected children, who can often feel isolated and forgotten?

16:21

[Lord Smith of Clifton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, for introducing this short debate on stroke and young people. I shall concentrate on the young victims of sickle cell disease. It is, as other noble Lords have said, one of the major causes of stroke in young people.

Until I stood down last week, I was for some years vice-chair of the APPG on Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia. When my noble friend Lady Benjamin introduced me to His Excellency the Trinidadian High Commissioner and mentioned my involvement with the APPG, he looked somewhat quizzical. I explained that as I was susceptible to many modern diseases and had succumbed to many, both actually and hypochondriacally, the one I was unlikely to suffer from was sickle cell disease and therefore it was the disease I could speak about most objectively.

When the previous Labour Government announced the creation of a lead agent for adult stroke, I asked why they had not appointed one for children. Since sickle cell is the main cause of stroke in young people, was it because the Department of Health was unconsciously institutionally racist? Consequently, the Royal College of Physicians was swiftly announced as the lead agent for stroke in young people. Is this still the position? If so, what initiatives has the royal college taken since 2010 in relation to research into or treatment of the disease? Does the RCP make regular recommendations to the department and, if so, how many times has it done this since 2010? More generally, what initiatives has the Department of Health been involved with or know about?

This is a time of rapid advancement in both cell and gene therapy. It would seem opportune, therefore, to examine what likely improvements in the treatment of and research into sickle cell disease might be attempted, especially with regard to stroke in young people. I believe that there is a crying need, as other noble Lords have said, to develop a single centre of academic excellence to further both research and treatment. Accordingly, nearly two years ago, I enquired of all the London deans of medical colleges whether they would bid to host a dedicated chair in sickle cell disease in their institutions. They replied that they would all do so. Having got their assent, I next saw the Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health and put the proposal for a dedicated professor and supporting staff to Dame Sally Davies, who, in her previous role as a consultant, had much experience of treating sickle cell patients. Her response was not encouraging. First, she could see no need for any special funding for research in the area. Secondly, no extra money would be made available. Thirdly, in her opinion there was too weak a gene pool of worthy professorial candidates in the UK who could fill such a chair.

That third reason is a damning indictment of successive Governments and agencies such as the MRC and other research foundations. Why has there been such a lack of concern and finance? In any case, why should the search for suitable candidates be confined to the UK? British universities attract many professors across disciplines from abroad, and I am sure that a visa would be awarded to a foreign expert to come and lead research into sickle cell if he or she could be found. At a meeting in November 2012, with Anna Soubry MP as the Minister responsible to Parliament for sickle cell disease, APPG officers put the idea of a chair to her and she responded enthusiastically. Unfortunately, her follow-up letter was written by the civil servants and did not reflect this but struck a depressing note as the official departmental line.

As an index of the trends at work, it is interesting to look at the role of the MRC and its increase in spending. What MRC funds were made available in 2012-13 for sickle cell disease? There has been a modest incremental increase, which is welcome, but the trend is still increasing. To what extent is the MRC adopting a strategic approach to sickle cell? Is it encouraging a centre of excellence or does it just respond to disparate bids? One way in which more money could be found perhaps is by greater co-operation within the Commonwealth. The MRC already gives money to the University of the West Indies centre for the treatment of sickle cell, which is commendable, but funds for pioneering research into the causes of the disease are lacking. Since the incidence of this disease is high in Africa and the Caribbean, as well as in the UK—and, for that matter, the USA—I urge Her Majesty’s Government to seek collaborative funding within the Commonwealth to secure adequate financing or research. Does the Minister agree?

16:27

[Lord Imbert (CB)]

My Lords, I was so glad when I saw that the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, had secured this debate. Since becoming the victim of a rather nasty disabling stroke some years ago, just a few months after being introduced in your Lordships’ House, I have, for very apparent reasons, taken a close interest in this country’s progress on prevention, diagnosis and treatment of stroke. The Government, the National Health Service and charitable groups such as the Stroke Association deserve congratulations on the improvements that we have seen in recent times in adult stroke diagnosis. I also acknowledge the improvement in later treatment, especially the use of the clot-busting thrombolysis drugs and rehabilitative support for adult victims but, wretchedly, this has not been matched in the area of childhood stroke. Too many parents of stroke-damaged children report that they have a constant fight so that their child can receive the essential care and treatment that they need.

Many people believe that strokes happen only to old people; tragically this is not so. Dr Anne Gordon of the Evelina London Children’s Hospital recently told a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Stroke that as many as 1,500 children a year could be affected by stroke in the UK. Inevitably and tragically, a number of those die very soon after or during their stroke—and this brain attack, as it is sometimes called, is one of the top 10 causes of death in children. Of those who survive, can one imagine the enormous difficulties they have to overcome if they are to have a reasonable and fulfilling life to which all children should be entitled? But life is not fair and far too many of these young victims are not receiving the help and attention that they need.

I recall the feeling of dejection when I was first told, and understood, what had happened to me after my brain attack. Would I ever walk again? Would I get rid of that great wodge of cotton wool and glue which seemed to block my mouth and prevent me talking? Yet I was, and am, one of the more fortunate ones. I was in my mid-60s when I experienced this life-changing incident so, unlike young people in their early or formative years, I had already enjoyed a full, active and rewarding life.

Some days after that incident-filled and painful day, I stopped my selfish and self-centred thoughts about my own plight and the challenge which I now faced because I witnessed and was told of the difficulties and challenging times ahead for children. There were even some toddlers and babies who had suffered a stroke. How did they learn to speak and think in their native language when they had never known or experienced the joy of speech? If they are just toddlers, how do they learn to walk with one leg failing to play its part and simply getting in the way? Much more needs to be done to assist young people and children to cope with their dysfunctional limbs, brain and tongue, so what can be done to help these young people?

First, the improvements that we have seen in recent times in adult stroke care and support must be matched in the area of childhood stroke. There needs to be more work done to raise public and professional awareness of the risk factors, signs, progress and outcome of childhood stroke. The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, mentioned the lack of understanding and knowledge among GPs. That applies in hospitals, certainly in accident and emergency departments. When I was taken in there, the colleague who was with me told the doctor what he thought had happened to me. I was conscious enough to understand that two doctors were standing by my bed saying, “What shall we do with him? Let’s put him in Elizabeth ward, as there is a spare bed there”. But did they attend the stroke or do something about it? No, of course not, so professionals must know more about the diagnosis and understanding of stroke—and I mean doctors and nurses.

There must be a particular and strong focus on improving specialist rehabilitation and long-term services and support for childhood stroke survivors and their families. Childhood stroke, as with that of adults, has an impact on the whole family but that impact and shock, it must be acknowledged, is greater when it is children who have suffered a fatal or permanently disabling stroke. Re-integrating a severely disabled child into the family not only affects the parents but has an adverse effect on the emotional and physical health of siblings, and even grandparents.

There is an urgent need to provide research into a more detailed understanding of childhood stroke and I hope that the Minister will assure us that financial provision will be made to tackle this problem. This should be government or public money and not left to charitable organisations such as the Stroke Association, which provided funding of more than £140,000 to a team at the University of Bristol for the biggest ever UK study into childhood stroke. It is simply disgraceful that the Government were able to find £100 million two years ago to introduce the farcical police and crime commissioner scheme, which the public said that they did not want. It will cost another £100 million to keep this highly discredited and increasingly laughable system going for the next 18 months. I plead with the Government to find an equivalent sum to save children’s lives and survive the devastation of a stroke. I look forward to the noble Earl’s answer.

16:35

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, I express gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, for raising this very important issue, and to all noble Lords who spoke for their valuable and excellent contributions. It will be difficult if not impossible to do justice to the points and questions in the time available, but I undertake to write on those that I am unable to cover today.

Strokes in children are thankfully uncommon, but the effects of a stroke can be devastating both for those who have one and for their families and loved ones. This is particularly the case with children, where a stroke may have a lasting impact on their development and educational attainment, with grave implications for their future.

It is important therefore that there is awareness of childhood stroke. Public Health England is responsible for awareness campaigns and has run the Act FAST campaign to raise awareness of stroke for the last six years. It is its most successful campaign. The Act FAST campaign depicts older adults, and, while there is no specific focus on children, the message remains the same. However, as many noble Lords will know, the signs of a stroke in infants and young children may be less obvious, and Public Health England will want to consider whether a specific campaign aimed at raising awareness of strokes in children is needed.

The provision of stroke care by the NHS necessarily embraces a wide range of different services. There are different causes of stroke in children—including disorders of the heart, blood and vascular system, as well as infections—and the effect of strokes will also be different. As noble Lords will know, there is a heightened risk of childhood strokes from certain variants of sickle cell anaemia, for which all newborn babies in England are screened with a heel-prick test. I will write to my noble friend Lord Smith in answer to his questions on this subject.

The risks of stroke for children with these variants of sickle cell disease can be assessed using a test known as a transcranial Doppler scan, and those deemed at high risk can be treated with blood transfusions. An annual scan is recommended for children with these variants of sickle cell disease, and NICE guidelines and a national screening programme for sickle cell are already in place.

Not all strokes can be prevented, though, and where a child does suffer a stroke it is important that they get the right treatment. Where a stroke leaves a child with complex or specialist needs, their treatment will normally be delivered through specialised paediatric neurology services commissioned by NHS England. Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that NHS England is running a number of pathfinder projects looking at the care processes for paediatric neurosciences through its Paediatric Neuroscience Clinical Reference Group. This work seeks to define the best arrangements for paediatric neurology patients and encompasses children’s strokes. In addition, the Royal College of Physicians is currently updating its 2004 guidelines on childhood stroke and I would expect these standards to be considered by the Paediatric Neuroscience Clinical Reference Group in due course.

I understand the call to integrate childhood stroke into the cardiovascular diseases outcomes strategies. NHS England is currently leading a group to implement the 10 key actions to improve outcomes for cardiovascular disease. It would be for NHS England, working with key stakeholders, to consider whether childhood stroke should be included in this work, and I will ensure that it is made aware of noble Lords’ views on this issue. I am sure that NHS England will look to encourage an integrated and life-course approach to stroke care, ensuring that paediatric care is appropriately aligned with adult strategies.

Mainstream services, including ongoing care, for supporting children who have had a stroke—and their families—are commissioned by clinical commissioning groups. It is worth recognising that clinical commissioning provides an effective basis for ensuring that children who have suffered a stroke are effectively supported: CCGs are under a duty to obtain appropriate advice from persons who, taken together, have a broad range of professional expertise in the prevention, diagnosis or treatment of illness. This is essential for such a complex area of clinical practice which must be informed by emerging evidence.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, and the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Imbert, referred to the need for research. As far as evidence is concerned, the National Institute for Health Research currently funds two studies on childhood stroke through its biomedical research centres at Imperial College and Great Ormond Street Hospital, including one looking at the outcomes of childhood stroke. The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including the needs of children and young people who have had a stroke.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, mentioned the need for good rehabilitation services for children. We are aware that there is a significant issue around capacity in paediatric neurological rehabilitation in England. I understand that NHS England is currently undertaking work to assess future capacity needed. Any expansion of capacity would, of course, have cost implications. In addition, in April 2014, NHS England established the specialised commissioning task force to make immediate improvements to the way in which NHS England commissioned specialised services, and put commissioning arrangements on a stronger footing for the longer term.

I mentioned the pathfinder projects looking at end-to-end care processes for paediatric neurosciences. In addition, I am advised that NHS England has indicated that it will ensure that due consideration is given to the Royal College of Physicians guidelines for treating children who have suffered strokes.

My noble friend Lord Rodgers made the telling point that GPs should be required to do training in child health. As part of the mandate to Health Education England, it committed to ensuring that GP training produces practitioners with the required competences to practise in the new NHS. To support this, Health Education England has been asked to work with the devolved Administrations and the Department of Health on responding to the recommendations of the Shape of Training report on postgraduate specialty training, and the provisional findings of NHS England’s review of primary care services. The case for a fourth year and enhancements to GP training will be explored further as part of this response, including specific training in that extra year in child health and paediatrics.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wall, and my noble friend Lord Rodgers raised concerns about the time until diagnosis. We are committed to working to improve the health outcomes delivered by the NHS for children. That is why we set up the Children and Young People’s Health Outcomes Forum in 2010. Its report set out a number of recommendations. One which we are working on is to develop a new indicator which would report the time from the first presentation to the NHS to definitive diagnosis and start of treatment.

As part of our response, we made a pledge alongside key partners, including NHS England, NICE, Health Education England and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, to work together to improve health outcomes for children. Our shared ambitions are for children, young people and their families to be at the heart of decision-making. Together, the organisations who signed the pledge are making progress towards meeting those ambitions. However, there is much work to be done and the Children and Young People’s Health Outcomes Forum will continue to actively monitor progress on the action taken as a result of the recommendations made in its initial report published in July 2012. This work will help to improve the outcomes and experience of children who suffer strokes and their families.

In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Patel, I say that the new integrated arrangements for children and young people with special educational needs, which the Children and Families Act introduces from September, are the ideal basis for ensuring that special educational services and social care can be planned in a joined-up way with the healthcare that a child needs arising from a complex condition. Children with SEN will have an education, health and care plan, which different sectors will come together to assess and plan for, focusing on the outcomes which make the biggest difference to the child. We are committed to ensuring that staff who work with children have the right skills and experience. That is reflected in our mandate to Health Education England.

There are therefore a number of opportunities on the horizon which could contribute significantly to improved outcomes for childhood stroke, and I again thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this excellent debate.

North Korea: Human Rights

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Grand Committee

Question for Short Debate

16:46

Asked by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the work of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, on 21 March 2013, the United Nations Human Rights Council established the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, with a mandate to,

“investigate the systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, with a view to ensuring full accountability … for violations which may amount to crimes against humanity”.

North Korea’s scant respect either for its own people or for the people and security of the region as a whole is underlined by the launching of artillery shells and short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan, concomitant with the squandering of desperately needed resources that could be used to feed the millions of North Koreans who suffer acute malnutrition and chronic food shortages. Four times in the past two weeks alone, North Korea has test fired short-range missiles and rockets, and threatened a fourth nuclear test in violation of United Nations sanctions.

While 84% of North Korean households have borderline or poor food consumption, it is reported that in 2012 Kim Jong-un spent $1.3 billion on North Korea’s ballistic missile programme, in addition to $300 million on leisure facilities and nearly $700 million on luxury goods including watches, handbags and alcohol. Set against that, the findings of the commission of inquiry, which completed its investigation and released its findings last February, should be looked at from an accurate perspective. Its report detailed a truly shocking disregard for humanity, which included,

“extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape”,

forced abortions,

“and other grave sexual violence and persecution on political, religious and gender grounds”.

The chairman of the commission, Mr Justice Michael Kirby, found many of these violations committed by the Government of North Korea to be,

“without parallel in the contemporary world”,

and to constitute crimes against humanity.

It will come as no surprise to noble Lords that at every stage the Government of North Korea refused to co-operate with the commission’s investigation and have since dismissed the report as,

“a product of political confrontation and conspiracy”,

and rejected its findings. During the four visits that I have made to North Korea, three of which were with my noble friend Lady Cox, I have been deeply impressed by the dignity and forbearance of the North Korean people, but equally dismayed and saddened by the hateful ideology that criminalises and brutalises its people.

Some North Koreans who have fled their country were able to testify at the commission’s public hearings in Tokyo, Seoul, Washington DC and here in London. Some originally gave their testimonies to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea, which I have chaired for the past decade. While mentioning the APPG, perhaps I may thank James Burt, its honorary secretary, for his work in preparing for today’s debate. It hardly needs saying that the bravery of the testifying witnesses has been remarkable; one of them is with us today. Many have families in North Korea, who remain in constant fear of reprisals. In breaking the wall of silence that surrounds the DPRK, those who have escaped—including 25,000 who now live in the Republic of Korea, and 700 or 800 who live in the United Kingdom—have been game changers.

As we meet today, 11 North Korean escapees are languishing in prisons in China’s Jilin province—a region I visited 18 months ago. I wonder whether the Minister can tell us whether Her Majesty’s Government would be willing to appeal to China to accept its obligations under international law and not return those escapees to North Korea, where they face persecution, torture and possible death. I hope that China will give serious thought to relaxing its policy of repatriation, not least because the commission of inquiry’s report describes how pregnant women are forcibly aborted and their newborn babies killed if it is thought that mothers have “diluted” the Korean bloodline by bearing a child with a Chinese parent. Not only is this ugly racism, it is utterly lacking in humanity and deeply offensive to China.

For terrorised North Koreans and the international community alike, the commission has marked a turning point. For too long, states have claimed that too little was known of the extent of North Korea’s crimes to justify action. In the words of Mr Justice Kirby:

“Now the international community does know. There will be no excusing a failure of action because we didn’t know…The suffering and the tears of the people of North Korea demand action”.

The findings detailed in the commission’s report stretch to well over 300 pages, and time does not permit a detailed overview. I know that other noble Lords will enlarge on some of these points but, in summary, the commission found that the freedoms of thought, expression and religion were routinely and brutally curtailed in the North Korean state. North Koreans are discriminated against on the basis of class, gender and disability. The vast majority of North Korean citizens are unable to leave their own country, choose where they live or decide where they work. The withholding of food by the North Korean state constitutes an explicit policy of enforced and prolonged starvation, which contributed to the deaths in the 1990s of at least 1 million people, with some estimating that as many as 2 million people died. Detention, torture and execution are established tools of social control. The abduction of foreign nationals has been routine. Up to 120,000 North Koreans face starvation, torture, forced labour, sexual violence and execution in the country’s political prison camps.

The inquiry found evidence of crimes against humanity. One firm of celebrated lawyers also suggested that the evidence points to genocide against the country’s Christians—a point to which my noble friend Lady Cox will return. My noble and right reverend friend Lord Eames will refer to some of the other issues that have been raised in the report. One of its underreported aspects is gender-based crime against women; another is the indoctrination of children. I wonder whether violence against women was raised during the recent conference on preventing sexual violence in conflict.

One witness who fled North Korea told the commission:

“You are brainwashed”,

and,

“don't know life outside. You are brainwashed from the time you know how to talk, about four years of age … North Korea is not open to the outside world”,

but,

“is a fenced world ... They want the people to be blind, deaf to the outside world, so that the people won’t know what is happening”.

The CoI report challenges us to think about how we counter hateful propaganda and that wall of silence, and how we break the information blockade. This is why Mr Justice Kirby supports the extension of BBC World Service transmissions to the Korean peninsula. The All-Party Parliamentary Group has heard from groups that have successfully broadcast into the country, and also from North Koreans who escaped and who told of the importance of foreign broadcasts.

Only yesterday, along with other members of the group, I met with Diane Coyle, the acting chair of the BBC. I have reiterated on many occasions, as have other noble Lords, that it would cost only about £1 million to commit to broadcasting to North Korea, compared to DfID’s budget of £12 billion. Surely this is money that we can find, to at least try to form some of those who have escaped into tomorrow’s journalists. Maybe that is an issue that the Minister could pursue with the BBC Media Action programme.

How do we intend to honour our obligations under Article 19 of the 1948 declaration if we are unwilling to break the information blockade? I have no problem with cultural programmes; but if that is all we do we will be failing North Korea. Instead of telling us about photographic exhibitions or cultural exchanges, I hope that the Minister will tell us whether any human rights projects, for instance, are going to be implemented in North Korea and how we will break the information blockade.

I was saddened that in a recent article a former FCO chargé d'affaires in Pyongyang, Jim Hoare, questioned the place of human rights in our engagement with North Korea, claiming that,

“human rights issues have proved a complication”,

to the UK's cultural projects in North Korea, and that a,

“modestly-successful parliamentary linkage seems to have more or less ceased because of the preoccupation with human rights of many British parliamentarians”.

It is the job of parliamentarians to be preoccupied with gross human rights violations, and I would hope that it is a preoccupation that the Government and their officials might share. Engagement with North Korea is not always the same as engagement with the North Korean state. The biggest improvements to the rights of North Koreans have come in spite of the North Korean Government, not because of it. We must engage with the victims of human rights abuses as well as the perpetrators.

When the United Nations Human Rights Council met in March to discuss the report, both it and the United Kingdom voted to recommend that the General Assembly should submit the report to the Security Council for appropriate action, which could include a referral to the International Criminal Court. Can the Minister tell us whether we will be seeking a Security Council resolution, a referral to the ICC or another judicial tribunal and an expansion of the existing sanctions regime to cover human rights violations?

The resolution also called upon member states to consider implementing the recommendations as laid out in the CoI’s report. Can the Minister tell us how many of the CoI’s recommendations that pertain specifically to states Her Majesty’s Government have implemented thus far?

As this report describes, North Korea is a country that is beyond parallel. The United Nations special rapporteur, Mr Darusman, recently said, following the publication of the report:

“There is no turning back; it cannot be ‘business as usual’.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed by the Nazis, once said:

“We have been silent witnesses to evil deeds”.

Let that never be said of us.

16:57

[Lord Eames (CB)]

My Lords, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a devastating indictment of life today in North Korea. It makes explicit reference to violations of the right to food; violations associated with prison camps, torture and inhuman treatment, arbitrary arrest and detention; and violations of the right to life and freedom of expression. It paints a detailed picture of a society that exists on fear and intimidation. It talks about a captive people cut off from the outside world.

As one who visited North Korea in 2007, I have seen something of the atmosphere that prevails in the lives of ordinary people. I was asked by the then Archbishop of Canterbury to lead an international delegation of Anglican communion members to present the proceeds of a world appeal in the aftermath of the floods and storms that devastated North Korea. Despite the outward appearance that I was presented with—the official face of North Korea—nothing could hide the stark realities of everyday life: the subjection of its people; the isolation of villages completely cut off from each other; the enforcement of strict measures by the military; and the fear of foreigners.

However, the difficulty of a report such as we are discussing today is even more than the tragic picture it paints. It is surely the question, “What now?”. Nobody denies the details of life in North Korea it contains; but what are the opportunities for the UK Government to bring about change in that hidden country? What can the outside world actually achieve in the face of the almost total isolation of North Korea? Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind”.

In light of this, it may surprise noble Lords to learn that North Korea has acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Yet the commission reported that domestic violence is still rife in North Korea and that it is quite common to see women beaten and sexually assaulted in public. North Korean officials are said to exact penalties in the form of sexual abuse and violence with no fear of punishment, while single women who seek membership of the Workers’ Party of Korea are subjected to sexual abuse. It was even testified that the rape of adults is not really considered a crime in North Korean society.

Despite all the attention given to the CoI’s report by the international media and Governments around the world, gender-based violence has been the most overlooked aspect of the report. The former Foreign Secretary has been vocal on the role of the UK in ending sexual violence, most notably in his establishment of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative. Can the Minister assure us that the FCO has been vocal on this issue in its dealings with the Government of North Korea? He may wish to consider matching FCO spending on cultural programmes in North Korea, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, with spending on projects designed to improve the rights of women in that country.

In its report, the commission documented countless violations of the freedom of thought, expression and religion in North Korea. Using the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as its benchmark, the commission concluded that the indoctrination of the North Korean population has been implemented to such a degree that the emergence and development of free thought and conscience is entirely suppressed. Such extreme indoctrination is not reserved for adults; the indoctrination of children is routine.

Children are taught violence and hatred of the outside world. Their aspirations are not set for personal betterment, but to aspire to and emulate their former leader, who remains the country’s “eternal president” despite his death in 1994. One witness even claimed that as a child he was only interested in becoming a great warrior in order to become a killer of his enemies. Children who do not live up to such hateful standards are instructed to publicly berate themselves in weekly confession and criticism sessions. The children we are talking about are aged four. In their project for North Korea, this Government concerned themselves with children’s care institutions and teaching programmes. The Minister may wish to consider how teaching programmes may challenge the indoctrination of children, which seeks to imbue North Korean children with hatred.

I am particularly concerned about the position of religion and religious groups in North Korea. The Christian community is totally outlawed. Public worship is banned. Freedom to express the Christian faith is forbidden and those who refuse to renounce Christianity are subjected to imprisonment, torture and even execution.

I have two final points for the Minister. Some weeks ago she responded to remarks we made about the work of the BBC overseas and the hope that one day a way would be found to encourage its use in North Korea. What encouragement can the UK Government give to the BBC to consider this possibility afresh? Secondly, our embassy in Pyongyang presents an opportunity to do things that are denied to some of our partners. Is the Minister satisfied that we are making the most use possible of this facility?

17:04

[The Lord Bishop of Peterborough]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this important and timely debate. The report of the United Nations commission makes horrifying reading, and it is surely incumbent on the democratic and free world to read, reflect, take counsel and take action. There is great evil in the North Korean regime, which the civilised world cannot simply ignore: not just because it threatens regional and world peace, although it does; not just because millions of innocent people are suffering, although they are; not just because every human right is being trampled, although it is; but, ultimately, because not to do anything about evil on this scale is to collude with it.

The Diocese of Peterborough is twinned through the Anglican Communion’s companion link scheme with the Diocese of Seoul in South Korea. That has given me the privilege of visiting South Korea, studying its history and culture, getting to know its people and seeing some of the wonderful work that the church does there. British people, even Members of your Lordships’ House, may be surprised to know that the Christian church is alive, strong and remarkably influential in South Korea—as it was in the north before the communist takeover. In the 2007 census, 46% of South Koreans identified themselves as having no religion; 29% as Christian; 23% as Buddhist; all other faith groups put together made up the other 2%.

Christianity has become the largest religion, and thrives. South Korea is second only to the United States in the number of its people travelling abroad as Christian missionaries. Internally, the Christian faith has had and continues to have great influence for the good on civil society, human rights—especially of women and children—and democracy.

During my most recent trip in May, I visited schools, residential homes and work projects for people with disabilities, migrant workers and others often seen as excluded in advanced industrial societies. Previously, I have visited major projects to feed and care for the homeless and a large residential home for the elderly, with high-dependency medical facilities and staff. All those projects are run by the Anglican Diocese of Seoul, sometimes under licence or with funding from the city council, sometimes simply as Christian charitable ventures. The big society—are we still allowed to use that phrase?—is alive and flourishing in South Korea, making civil society and people’s lives better.

The growth and influence of Christianity, not least through Minjung theology, which focuses on the image of God in people, their intrinsic worth and the need to lift them out of oppression and suffering, has been huge. The older Confucian hierarchical structure gave little or no value to individuals, and none to women or children. That culture has been totally transformed, largely through Christian influence.

My visit earlier this year followed shortly after the terrible ferry tragedy in which hundreds of children died. Seoul was covered with yellow ribbons in tribute to those children. The Government were in severe difficulty because of the avoidable accident. Those responsible were being prosecuted. Questions were being asked about how institutions and individuals could fail to protect children. Human life is now valued in South Korea as much as in the West, and that process has reached the point of looking for special protection for the weakest and most honourable. Christian influence and values have achieved that.

The process of advancing human rights and democratisation began across the whole of Korea before the Korean War, but has been effectively crushed in the north since then. I have also visited the demilitarised zone. I have not yet visited the north, but I have seen in Seoul’s Anglican Cathedral photos and lists of Christian leaders martyred by the communists during the Korean War, including the dean of the cathedral and the mother superior of the Anglican convent next door, where I stayed in May.

I have met some of the people involved in the Anglican Church’s remarkable initiative, TOPIK—Towards Peace in Korea. That organisation, which last year put on a major peace conference in Okinawa, Japan, works for the peaceful reunification of Korea. It provides famine and flood relief for North Koreans, and from time to time gets permission from the Pyongyang Government to take aid in. It promotes dialogue with North Koreans, and helps some of the few North Koreans who escape the brutality of their regime to resettle in the south.

I do not need to catalogue the horrors perpetrated by the regime in the north—the report does that. So do the testimonies of those who have escaped from the concentration camps, some of whom have been to speak to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea, as we have heard. I do not need to remind noble Lords of the brutal attempt to wipe out religion, particularly Christianity—the report does that. So do the accounts of various atrocities brought to us by agencies such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

I am neither diplomat nor politician, but certain things are clear to me. First, keeping North Korea isolated, treating it like a pariah state, will not help. It may well be that individual leaders need to be brought to the bar of international justice, but the state itself and its people must be cared for as part of the human family rather than demonised and held at arm’s length. Western and Asian Governments should press for aid agencies to be allowed in, and should offer to feed a starving people. Diplomatic channels should be kept open. Ideally, China would help Pyongyang to be more open to the rest of the world.

Secondly, the Government of South Korea should be encouraged and helped by the rest of the world to continue to work and prepare for reunification. Such work is going on under President Park, but more is needed. The economic cost of reunification will be enormous, even for a relatively wealthy country such as South Korea. The infrastructure of the north is virtually non-existent, millions have starved in recent years, hundreds of thousands are in concentration camps, and there is no freedom or civil society. The civilised world needs to be ready to stand alongside South Korea for this enormous humanitarian nation-building task.

Thirdly, the people of North Korea must be helped to prepare for a better future. Some Christian and other agencies are already doing that on a small scale, at great risk to themselves. However, the world can and should do more. As has been noted already, the failure of the BBC to provide a Korean service to reach the north, and the failure of our Government to encourage and even fund the BBC to do that, is quite inexplicable. That sort of outreach helped prepare the people of eastern Europe, and most recently the people of Burma, to aspire to and then live in a freer society. The BBC has changed and is changing, but surely its responsibility to promote our democratic and free values—not least in places where they are under threat or do not exist—must remain.

The world community cannot simply ignore the plight of the people of North Korea. They are our brothers and sisters in the human family, and we have a responsibility towards them.

17:13

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Alton on securing this debate, on his tireless dedication to human rights and freedom around the world, and on his leadership on the situation in North Korea. As has been mentioned, I have had the privilege of travelling with my noble friend to the DPRK on three occasions and serving as vice-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the DPRK. I echo all the points my noble friend made.

North Korea is the world’s most closed nation, in which every article in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is violated, and it has been aptly described as “one large prison”. As has already been emphasised, the report by the UN commission of inquiry has helped to put North Korea’s appalling human rights record higher up the international agenda and has shone a light on one of the darkest corners of the world. Among the catalogue of crimes against humanity which the commission has documented are the denial of freedom of religion and the brutal persecution of religious believers, which I wish to highlight today, echoing concerns eloquently expressed by the right reverend Prelate and other noble Lords.

According to the UN inquiry:

“There is an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association”.

It concludes that the regime,

“considers the spread of Christianity a particularly severe threat”,

and as a result:

“Christians are prohibited from practising their religion and are persecuted”.

Severe punishments are inflicted on “people caught practising Christianity”. We know from many testimonies of North Korean refugees that possessing a Bible in North Korea can lead to execution and/or incarceration in prison camps, being subjected to severe torture, inhuman conditions and, in some cases, slave labour.

I remember one story of a labour camp based in an iron foundry. One day, all the inmates were forced to stand in a large circle and the three Christian prisoners there were put in the middle. They were given an ultimatum: either they recanted their faith or they would die with molten iron poured over them. They refused to recant and they died singing praises to God as the molten iron was poured over them.

Although the DPRK’s constitution allows for freedom of religion in Article 68, in practice any belief that dissents from total loyalty to and worship of the Kim dynasty is a crime. An edict from Kim Il-sung declared that,

“religious people should die to cure their habit”.

The current ruler, his grandson Kim Jong-un, continues this policy. In 1950, 24% of the North Korean population practised religion. Today, that figure is just 0.16%. With the exception of the four state-controlled Potemkin-style churches in Pyongyang, which I and my noble friend have visited, Christians and other religious believers in North Korea worship in secret and in fear.

An indication of how the regime views religion—specifically Christianity—is seen in the response of the DPRK’s ambassador to the UN after the UN Human Rights Council’s universal periodic review. He highlighted the activities of Christians working among North Koreans in China, saying:

“There are in the northeastern area of China so-called churches and priests exclusively engaged in hostile acts against the DPRK. They indoctrinate the illegal border crossers with anti-DPRK ideology and send them back to the DPRK with assignments of subversion … human trafficking and even terrorist acts”.

China’s policy of forcibly repatriating North Korean refugees and sometimes arresting Christian missionaries who help them is cause for serious concern. North Korean escapees who are sent back into the DPRK face dire consequences, particularly if they are suspected of having converted to Christianity, of having been in contact with Christian missionaries or of possessing a Bible. I ask the Minister whether Her Majesty’s Government have raised these human rights violations with the Chinese authorities and, echoing the query raised by my noble friend Lord Alton, whether HMG have urged China to stop arresting missionaries and refugees and to end its policy of forcible repatriation.

A month ago, an international law firm, Hogan Lovells, commissioned by an international network of NGOs known as Human Liberty, published an independent legal analysis of North Korea’s human rights record, concluding that the DPRK’s targeting and extermination of religious groups might indeed constitute genocide. Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s 2007 report, North Korea: A Case to Answer—A Call to Act, also concluded that there may be “indicators of genocide” in relation to religious persecution. I ask the Minister to clarify Her Majesty’s Government’s response to the Hogan Lovells report. What steps are they taking to address the severe violations of freedom of religion and other human rights in North Korea, including lack of accountability and widespread impunity?

I also want to raise, briefly, two other issues: the information blockade, highlighted again and again by my noble friend Lord Alton and other noble Lords because it is so important; and humanitarian crises. Only by breaking the regime’s information blockade can the people of North Korea be given alternative ways of thinking to the propaganda that they are fed daily. I did a lot of work behind the iron curtain in the dark days of Soviet communism, and particularly martial law in Poland, and I remember how eagerly the people trapped behind the iron curtain yearned to hear news from the BBC and from the West. It was transformational in keeping them in touch with the wider world and giving them alternative ideas in preparation for the time of transition.

I therefore reiterate the view expressed on many occasions by many noble Lords that the BBC World Service should reconsider a Korean-language broadcast, especially as the UN inquiry notes the importance of foreign short-wave radio broadcasts. It calls on the international community to provide more support for the work of civil society organisations and to make efforts to broadcast accessible information to the country.

The inquiry also highlights North Korea’s dire humanitarian crises, concluding that the deprivation of food, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population, amounts to virtual extermination. In addition to the regime’s policies, which have caused food shortages and distributed food on the basis of political class, the international community also bears some responsibility. While there are legitimate questions to be asked about transparency and accountability of aid, what assistance will Her Majesty’s Government provide, and might that increase to meet the very real humanitarian crisis?

North Korea’s healthcare system is another issue needing urgent attention. The Guardian in April reported North Korean refugees describing a health system with,

“broken equipment, declining treatment standards and widespread self-medication”.

When my noble friend and I were in Pyongyang on one of our visits, we were told by local people that the contents of the first aid kit in our vehicle represented more equipment than would be found than in many a rural primary healthcare clinic in North Korea.

A US doctor, Ryan Choi, in a new paper on healthcare in North Korea, describes a healthcare system in shambles. The downstream effects are food shortages, a shortage of domestically produced pharmaceuticals, breakdown of the sanitation system, a shortage of medical supplies and, very seriously, a resurgence of infectious disease and a rise in mortality and morbidity. A 2010 report by Amnesty International paints a similarly disturbing picture. Are Her Majesty’s Government providing any assistance to address this crisis in the DPRK’s healthcare system?

I conclude with the words of the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the DPRK, from his most recent report. He said:

“The work performed by the commission of inquiry should be seen as the beginning of a process, not the end … The post-commission era presents a new phase for the human rights of the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea … and requires a decisive change in the approach going forward ... The international community must set in train immediate, impartial and just action to secure accountability, fulfil the responsibility to protect, put human rights first and stop grave human rights violations, in accordance with international law ... The revelation of the truth, international scrutiny and sustained pressure have had some initial effects and will continue to do so”.

I hope the Minister can provide assurances today that Her Majesty’s Government will treat the desperate human rights and humanitarian situation in North Korea with the urgency and priority that are so desperately needed.

17:22

[Lord Burnett (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Deputy Chairman, to my noble friend Lord Alton and to other Members of Committee for allowing me to speak in the gap. I congratulate my noble friend—and he is my noble friend—Lord Alton on calling this debate and I pay tribute to him for his tenacious and courageous commitment to the endeavour of securing respect for human rights and democracy in North Korea.

We have heard this afternoon that the 2014 report of the commission on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea sets out clearly the horrific and cruel nature of the regime. In the first paragraph of its conclusions and recommendations, it says that,

“systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being committed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, its institutions and officials. In many instances, the violations of human rights found by the commission constitute crimes against humanity”.

Those are serious charges. It goes on to say:

“The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world … a State that does not content itself with ensuring the authoritarian rule of a small group of people, but seeks to dominate every aspect of its citizens’ lives and terrorizes them from within”.

Amnesty estimates that more than 100,000 North Koreans are in prison camps, often at the whim of some apparatchik; slave labour, child abuse and torture are commonplace in these camps. Prisoners have little food and hundreds of thousands—possibly millions—of people have died in these camps since the 1950s.

In 1945, when the full nature of the heinous Nazi crimes became apparent, the free world wondered why it had failed to act, in the face of far less compelling evidence. We know what is happening in North Korea. We in Britain have a dilemma. We do not have the military or financial power to topple the regime. It is also in the best interests of those who sincerely wish to effect change and bring about democracy and respect for human rights in North Korea for us to preserve our embassy and representation in that brutally afflicted country.

Recently I took part in a debate on defence. I and other noble and noble and gallant Lords highlighted the fact that the world is becoming an increasingly dangerous place. It is not just the intractable Israel, Palestine and Middle East conflicts, and the conflicts that beset almost the entirety of Africa from north to south; it is the conflicts in Ukraine, India and Pakistan and the continued tension between China and Japan, as well as other conflicts in other parts of the world. Those of us who are deeply concerned about North Korea fear that the conflicts raging elsewhere are bound to take the attention and priority of the nations that can effect change in North Korea. I refer principally to China.

Our relations with China seem to be on a constructive course and there is some evidence that China takes an increasingly critical view of the horrors that the North Korean regime inflicts on its people. The United Nations special rapporteur’s report on human rights of June 2014 makes certain recommendations in paragraphs 51 and 52 in respect of neighbouring and other states concerned.

Paragraph 51 starts:

“On the issue of refoulement”—

that is, forced repatriation—

“the commission of inquiry recommended that China and other States should respect the principle of non-refoulement and, accordingly, abstain from forcibly repatriating any persons”—

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

I am sorry, but the noble Lord is speaking in the gap and his time is four minutes.

[Lord Burnett]

I will finish by saying that we know how sensitive the matter is. We in Britain have a great deal of influence in the world. We in Parliament must continually impress on our Government the necessity to bring about the changes that should have been made decades ago to this cruel, unforgiving regime, which has for years imposed itself on the people of North Korea.

17:27

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, the House again owes a debt to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, not just for obtaining this debate, but for the extraordinary work he has done in relation to North Korea for many years—often in association with the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. Without him, the public, Parliament and—dare I say—Government would be much less well informed than they are. He has raised this issue up the agenda, where it should and must be.

Reading the commission’s report was unlike reading any other report I can remember. In clear, reasoned and judicious terms, it sets out what the horror of being a citizen of North Korea today involves. Life in North Korea would be a classic case of dystopia, except that it is not imaginary. It is real. George Orwell’s magnificent imagination, which created Oceania in the wonderful novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, perhaps gets closest to it, but by comparison Oceania seems positively liberal.

In short, the report is a shocking read and noble Lords in this debate with much more expertise than me have spoken of their response, and it is difficult to say anything original or new. As has been pointed out, the challenge is how to respond to such a regime. Of course, engagement is the right course, difficult as it is in practice, provided—and this is a big proviso—that we never leave behind human rights issues. That is why our diplomatic presence in North Korea is to be welcomed. It is also why the work of the British Council—here I again declare my interest as chair of the British Council All-Party Parliamentary Group—is to be admired and encouraged. It was good to read the speech made by the Minister’s colleague, the right honourable Hugo Swire, in a debate in another place on North Korea on 13 May when he said that,

“through the British Council and educational immersion programmes, we have provided thousands of North Koreans with their first access to a foreigner and an understanding of British culture and values”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/5/14; col. 236WH.]

It is also why it is right for noble Lords today to have been pressing, in a proper and appropriate way, for the BBC to set up broadcasts to the Korean peninsula. If ever there were a people who needed to hear the World Service and for whom the World Service was appropriate, it is surely the North Koreans. However, we must never not talk about human rights.

In a major debate in your Lordships’ House on 21 November last the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, made an important point when discussing how to respond generally to human rights abuses:

“In considering how Britain should respond to human rights abuses, I suggest that one mistake we need to avoid is looking at the issue principally, or even solely, in the context of our bilateral relationship with the country in question. However, Britain’s influence and leverage are unlikely to be decisive nowadays. All too often we have seen how easy it is for the country in question to punish us for our temerity and play us off against other countries which have been less assertive”.—[Official Report, 21/11/13; col. 1107.]

Human rights abuses are legion in North Korea and many undoubtedly constitute crimes against humanity. Of course the British Government must have a bilateral relationship with North Korea, as they must with all countries, but surely the UN Human Rights Council, the General Assembly of the UN and the Security Council of the UN are the key bodies to work through in combating these abuses. Do the Government agree with that sentiment?

Given the totally negative attitude of the North Korean Government, the remarkable Michael Kirby and the other members of the commission of inquiry have produced a full and devastating report. Whichever section of it one reads, I am afraid that the same deeply depressing verdict is overwhelming. Whether it is about abductions, freedom of thought, expression and religion; or about discrimination or violations of freedom of movement and residence; or the deeply shocking violations of the right to food and the equally shocking section on arbitrary detentions, torture, executions and prison camps, there is little or no comfort to be found. It is a very bleak picture indeed. However, at its end the report makes what I believe to be sensible recommendations. It points out the need for those responsible to be held to judicial account and, in its last recommendation, it calls for the UN and the states involved in the Korean War to convene a high-level political conference to consider and ratify a final, peaceful settlement of that war. That is a brave—some might even say a courageous—recommendation but it is also one which demonstrates that, even after hearing the appalling evidence about the regime, the authors of the report are determined to keep a light shining in the massive gloom that prevails. If they can keep that light shining, surely it is our duty to do so, too.

17:34

[The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)]

My Lords, I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, in relation to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on introducing this debate and shining a spotlight on atrocious human rights abuses in the DPRK. I pay tribute to his work, and indeed to the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and that of the North Korea All-Party Parliamentary Group for what, I believe, is the most important aspect of that work, which is giving ordinary North Koreans a voice.

Noble Lords will know that the United Nations commission of inquiry has provided an authoritative account of the systemic, widespread and gross human rights violations committed by a state described as,

“without parallel in the contemporary world”.

As others have said, it is now vital that we ensure that its report is a beginning, not an end. The commission of inquiry report called for:

“Urgent accountability measures … combined with a reinforced human rights dialogue, the promotion of incremental change through more people-to-people contact and an inter-Korean agenda for reconciliation”.

I cannot comment on inter-Korean reconciliation—that is a matter for the two Koreas—but I will set out how, as asked by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, the UK is responding, bilaterally and with others, to the commission’s recommendations on accountability, human rights dialogue and people-to-people contact.

First, on accountability, the UK agrees that, with no willingness from the DPRK to hold perpetrators to account, the international community has a responsibility to take action. We have already taken several steps. We worked with others to ensure that the UN Human Rights Council’s DPRK resolution in March contained strong language on accountability, including a recommendation that the commission’s report be forwarded to the UN Security Council. In April, we joined other Security Council members for an informal public briefing by commissioners. In May, we raised DPRK human rights issues during closed consultations with the High Commissioner for Human Rights. In June, my right honourable friend the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Member for East Devon, visited Geneva. He took part in an interactive dialogue with the special rapporteur on human rights in the DPRK, raised DPRK human rights with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and discussed accountability with representatives from the United States, France, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the EU. We will continue to work with like-minded partners to maximise the prospects of achieving genuine accountability, despite the challenges.

There is broad agreement on what we need to do: focus on DPRK human rights at this autumn’s UN General Assembly; achieve a strong, well supported DPRK resolution in the UNGA Third Committee; and take forward the recommendation that the UN Security Council should formally consider the commission’s findings and recommendations. This includes referral to the International Criminal Court, which the Government have made clear we would support. However, the DPRK has not signed the Rome Statute. As noble Lords will be aware, this means referral can be achieved only through a UN Security Council resolution. As we saw with Syria, China and Russia are likely to use their vetoes to block any such resolution. This does not mean that we should not pursue an ICC referral, but it does mean that we need to think carefully about when and how to take one forward, not least to ensure the maximum support from other members of the Security Council and the wider UN membership.

However, not all the commission’s recommendations on accountability need Security Council action. A number of measures are already moving forward, including renewal of the special rapporteur’s mandate and the creation of a new regional field office, to be based in the Republic of Korea. This new office will continue the commission’s work of collecting and documenting human rights violations until the North Korean regime can be brought to account. The UK stands ready to offer our support.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, asked specifically about sanctions. The commission made a recommendation to the Security Council on targeted sanctions. Existing UN and EU sanctions against the DPRK are based on UN Security Council resolutions targeting the DPRK’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Like an ICC referral, a new UN sanctions regime would require a UN Security Council resolution. The UK would want any new sanction proposals to have a clear impact on the human rights situation in North Korea without any unintended negative impact on the general population. After recent successful legal challenges, we need to be sure that any proposals are both legally and politically deliverable in the European Union.

Alongside accountability, the UN commission of inquiry stressed the importance of continued human rights dialogue. The universal periodic review remains one of the few forums in which the DPRK is willing to engage on human rights, so we are exploring with partners how we can build on that.

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, asked what avenues are open to the UK to influence the present regime. Bilateral human rights have always been an integral part of the dialogue with the DPRK. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Peterborough said, we believe in the importance of keeping those diplomatic channels open. Through our embassy in Pyongyang and its embassy in London, we deliver clear messages about the unacceptability of ongoing human rights violations, including the persecution of Christians, which both the right reverend Prelate and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, have rightly highlighted.

In this regard, we are aware of the report to which the noble Baroness referred—the Hogan Lovells report—and its conclusions with respect to genocide on religious grounds. This of course differs from the position taken by the commission of inquiry, which concluded that the available evidence in this respect was ambiguous. We raised the need for the DPRK to engage with the international community on these issues and made clear our readiness to work together to improve the situation on the ground.

In a small way, our engagement on disability rights has shown that this is not completely impossible, and that progress can sometimes be made. More meaningful improvements would need a radical shift in DPRK thinking. We must convince it that, if it takes that chance, the international community will respond in good faith.

The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, again asked about our human rights dialogue and how we raise particular issues. There are occasions when we raise individual cases as a way of making the broader points. One such case was that of the South Korean national Kim Jung-wook, who was sentenced in May to life with hard labour following convictions for trying to establish underground churches and espionage; another was that of the 33 North Koreans who allegedly have been sentenced to death for contact with Kim Jung-wook.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, asked about whether the DPRK has committed crimes against humanity. The commission’s report presents horrifying accounts of the scale of human rights violations in the DPRK. Ultimately, as the noble Lord knows, only a court of law can rule on whether crimes against humanity have been committed in legal terms, but it is clearly a very strong case to answer. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, also asked about the position of China. We raised DPRK human rights concerns with China, including the specific issue of forced repatriation, which I think was mentioned by other noble Lords as well. The then Foreign Secretary raised this during his meeting with State Councillor Yang Jiechi in February this year, and officials raised it during the UK-China Human Rights Dialogue on 19 and 20 May.

Another area which the commission of inquiry highlighted was the role of people-to-people contact in supporting long-term change by giving North Koreans the opportunity—

[Lord Burnett]

I am sorry to interrupt. Can my noble friend tell the Committee the result of the representations that were made to the Government of China this year?

[Baroness Warsi]

I do not have the specific read-out of that meeting with me, and I need to be accurate about the information that I give at the Dispatch Box. I will therefore write to the noble Lord with further information.

I return to people-to-people contact, an issue highlighted by the commission of inquiry as a way of effecting long-term change. This is an area where the UK can help, given our presence on the ground in Pyongyang. Many of our engagement activities are designed precisely to increase such people-to-people contacts. Through the English language teacher training programme, we have provided thousands of North Koreans with their first access to a foreigner and an understanding of British culture and British values. The British Council is considering the scope of further cultural activity in line with its own commitment to engagement, not isolation. This year our embassy has funded a number of economic workshops, another area of engagement referred to in the commission’s recommendations.

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Peterborough all argued about whether the Government would support Korean-language broadcasts by the BBC World Service in line with the commission’s recommendation on addressing the information blockade. This is a question that has been asked on a number of occasions, as noble Lords will know, and I think I will disappoint them by repeating what I have said—that the BBC World Service is operationally, managerially and editorially independent. Decisions on new language services are for it to consider, and then, if appropriate, to put to the Foreign Secretary. It has undertaken to keep this issue under review. I remind noble Lords of the last Oral Question that I answered on this, when I went into some detail on some of the challenges that that proposes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and the right reverend Prelate again raised the issue of the humanitarian situation. While that has improved somewhat in recent years, there remain many causes for concern, such as those highlighted with regard to food security and healthcare. The UK helps to address these needs through its core funding to the multilateral aid organisations operating in the DPRK. The amount that goes to the DPRK varies, but in 2011-12 it was around £2 million.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, specifically asked about the former chargé d'affaires and referred to comments he had made recently. I cannot comment on his personal views or what he may have said or written since leaving the FCO—he left in 2003—but I am aware that during the time he was in post his views were those of Her Majesty’s Government.

This Government are fully committed to tackling North Korea’s poor human rights record. We do not underestimate the challenges, but we do believe that change is possible. We, along with the rest of the international community, have a responsibility to do everything we can to support it.

Local Markets

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Grand Committee

Question for Short Debate

17:47

Asked by

[Lord Harrison]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they intend to help local markets throughout the United Kingdom prosper and expand the national economy.

[Lord Harrison (Lab)]

My Lords, throughout my life I have loved my local market, not only for providing the necessities of life—I increasingly need and cherish a diet of fresh fruit and vegetables—but for providing surprises and, above all, the serendipitous. When I was a poor student in Newcastle-under-Lyme, I would plunder the Saturday market, as cauliflowers and other vegetables were sold off at half-price in the late afternoon. Forty years later, my wife and I returned to that same Midlands market and found a stall dispensing prized historic Oxford English Dictionaries at knock-down prices to add to my home library of English dictionaries. My thrill at those bargains led me to go further and bid for a splendid acoustic guitar to add to another jackdaw collection of mine—guitars. My cheeky bid was roundly rebutted and rightly so; but the thrill of the market had scored again.

These days, my wife and I cherish our local Cheshire markets: Frodsham for fruit, veg and eggs, when you know the local farms from where they are sourced, and slippers, cheap and comfortable; or Neston, the home of Lady Hamilton, which is on the silted-up Dee Estuary and is a fabulous market for fresh fruit and vegetables, exotic bread and plants. Nor do we ever neglect to banter over a cup of coffee with the regular coffee trader who returns on Fridays after servicing summer music festivals around the country. These days, my wife and I schedule visits to local markets on our holiday travels. Last year, we filled up the car with purchases from contrasting markets in Yorkshire: the Saturday market in Beverley, near the historic Minster; and later the extensive and renowned Kirkgate market in Leeds. Perhaps the Minister can confirm whether the Government are still funding the local enterprise initiative “How Bizaar”, which permits new start-up traders 12 weeks’ free rental for testing new products, services or business ideas.

Britain is rich in local markets. We should prize them for what they are and strive to maintain and enhance their essence, but also ready them for the challenges of modern life. Today we hold the Government to account on their clarion call, published in May this year: “Love Your Local Market”. In 2009 there were some 1,100 traditional markets, representing a worrying decline. Some 38,000 market traders showed a decline of some 14% in five years. Retail markets employed some 95,000 people in 2008, with a further 10,000 employed in wholesale markets. The average spend of a declining number of shoppers has fallen, despite the total spend calculated at £3.5 billion for retail markets as a whole.

However, there is evidence that traditional markets create more employment than many other forms of retail—perhaps the Minister could confirm that—and that they support new business creation by providing low-cost entry to retail trading. In 2013, the NMTF’s “First Pitch” scheme launched 100 new entrepreneurs on traditional markets. Importantly, markets simply do not discriminate by age, class, gender, sex, ethnicity, religion or nationality. Young people fired up with the desire to try their hand at a business can freely open up a stall in a traditional market. The flexibility that is the hallmark of markets reflects the characteristic flexibility of start-up SME entrepreneurs to provide and respond to what the public want in terms of both regular and changing needs. The ethnic diversity that is a feature of so many of our contemporary markets offers visible proof of a society that is integrating: the diversity of people is reflected in the diversity of the goods, and the diversity of the goods bespeaks the diversity of the people.

However, we have problems. Many indoor, outdoor and covered markets are underfunded, undervalued and lacking support from their local communities. This often reflects unfavourably on the local authorities, which are charged with overseeing the local markets in their jurisdiction. Not only are the local authorities being rigorously held to account for every penny spent—with cuts that in my view undermine the very raison d’être of local authorities—but in seeking help from the town hall, the local market, nestled outside in the town hall square, is usually at the back of the queue of competing demands. Market infrastructure is often poorly maintained, despite onerous service charges inflicted on the traders. Public sector cuts lead to downsizing of the nominal market services provided by the council, leading to poor market management. Reduced publicity budgets denude local authorities of the wherewithal to publicise the local market and guide potential visitors and shoppers with simple advice, such as where to park.

Understandably, some councils supplement depleted council coffers by reallocating income from market traders to other worthy council services, many of which are a statutory obligation; it is equally understandable that the traders in the square outside feel cheated. However, unlike other groups with claims on the council, the market trader is too busy minding the stall to indulge in special pleading. The admirable National Market Traders Federation does its best to organise its members, but the Government must redouble their efforts to understand the heartfelt cry of market traders wanting nothing more than to pitch outside to do their job.

I turn to the Minister, to test how far HMG can help a group worthy of nurturing. What are the Government’s mature reflections on the Portas review of high streets? Has her characterisation of markets as an untapped resource as part of a town’s integrated retail offer been followed through? Perhaps the Minister might offer some successful examples.

Given that the major supermarkets are now responding to the challenge of Aldi and Lidl, are the Government sanguine that discounters have grown while local markets have declined? While the £25,000 granted to the “Love Your Local Market” campaign run by the National Association of British Market Authorities was welcome, it hardly does justice to the problem. Can the Minister do something better than this annual flash in the pan? Can the Government point to national information campaigns for consumers, especially those encouraging the population to eat healthily, which specifically point to support for traditional markets? What financial help are the Government giving to help traders adapt to and adopt important consumer legislation? Examples, please.

Many markets are housed in old Victorian market halls. Garstang in Lancashire has one such small hall, supplementing its wonderful Thursday street market, but such halls need to be updated, not only to give a fillip to the local market but to improve the attraction of our town centres. Do the Government recognise responsibility for these? Many local traders are in fear of UK and EU legislation and need advice as to what they can and cannot do. The local council can often play an active role here in advising and inspecting with a benign eye. Perhaps the Minister can give more illustration of that.

The Government must invest in local markets, because they are thereby investing in our local communities. This would include good parking facilities—why not free to customers?; good toilet facilities and wi-fi; bright lighting; energy-efficient heating systems; regular cleaning and maintenance of the market space; engaging websites and social media; and home delivery or click-and-collect services. These are all commonplace in most UK retail spaces; why not for local markets? Will the Government also address the practical training needs of market traders, especially in the field of adopting new technologies, including e-commerce, social media and mobile card payments? Rather than wilting under the reach of Amazon, market traders can warm to new ways of advertising their wares, but government help is desirable. I have hinted at the attraction of tourism and day visitors to local markets and I hope that we can have a response on that.

I conclude by noting with pleasure that the NMTF has signed a memorandum of understanding with its European equivalents; can we have a response to that? I would also welcome responses to the CLG Committee’s Market Failure?: Can the Traditional Market Survive? report and to the NMTF’s excellent 2012 report Retail Markets in the UK. I would be most grateful to the Minister if he could cover that ground, which is so important to an important group in our lives, in the square outside the town hall.

17:58

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)]

My Lords, I warmly commend the noble Lord for securing this debate. I come with a sense of enormous self-reproach, since in my first role in government, 25 years ago, as a Minister responsible for local government, planning and communities, I never mentioned or did anything whatever about street markets. I say this as somebody who has spent my entire life in street markets. As a younger woman I shopped in Brixton market, founded in the 19th century. It sold lovely Afro-Caribbean produce in Electric Avenue, the first street to have electric lighting. Everything I wore, ate or gave anybody came from the market. In fact, it is rare for me not to be wearing a number of items of clothing that came from a market—even today, a number of the items I am wearing came from street markets.

Then I used to spend a great deal of time in—this is somewhere that the noble Lord may know well—Lower Marsh at the Cut, again founded in the mid-19th century. I met my friends and took my children for walks there. My whole life was in the street market. Most particularly, going back to the 16th century, there was East Street Market down the Walworth Road. That was a very special market on Saturdays.

I then became a Member of Parliament for Surrey. There, we had one of the historic charter markets—going right back to 1300—in Godalming and another in Haslemere. In that constituency, we saw the development of the farmers’ markets, which have been an extraordinary innovation. Milford had one of the first farmers’ markets. It was warmly and helpfully supported by the local authority and it provided an extraordinarily valuable outlet for local farmers. However, it also fulfilled a double purpose in ensuring that an increasingly urbanised community understood agriculture. Farmers’ markets—there is a wonderful one that meets under Humber Bridge each month—have a role in communication.

Then I moved on and, apart from a number of other markets, I now frequently have the privilege of visiting the markets in Worthing, where there are farmers’ markets and a very exotic French market, which is a frequent and popular event.

When we think about markets and retail space, for which competition is so intense, we understand how the juggernauts that are supermarkets have transformed shopping—in many ways, for the good. For those of us who find weekly shops particularly trying, going to a huge supermarket can be of great value. At the same time, there has been a further revolution with developments online and extraordinary changes in retail behaviour patterns.

However, the street markets in the hearts of our cities have in many ways an ever-greater value. I have the strong view that people’s lives are fragmented. The digital world means that too many experiences are virtual. The joy and pleasure of a street market is that it involves direct communication, discussion and dialogue, as well as the huge variety of which the noble Lord spoke. Frequently, it can be an outlet for someone who is starting up a business—maybe a craft industry. It provides an opportunity to test goods. We do not discuss it in these papers, although I suspect that there is a connection here with the explosion of car boot sales. They provide a similar experience for people, as they are about congregation and meeting. They have the hurly-burly of the market.

Whatever the convenience of shopping online, it is a fairly lonely experience. Similarly, the great supermarkets are like factories of purchasing; they are quite different from the communal experience. That was the evidence from the excellent report sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. It suggested that the social benefits of markets can do a great deal to promote social cohesion, encourage different communities to intermingle, and provide community support and information. That evidence came from Professor Sophie Watson, who, I am delighted to say, is a professor of sociology at the excellent Open University. I am someone who always feels that I need evidence before I can hold forth on a subject. It is not a handicap that many politicians face but I like to look at the evidence before giving a strong view. Her evidence is that the markets are extraordinarily important sites of social interaction for all groups in the community but—fortunately for many of us in this House—most significantly for older people, especially women. Markets are important social spaces for mothers with young children, young people and families with children, particularly at weekends. That identifies with the younger me and the older me.

The report also argued that markets have a significant social inclusion role as places to linger. Often when people are in a hurry, there are few places to linger, and I always feel that charity shops, for all the condemnation they receive, provide a place of congregation, meeting and, very often, study. Whatever the subject of the charity shop, it is a place where people learn more about the charity. If you were president of Abbeyfield, for example, as the noble Baroness is, you would learn all about Abbeyfield. Then, of course, the social life of traders plays a significant role in creating that vibrant atmosphere in markets.

Tomorrow, there will be a debate on organic food and the health implications. Most unfortunately, I am unable to participate in it. I am at what I would describe as the extreme sceptic end of the organic food market arguments. It seems to me that what street markets provide is fresh, good value food which provides all the benefits that we are looking for.

I congratulate the Government and a succession of Ministers for taking steps on this—there will always be people who say that they should take further steps. We have had contributions on this from Grant Shapps, Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State, and Mark Prisk. A number of them talked about planning restrictions, small business rate relief and other provisions for towns. My preoccupation, about which noble Lords may hear a great deal in subsequent years, is the 2017 City of Culture, Kingston-upon-Hull. The contribution of street markets to that will be magnificent. I have spoken with the local authority about the work that it is undertaking to ensure that both the covered and the open markets are really fit for purpose. The noble Lord made many valuable comments about the facilities needed to make a market a flourishing success, not least cleanliness and toilet facilities, but cash machines are particularly important.

In the city of Kingston-upon-Hull, there is great expectation about the number of visitors who will come during the year of culture. Preparations are well under way. In Londonderry/Derry, they had twice the visitor numbers during the City of Culture year; Hull expects to have three times the number. With 1 million ferry passengers a year, noble Lords will understand the huge potential of street markets as that great city, with a history far greater than many of those in the more prosperous south-west, undergoes a city renaissance—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt, but, once a Whip, always a Whip. In the absence of one, these are time-limited debates. I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend in mid-flow.

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone]

I will continue to speak about the city of Hull on another occasion.

18:07

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Harrison on securing this debate, and also on the absolutely spot-on tenor with which he used it. There is no doubt that markets are fun. If you want a proof of that, until last year, I was chairman of Covent Garden Market Authority. New Covent Garden Market is the largest wholesale fruit and vegetable and flower market in the country and is down at Nine Elms. During the period when we were getting our redevelopment proposal together, 10% of the Members of the House of Lords joined us at 7.30 am to go on conducted tours around our market. I see one or two noble Lords around the Chamber this evening who are pointing to themselves saying, “I was there”.

Markets are fun, but they are also important. In declaring that interest, I should say that the discussion so far has, rightly, been about street markets. I should like to talk about wholesale markets. New Covent Garden Market is crucial to London’s economy. I am delighted that the Minister who will answer the debate is a Treasury Minister. With all due respect to the Minister in Defra, which is an important part of this whole field, we need Treasury support for the changes we need initiated to help markets.

New Covent Garden Market supplies 40% of all the fresh food in London that is eaten outside the home. It supplies 20 of the top 20 restaurants in London with their fresh food supplies. It gives a quality and choice that is important within London because it is important for our tourism trade. It is part of the attraction. It is part of what makes London a place to come.

I was delighted to learn that the redevelopment in Battersea, on which I worked with a team to get government permission to proceed, will have a completely new market with the same trading space. It will be an icon for markets in this country, particularly for wholesale markets. There are 26 wholesale markets in the UK, employing about 10,000 people. They turn over something like £4 billion a year. If you link that to the retail markets, you are talking about £8 billion of turnover. In some respects it is not huge; in other respects it is without doubt crucial to our economy. About 2,000 jobs depend upon New Covent Garden Market, and about 200 small businesses. Many of those are third and fourth generation family businesses; that is true in street markets as well.

Although the individual areas are small, the totality is not. It is not just that markets bring trade. They bring fresh goods to a community. They also bring some life and an involvement with the community that brick shops do not. People take their time wandering down a street market. In a supermarket they want to be in and out as quickly as they can. Today, you can associate quality with the food that is sold in street markets. Gone are the days when my mother used to send me to Cross Lane Market and say, “Don’t let him give you the apples from the back, Brenda. You point out the ones that you want”.

Thanks to work done by the trade association for markets, NABMA, we know that the food can be as much as 30% less expensive than in the so-called value-for-money supermarkets. In this age of, for a number of reasons, smaller households, markets will supply small portions. If you want only one apple, you can have one apple; you cannot do that in a supermarket.

Markets are also important for breeding entrepreneurs. Where did Marks & Spencer start? Where did Morrisons start? Dare I say it, where did my noble friend Lord Sugar start? They are good for breeding good business.

My noble friend Lord Harrison’s debate asks the Government how they intend to help. I will give the Minister some help by making one or two suggestions. The DCLG picked up the Portas high street review and supported the “Love Your Local Market” scheme, to which my noble friend referred, with some money. In 2012 something like 2,000 new businesses benefited from a free pitch in a market, and the DCLG helped to fund this. As usual, a government department pinched pennies and gave too little. I ask the Minister to give us some help extending that budget, and not because it is a gamble. This year, 4,700 businesses will be start-ups, and 50% of the businesses in this scheme are still in business three months later. That is a pretty high rate of survival. Five European countries are copying it, and it is spreading. Let us support that “Love Your Local Market” scheme with some more money, help and support.

There has been lots of research but whereas the supermarkets can afford to pay for big research, these businesses cannot, and nor can NABMA. We need decent, in-depth economic research which will demonstrate the value of markets to our community and economy. I gather that the Valuation Office Agency has recently started to assess markets for business rates; if you are a street market you do not pay business rates. Many small markets are saying, “Well, I am a business” and are ending up having to pay business rates they cannot afford. Perhaps that could be looked at. I know that discussions are taking place with NABMA, but it would be good if we could make progress on that.

My final request to the Minister is whether the Government could look favourably at a change in the London Local Authorities Act, to enhance the ability of markets in London to operate more flexibly than they can at the moment.

16:57

[Lord Lee of Trafford (LD)]

My Lords, first I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for initiating this debate and indeed for initiating the debate a few weeks ago on tourism, in which I also participated. There is of course a relationship between tourism and markets, as has been touched upon. We very much enjoyed the noble Lord’s markets tour of the north-west and Yorkshire, and wish him well with his cheap slippers.

I must declare an interest as the chairman of the Wellington Market Company plc, which is our only quoted markets company. We operate 12 markets nationally, from Hull in the north-east and Morley near Leeds, right the way down to Cornish Market World near St Austell. In London we operate Old Spitalfields market and Shepherd’s Bush market. We received our charter in 1244; I have to say that I have not been chairman for all that time, although there are times when it feels like it.

We all love a successful, vibrant, prosperous market. As was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, markets can be fun, but we have to be careful not to be starry-eyed about them. I can tell your Lordships that operating markets is a very tough business at the present time. There are two principal reasons for that. First, there is the question of competition. In the old days, markets were the ideal source of cheap clothing, and many people went to them for that reason. Of course, there is now a whole range of clothing outlets, such as Primark shops and similar. There are also charity shops, and there is competition from the internet, from supermarkets and also from out-of-town shopping. Competition has increased massively in recent years.

Secondly, there has been a very significant and noticeable decrease in the number of traders who want to operate in markets and operate market stalls. If you look at any of the trade magazines, you will see page after page of local authorities and market operators advertising for a whole range of traders. The shortage is of traders. People do not see it as an attractive career or a particularly profitable one at the present time, and to many the lifestyle does not appeal. At this juncture I pay tribute to the trade bodies, the National Market Traders Federation and the National Association of British Market Authorities, which work enormously hard for the industry, with new ideas and initiatives. In fact, they are closely following today’s debate.

What does a market need to be successful? First of all, investment in the premises is needed, particularly in the market hall. I am sorry to say that for many years many local authorities underinvested in their markets. They were at the bottom of the list of priorities and in many cases they were run by leisure services, with no one taking any real interest, and they withered. I must acknowledge that in recent years there has been very substantial investment in many markets, and I pay tribute to many local authorities—but of course the shortage is of traders, as I said.

Then of course there must be car parking; that is absolutely essential. There also needs to be a partnership in so many ways between the market operator and local authorities. You also need a good manager, and the manager of a market is called a Toby. You need an individual there on site who will banter with the traders, who is available to talk to punters, to talk to customers. The manager must be there on site. To repeat it again, there is no point in trying to run the market from where leisure services are based, four or five miles away. You then need footfall—a market that is well-positioned in this day and age—and a range of regular traders with attractive quality and value stock.

What are the pluses of markets? We have talked about tourism and the way that a successful market can add vibrancy and colour to town centres. As has been referred to, it can also provide an opportunity for young people and ethnic minorities to start businesses. We have seen this through the years. It has also been said that markets provide good value for shoppers—somewhere between 25% and 30% better value in the shopping basket than even some supermarkets.

In many ways, markets can create a bridge between the community and the operator. On Saturday, at our market in Cornwall, Cornish Market World, I opened something we called Creative Cornwall. This touches on what the noble Baroness said earlier. We designated an area of the market to be available to local artists or those who work in local crafts. We had 20 there on Saturday at the opening of Creative Cornwall. This was much welcomed and I hope it prospers and succeeds.

Overall, my message is that competition is increasing even further. An additional worry is that shoppers in our markets are predominantly elderly. Our young people, although there are exceptions, do not go to markets as we would like, so the future will be no easier than it has been so far. I look forward to hearing in the Minister’s wind-up speech how the Government, through a variety of measures, can help this industry, because it is tough at the present time—we should have no illusions about that.

18:22

[Lord Graham of Edmonton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a joy and a pleasure to take part in this debate. We are all indebted to my noble friend Lord Harrison for his initiative in providing a platform for the various aspects of what one would call the markets industry. Some might say that everything that can be said, has been said, but I say: “Not by everybody”. My twopennyworth goes back many years, and the message is in retailing above all things nothing stands still.

My memory of my home town, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is that there was fish, greengrocery, flower and meat markets which were all separate entities, managed and understood by people who wanted those goods. They were all connected with what was called the Grainger market, which was where many fine activities went on. Whenever I ring my sister, my only living direct relative, I ask her: “Where have you been?”. When she tells me, I say: “That is next to so and so”, and she says: “Oh, that’s been gone years ago”. Whether we like it or not, we have to recognise that change takes place.

I was interested in the opportunities markets can give people. I pray in aid a marvellous document called Market Times. It is a fund of knowledge about what goes on in the market industry. There is a piece where Alison provides the icing on the cake for “Love your Local Market”. The part I want to quote is this:

“I couldn’t have afforded a shop, but the market business has turned our fortunes around”.

The article continues that she has moved to a larger unit. She got the opportunity through the variety of sizes and the variety of goods. When one reads these articles, from which I shall quote further, one realises that nothing stands still. We must recognise that progress in retailing and shopping has been going on. We have all enjoyed it, because markets are patronised. At the same time, however, one has to look at history.

There is an advert here for Romford market, which gives 10 good reasons why we should support it. It says that it is,

“a vibrant market successfully trading”,

since 1247. That is not 13 minutes to 1 pm; that is 700 years ago. It is has been going on all that time, up and down. I know Romford reasonably well, though I do not know its entire history. I have another quote here about Waltham Cross. The great thing about this magazine, which does so much to tell us what is going on in the world, is that it is not only very readable, but it is very exciting to read these things. The statistics we have had from the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, are absolutely well-founded and well-based. Sometimes, of course, one gets upset. One of the other articles has the headline, “Struggling Crawley market loses lifeline”. I am told sometimes of decisions that have been made by the local authority in order to better plan, as the council sees it, but the council needs to see the impact on the market.

The National Federation of Market Traders is where I made my entry. In 1983 I was a new boy here. The late Lady Phillips—the wife of Morgan Phillips, the great man in Labour history and chairman of the Consumer Council—said to me, “Ted, I’ve been asked to have lunch with people who know a little bit about retailing. Would you come?” I said yes, and the outcome of that is that I became the parliamentary representative for market traders. I have kept in touch with them ever since.

We have got to appreciate that what we are looking for from the Government is for them to understand that if you do not use it, you lose it. It is all very well saying that the big boys are entitled to get bigger, but they only get bigger by pinching from the smaller boys, and we have got to be careful there.

The Minister, Mark Prisk, is not unfamiliar with the market business. An article states:

“He said markets had a unique charm and character. ‘They offer the opportunity to come down to taste the cheese—an experience you cannot replicate online”’.

That is great. It shows where his heart is: he wants to see the industry protected and thriving.

One of the pictures here shows the opportunity given to a Lithuanian man who is a cheesemaker and a cheese-importer. Therefore you have opportunities in the market industry to provide people with an opportunity to do what they want—to work—at a cost that they can afford, which many of them can, and so you have a perpetuation.

I simply want to say to the Committee that nothing stands still, and we are well served. I say to those who are listening to the debate here and elsewhere that voices from a number of places have been aired in this debate. Nobody is an expert with a capital “E”. We all have our own experience, I have mine; and I am grateful to the Committee.

18:30

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I echo the thanks of other noble Lords to my noble friend Lord Harrison, whom I will now think of as a magpie in slippers. This has been a very good debate. I pay special tribute to my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton, who has had a lifetime of supporting markets and market traders.

There are many examples across the country of local markets thriving and contributing enormously to communities. Like many noble Lords, I enjoy shopping in local markets, whether in food markets such as Borough Market here in London, covered markets such as the one in Oxford, or farmers’ markets, such as the one in Tavistock in Devon. Some are situated in market towns with a long-standing history of trading, while others are new additions to local communities. However, for the shopper or browsing tourist the experience is always quite unique. The sights, sounds and smells in markets are certainly a treat for all the senses. In Lydney, in the Forest of Dean, we have the Taurus Crafts market, which is a standing market, but every month a food market there sells delicious food and drink from the Forest of Dean, which is a matter for great celebration.

Markets are a testament to the vitality and determination of market traders, who promote local produce, encourage enterprise and support the local economy. However, the nationwide picture tells a rather different story. Markets up and down the country are struggling, which means that the impact that this industry has on the nation’s economy is much smaller than it could be. Hundreds of markets are just waiting for support and investment opportunities which, if provided, could transform not just the lives of market traders themselves but the communities in which their businesses trade.

The National Market Traders Federation—NMTF—is a terrific organisation that was established over a century ago to champion the case for markets. It reported recently that its membership had fallen from 34,537 to 25,576 in the last five years. That means that the industry has shrunk by a quite dramatic 25%. In the last 18 months alone, membership of the NMTF has fallen by 3,500 members, which suggests that over 5,000 market traders have stopped trading since December 2012.

The noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, said that most market shoppers are older; clearly we have to encourage younger people to go to markets. However, I must say that my own children are very frequent shoppers at markets. Market traders, like thousands in the retail industry, are struggling with the pressures of the growth of online shopping and the expansion of large supermarkets. They are also feeling the strain because of the decline in the number of shoppers, and because the costs of running a business—affected by gas and electricity hikes—affect market traders as well as people who have shops. As the National Association of British Market Authorities has reported, public sector cuts have also contributed significantly to the underperformance of market service in the last few years.

Many noble Lords mentioned Mary Portas, who talks of markets as an untapped resource. It is increasingly clear that we have to view successful markets not merely as an end in themselves but as part of a vibrant local economy—an important part of the jigsaw of a local community. Does the Minister agree that we need to wake up to the real potential of local markets and start to view them as part of a vital component of the local economy? Their contribution, if truly unlocked, could help in numerous ways.

As food prices rise, and real wages fall, finding good deals on fresh produce is important. Farmers’ markets come into their own here, because they not only supply brilliant local produce but sell it at a cheaper rate than many local supermarkets, as my noble friend Lady Dean said. We also know that price is an extremely important factor in people’s decision to eat in a healthier way, so it is a win-win situation. Beyond promoting healthier diets, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that local markets are also an important site of social interaction for local communities, as has been said.

As well as the social and health benefits, the economic impact of local markets is potentially huge. This year, the Federation of Small Businesses reported that for every £1 spent locally, around 50p to 70p recirculates into the economy. If the same £1 is spent out of town or online, only 5p trickles back to the local economy. Chesterfield is a fine example of success. The market hall has almost full occupancy and is helping the town to buck the trend and drive trade back into its centre. Chesterfield has one of the highest levels of shop occupancy of any town in the east Midlands, and tourist numbers are up year on year, thanks to the thriving atmosphere in the town centre, which is in part due to the thriving local market.

As the NMTF says, as a tool for increasing footfall, stimulating consumption and adding vibrancy and diversity to a street or square, nothing beats a buzzing market. Does the Minister agree that with low costs and a direct relationship with customers, market trading is one of the best entry points to the world of business? As noble Lords have said, it is a great place to start trading.

There are clear economic, social and health benefits to establishing successful markets, but we need to promote their development and persuade local people of their benefits. Many noble Lords have mentioned the “Love Your Local Market” campaign, which is good and welcome, but is too small and does not have enough money. We know that some actions taken by local councils can encourage the development of markets, as noble Lords have said: free parking, wi-fi access and regular cleaning and maintenance. However, while retail spaces are able to offer these services with relative ease, market traders and producers find it more difficult.

Local authorities consistently report that they have little capacity for the strategic development of markets. However, one way of promoting greater autonomy in local areas is to ensure that local people with local knowledge and local investments have the power they need to bring about change. It is crucial that we give local councils the freedom and power to control the decisions which will enable investment in local projects. Developing a network of regional banks and working with business improvement districts would do just that.

Last weekend my right honourable friend Ed Miliband reaffirmed my party’s commitment to devolving power to local communities. That would help local economies and ensure that they serve the needs of the whole of society by creating an economy where power is taken away from Whitehall and Westminster and given to people in the communities in which they live. We want to equip councils with the power that they need. As noble Lords have said, the number one concern for many traders and businesses are small business rates—which, like food, gas and electricity prices, have risen under this Government. Labour will cut them and freeze rates for small businesses to help traders—the lifeblood of communities—achieve their ambitions.

Gwen Sangster, the operations manager of Darwen market, which has 130 stalls and is a crucial part of the area’s small business offer, believes that this policy could be the difference between survival and closure for businesses. For those doing well, it could persuade them to take the plunge to expand and create one or two jobs. If replicated throughout the country, this could make a big difference to the economy.

As our European partners recognise, to invest in a market is to invest in a community. It is to invest in the talents of local entrepreneurs and in the long histories and traditions of towns and villages, for the benefit not just of the market traders and communities but of the national economy.

18:38

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I will immediately start with a brief apology. Today’s response will be truncated in view of our being limited by time. I assure noble Lords that I have made detailed notes on all their questions and I will write to them on those I do not cover. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for initiating this debate and for his informed, impassioned and highly entertaining introductory speech.

Almost all our towns and cities owe their very existence to markets. Those markets grew up—as I did—where people came together to trade. I remember being sent out by my mother to the market stall for some groceries. Being bilingual, I knew the Urdu word for aubergine, but not what it was in English. So I persisted in asking for a range of vegetables, then said: “May I also have some bengans?”. The expression on the face of the trader was something you can all imagine.

My noble friend Lady Bottomley will be pleased to learn that, since her time as a local government Minister, we now have a dedicated retail markets Minister who also looks after town centres and high streets. Indeed, I met the recently appointed Minister, Penny Mordaunt, this morning in light of this debate and I can assure noble Lords that she is all guns blazing in ensuring that we protect this central part of our economy.

I was pleased to hear, during the debate, the great enthusiasm for markets from all noble Lords here today. People feel deeply, as they should, that these markets ought to remain and, indeed, thrive. The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, spoke eloquently about his local markets in Chester; people need to support such markets if they are to survive. I have great affection for my local markets. In Wimbledon we have a number of diverse and interesting markets, including farmers’ markets, and in Cobham a farmers’ market meets every fourth Saturday. However, markets, as they have always done, need to evolve to the changing high streets of today—as was said by several noble Lords. My department, DCLG, is working with the market industry to help traders adapt to the current retail environment.

Turning to specific questions, the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, asked about the “How Bizaar” programme in Leeds. That programme was funded: I believe its new quarter was funded in October 2010 as part of that but that the specific funding stream has now ceased. If there is any further detail on that, I will write to him. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, talked about the onset of online trading. I totally share her sentiments on that but many market traders have an online presence as well as being behind a stall: forward-thinking is required for market operators in the public and private sectors. Indeed, the rollout of wi-fi across places such as Bolton has already had an impact.

Many noble Lords referred to the “Love Your Local Market” campaign and introducing new entrepreneurs. We have worked closely with, and funded, the National Association of British Market Authorities to set up and run the “Love Your Local Market” campaign. Since the initiative was launched in 2012 it has proven a tremendous success, with 920 towns delivering 7,000 markets in this year’s “Love Your Local Market” fortnight alone. This has not gone unnoticed and the brand has now been adopted in Barcelona and Venice, and interest has also been shown as far afield as the United States and Australia.

The noble Lord, Lord Graham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, talked about the importance of entrepreneurs. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Graham, for his work in the market trading area. As the noble Baroness said, many names we know started life on market stalls. The noble Lord, Lord Sugar, and Richard Branson are among the names we could mention. The “Love Your Local Market” campaign is fundamental to encouraging the next generation of businessmen and women to contribute to the nation’s prosperity. I join my noble friend, Lord Lee, and others who talked about diversity in not just what is offered but also the people involved in markets up and down the country. The noble Lord, Lord Graham, also talked about encouraging people to use markets more. I agree with this very important sentiment and that is why the Government continue to back the “Love Your Local Market” campaign. The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, talked about the importance of wholesale markets. Her Majesty’s Government, through my colleagues at Defra, take the lead for wholesale markets. However, we recognise the close links between the retail and wholesale markets and I am pleased to say that Covent Garden Market Authority has a seat on the DCLG retail markets forum.

Several questions were asked about training. I have some substantive government responses but, bearing in mind the most detailed, eloquent and sometimes lengthy contributions we have had in today’s debate, and if noble Lords agree, I shall write to them on this important issue because it warrants the detailed response necessary.

Again, I thank all noble Lords who participated in this debate. It is important that it is recognised that markets are the heartbeat of what represents Britain today. They are a key part of the retail offering of Britain and the Government are alive to this. I thank all noble Lords, not only for their contributions but, as with the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, for their suggestions, which I shall consider most carefully. I end with a simple message and a simple request. We are all keen supporters of our local markets in towns up and down the country and it is incumbent on us all to ensure that this important part of British life is sustained not just for today but for generations to come.

Schools: Careers Guidance

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Grand Committee

Question for Short Debate

18:46

Asked by

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the statutory and non-statutory guidance issued in April, what steps they are taking to improve the quality of careers guidance in schools.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford (LD)]

My Lords, in April the Government published the statutory guidance and non-statutory departmental advice on careers guidance. The House has not had the opportunity to debate the new statutory advice. Some was published the year before, but it has been superseded by this advice and I thought it was important that the House should have an opportunity to debate it.

The importance of good information, advice and guidance for young people in careers is obvious. Businesses are saying that they have 735,000 vacancies. In engineering alone, we have a shortfall of 87,000 engineers. Yet we know from survey evidence—and often also from personal experience—that many young people feel that they have had little, if any, useful advice on the complex choices that they have to make about, for example, their GCSE choices, whether to stay on at school and do A-levels, whether to pursue other opportunities, their choice of degree, or what to do when leaving university. It is too easy for our young people to follow the well trodden route through school whereby the teachers expect them to take GCSEs and go on to A-levels and, if they achieve well, to go on to university.

However, the choices before them get, if anything, more difficult and much more complex as time goes by, as the National Union of Students points out. They are now facing a situation in which A-level choices are decoupled from AS-levels. That makes it much tougher to decide precisely what they are going to do. They cannot put their toe in the water to see how they do and, if it does not work out, perhaps switch to another area. Modular exams and coursework assessment are also being phased out. The world is changing fast: jobs for life are gone.

Sir Steve Stewart, chairman of Careers England, gives two reasons why good-quality information, advice and guidance are necessary. One is,

“a moral-principle issue that, as a civilised nation, we should give our very best support to young people to help them make the very best decisions in life”.

The second is,

“simply the purely economic issue. As a nation we cannot afford to have too many of our young people in the wrong places doing the wrong things and not contributing”.

In order to put this Question into context, it is necessary to give a little background history. In 1974, local authorities were required to set up careers services for young people, to provide careers information, advice and guidance in schools, while the schools themselves provided background careers education. Background guidance was issued by Her Majesty’s Government and careers services were to be inspected by a dedicated careers service inspectorate.

That was changed in 1994, when local authority services were outsourced to a series of specialist service providers. In 2002, those providers were again reconstructed, together with youth services, to form the Connexions service, with which I think we are all very familiar, with a joint remit to provide youth support work, especially for the group not in employment, education or training—the NEET group—alongside careers guidance in schools. By the end of Labour’s term in office, in 2008-09, it had become clear that that joint remit was just not working and that careers guidance in schools had been marginalised. Ofsted, the CBI, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, the Milburn report on social mobility, teachers, parents, social workers and the careers professionals themselves all admitted that the careers service in schools had more or less collapsed.

The Education Act 2011 brought a radical shift. In line with the coalition Government’s wish for schools to have more independence and autonomy, the responsibility for providing careers education, information, advice and guidance services was placed firmly with the schools themselves. The age range was extended in line with the raising of the participation age downwards to year eight and upwards to year 13. The duty of schools was to provide independent and impartial careers advice, which was to include information on a range of options available, including apprenticeships, and to provide face-to-face guidance for those for whom it was considered appropriate—especially for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Act came into effect in September 2012, and was supplemented by both statutory guidance and, a little later, by a practical guide detailing best practice.

At the same time, the Government set up the new National Careers Service, working in conjunction with the DWP, which was to provide adult careers guidance. The original aim was to provide an all-age service covering both young people and adults and, importantly, to provide continuing support for those in transition from education to jobs. In the event, school access to the National Careers Service has been limited to the use of its very good web-based information service and its telephone advice service. The irony is that we now have a rather good adult careers service, including face-to-face advice with qualified professionals, when in the past we had none; whereas provision has been largely lost for schools.

The arrangements came in for considerable criticism. For example, the House of Commons Education Select Committee, although acknowledging that Connexions itself had generally failed to provide the careers guidance needed, noted,

“a worrying deterioration in the overall … provision”,

and that the,

“quality, independence and impartiality of careers guidance offered to young people was a central concern”.

In particular, it found that far too few schools were taking their duties seriously. Vocational options were not being covered and, all too frequently, further education colleges were refused permission to explain or even distribute literature about their post-16 provision. Face-to-face guidance was available only to the few, while considerable reliance was placed on web-based services. Ofsted undertook a thematic review of the careers service, published in October 2013 under the title, Going in the Right Direction?, which noted:

“Very few of the schools visited knew how to provide a service effectively or had the skills and expertise needed to provide a comprehensive service. Few schools had purchased an adequate service from external sources”.

The CBI’s director-general, Sir John Cridland, described the careers service system in schools as being on “life support” in many areas as schools struggled with the statutory duty. He and Ofsted were particularly critical of the cutting back in years 10 and 11 of work experience provision.

In a response to those criticisms, Matthew Hancock issued a vision statement that in many senses underlies these new provisions, which provide for much more input from industry and have moved enthusiastically into what might be called a very radical change to develop real-world connections, with firm visits and work experience very much on the agenda, urging schools to link up with local businesses and inviting them into school to talk about what they do, using alumni who are enthusiastic and passionate about their career, to act as ambassadors to inspire and raise expectations. As required by the Act, the schools still have to ensure that their pupils get impartial and independent advice from external services, which should include face-to-face support. But it suggests that this comes from mentoring activities and employer linkage as much as careers guidance.

The question is whether this is enough. Will the new guidelines result in careers education in schools? I start by saying how much I welcome the emphasis on schools linking up with local employers and the recognition of the need to work with and for the local labour markets, seeking to enthuse pupils and raising their ambitions. Work of organisations such as Future First is admirable, and I am very proud that Guildford boasts one of the schools—St Peter’s Catholic School—that was regarded as an exemplar of what schools should do. But I still have some questions to raise.

I do not understand why the coalition Government have ignored the recommendations from Ofsted and the House of Commons Select Committee. These suggest that to provide effective careers advice and guidance, as St Peter’s does, they should implement a clear strategy for careers guidance; ensure that they make use of the National Careers Service resources, which are not well used at the moment; have well trained staff in charge of the area; use careers guidance professionals as well as employer networks; and foster links with local colleges and other trade professions.

On a point noted by the Select Committee, I am concerned that the £200 million provided for the Connexions services in the period 2009-10 has disappeared from view, and we no longer see that. Why have the Government been so resistant to including face-to-face guidance by qualified careers advisers? What has happened to the £200 million which, given the transfer of responsibilities, should have been available to help schools take on new careers responsibilities?

18:57

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that we are all very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, for introducing this debate and doing so in such a splendid manner. The whole point and purpose of education is to discover and exploit the talents of each and every child who goes to school and that can be successful if that child, on developing into an adult when he or she leaves school, finds a career that is sufficiently challenging and rewarding in every sense. One problem that has bedevilled education—and I speak as a former schoolmaster, a parent and a grandparent with four grandchildren at school at the moment—has been the lack of comprehensive careers guidance. Many schools implant the idea that, unless the pupil goes to university, somehow or other it is a failure. That is so wrong. What we need to have is a careers guidance system that says to every child that there is a place for you—you can give of your best and achieve of your best and make a real contribution. I quote George Herbert, who said:

“Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,

Makes that and th’ action fine”.

Whatever is done, if it is done to a high and proper standard, can be intrinsically rewarding. So we have to get rid of the notion that those who do not go to university have somehow failed—and we have to emulate those in Germany, for whom being an engineer is as high a calling as anything else. As the noble Baroness referred to, why are there 87,000 vacancies in this country for engineers? It is because our young people have not been sufficiently motivated.

I am particularly involved with craft apprenticeships, and I chair the William Morris Craft Fellowship Trust. I believe that we ought to get into our schools and tell our young people about this, and demonstrate to them that a career in the crafts can be as richly rewarding as anything else. I live in the shadow of Lincoln Cathedral, one of the most glorious buildings in Europe. How could that cathedral survive from generation to generation without dedicated craftsmen and craftswomen? We need to get into our schools and explain to the children that there are exciting opportunities for them.

How do we do that? One thing which we can and should do is ensure that every school has a panel of careers advisers, drawn from the local community. This should consist of successful business men and women, professionals and those accomplished in the crafts and what would in a previous age be referred to as the manual skills. Our young people would then have the opportunity not only to hear from those who have succeeded, but also metaphorically to sit at their feet.

Properly constructed work placements should be part of the education of every child, with work experience during the last two or three years of education. I have a granddaughter who just had some work experience in Lincoln itself, in the archives and so on. Her horizons expanded, and she went back to her school in Edinburgh —she lives up in Scotland—feeling much more aware of opportunities than she was previously.

I want a proper panel in every school. Guidance is fine, and the guidance to which the noble Baroness referred is admirable, but we have to give the policy some teeth. I know that the Minister is reluctant to prescribe this and prescribe that, but we are talking about the future of our children and therefore we have to ensure that they all have breadth of opportunity and experience. I beg of my noble friend to toughen up on this guidance. He also knows that I am a great believer in the importance of citizenship studies, and the two go side by side. As he knows, I would like to see every child coming out of school having undergone some form of citizenship ceremony, aware of his or her responsibilities and rights in the context of the wider world. That can come about only if these young people have an opportunity—and, indeed, an obligation —to do not only community service, but also properly constructed work placements.

We have to bring to this a sense of urgency, so that those at school at the moment do not feel that they are failures if they do not get three A* grades. They must not feel that they are failures if they do not go to university, and should feel that they are successful if they are attracted to vocational training, which tends to be denigrated. My six minutes are up so I will finish on that point, but I urge this upon the Minister.

19:03

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, for allowing us to have this debate. I did not realise that we had not had the opportunity to discuss the guidance, which is very important. I thank her for giving us that opportunity. There are problems with careers education guidance at the moment, and I want to say something about that, but let me be clear that there were problems with Connexions as well. We have not got it right for 20 years, so it is not a party-political point. Successive Governments just have not got this right, and I want to address why that might be the case.

One point that has not been said is that we all understand and know about the importance of careers education and guidance for everyone, but for no one more than the youngster trying to break away from the pattern of employment that their family has had for generation after generation. How it plays into that social mobility agenda and opportunity agenda is huge.

When I look at the guidance, I cannot argue with any single aspect of it. Having employer engagement is great; having employers in school is fantastic; work experience is wonderful; raising aspirations and showing people new visions is just what we want. It is right that schools should have a choice in who provides the services for the children in their care. I also like the encouragement that schools are getting to use destination information. When I look at the component parts that address the careers problem, I cannot argue against them. So why is it not working? That is what I really wanted to look at. In truth, the problem is that it does not hang together. Although all the elements are good and sound, every single one of them risks failing and is likely to fail in a considerable number of schools throughout this country.

If we take businesses, it is great that there is business involvement but, during my very early years of teaching, I used to be a careers teacher, and I can tell your Lordships that some of the most difficult classes I had were when I had an employer in who was not very good at talking to recalcitrant 14 year-old boys. So the notion that the minute you get employers in it is all wonderful is just not true. Our children get good-quality work experience, but if you are in an inner-city comprehensive school, trying to get that quality work experience with no external help for a cohort of 200 students a year is very difficult.

If we look at the structure of schools themselves, none of them do not care about what happens to their children but all the levers are against them doing the careers education and guidance right. It is not just that there is a history of saying that the best thing is to stay until the sixth form and go on to university, as has been said today. Schools carry that weight and history with them, but they are also rewarded for saying that. They are seen to be better schools because sixth forms mean more money and more pupil funding for that age range. All the incentives are for them not to send children into apprenticeships or down to the local college.

Children have to make a decision, but the areas of the curriculum where that used to be encouraged—PSHE and citizenship—are no longer there. The problem is that Ministers will always be able to give us examples of where there is really good practice. However, to be really honest, the chances of all those elements hanging together to provide universal careers provision across the country—of them being brought together by a school that puts it top of its priority list—are next to none. This cannot be a subject where some kids miss out. We have to be able to guarantee that it is available for everyone.

I want to look at something which I think is not often mentioned. I remember that when I was a young careers teacher, I always used to think that there were really three elements to it. You had to give the child information and aspiration—the tools to get some stuff into his or her head. You also had to give them the skill to assess their own strengths and where they were—what was and was not reasonable. But the most difficult thing was getting them to make the decision and, having made it, to stick with it for the rest of their school life. We sometimes underestimate how difficult it is, especially with some children, to equip them with the skills to make the decision and stick with it. I often think of this analogy: anyone who has been house hunting knows of the huge gap between really liking a house and saying, “Yes, I’ll buy it”. It is exactly the same thing as saying, “I really like that job. I wonder if I could do it”. But jumping in and staying with it for years, throughout the rest of your career, is very difficult.

I hope that I do not often say this, but I do not think that we have ever had anything as good as the careers service that we had in the 1980s, when I was teaching. Certainly in my area, which was Coventry, we were an exemplar. As a careers teacher, I taught careers guidance lessons, but we had, devolved from the Coventry careers service, a careers officer who was full time and two assistants. I pay tribute to Bill Grantham, who was our careers officer. So what the children had in our office was not just my skills as a teacher but his skills as a careers officer and those of his team.

It was he who gave the impartial advice; it was he who said, “Is that what you want to do? Well, this is how you need to go about it”. Most crucially, it was he who gave the school leadership and the teachers the confidence to put careers at the centre of what they did. We were not equipped to do it, but with him there, by our side, on our senior management team, we had the cohesion that is so often lacking. I hope that, on this occasion, learning some lessons from the past may stand us in good stead for the future.

19:09

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sharp for initiating this debate. Having spoken a number of times in your Lordships’ House on the issue of apprenticeships and preparation of young people in schools to enter the world of work, I am very glad that we have the statutory and non-statutory guidance which has clarified a number of issues that needed resolution, following Ofsted’s report which concluded that three-quarters of schools were not executing their statutory careers duties satisfactorily. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, who is right that the new structure needs to hang together. However, following the publication of the guidance, I am now reassured that Ofsted is giving a higher priority in school inspections to careers advice and guidance. I also welcome the clarification in the guidance of the role of governing bodies.

It is important for the Government to be more interventionist. There is a lot of evidence that we have to get more employers into schools, albeit employers who contribute positively to the young person’s experience and motivation, and to get more school students to experience the world of work. Neither is an island. A few months ago, IPPR North produced a report entitled Driving a Generation: Improving the Interaction Between Schools and Businesses. Interestingly, a number of its recommendations have been addressed in the statutory guidance but I will quote one of its conclusions:

“In order to deliver a well-informed careers service with a broad range of job destinations, advisers located in schools need to be aware of the local employment opportunities around them. This means that they need to have some form of contact with local employers. At present, too few have any.”

I emphasise the word “any”, for I find that a very worrying conclusion. It is not simply a question of money; it is as much about culture, knowledge and a clear definition of roles. Students are in schools and the careers guidance they receive needs to be related to the curriculum they are taught. I am unsure whether Ofsted was right to say it was an error to transfer responsibility for careers guidance to schools from local authorities. Schools are best placed to give guidance to students. They need help in doing that, but the core delivery should be in schools.

I draw attention to what IPPR North said because it specifically recommended the following strategy, based on research it undertook. In year 7, students should know about the different careers available in the subject area and the qualifications and education choices needed to enter those careers. That is information and knowledge-building. In year 8, there should be visits from employers, relevant to subject classes. In year 9, there should be visits by school students to major employers in the local area. As the Browne review of higher education recommended, there should be more individualised career support for students in years 10 and 11.

All this means that secondary schools need to develop much stronger relationships with major employers in their catchment areas. It also means that more employers have to be engaged in the education system. I was somewhat surprised by research published by the Federation of Small Businesses, which showed that 40% of its members have no engagement with local schools. One way of improving things is to use former students to raise aspiration and I am aware of the work of Future First, which builds alumni communities with former students as role models. The guidance says that schools should engage with their former students and get them to raise aspiration. That is wise, because students who lack confidence or knowledge need far more than occasional advice; they need real, sustained motivation.

One of the consequences of the way in which our careers system has worked over so many years reveals itself in the lack of women in engineering. Of the UK workforce, 8.5% are women. When you look at Scandinavia, which has a quarter, or Italy and France, which have a fifth, you realise the extent of the cultural problem we have. As my noble friend Lady Sharp said, the UK needs almost 100,000 new engineering graduates each year to meet current demand; that is twice current levels. Half of our state schools send no girls to university to study maths and sciences, which is a massive loss of talent. Early career support and mentoring to choose the right courses to enter careers in engineering and sciences would help, as would promotion of vocational provision. Again, as has been said, too many schools still focus only on A-level provision.

Overall, I welcome the guidance that has been issued and hope that the implementation will be such that no school will be found to have few contacts with local employers, and few local employers will be found to have no contact with schools.

19:15

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, the new statutory duty requires governing bodies to ensure that all registered pupils at school are provided with independent careers guidance. There must be,

“a range of activities … including employer talks, career fairs, motivational speakers, college and university visits, coaches and mentors … In-house support for students must be combined with advice and guidance from independent external sources to meet the school’s legal requirements”.

Searching for the word “entrepreneurship”, I found:

“Schools should offer pupils the opportunity to develop entrepreneurial skills for self-employment”.

This is what the Government are asking for. Matthew Hancock, who was the Minister for Skills and Enterprise at the time, said:

“There is now no excuse for schools and colleges not to engage local employers to support students in the transition from education to employment”.

However, as we have heard, Ofsted, in its report Going in the Right Direction? said that the link with employers was the weakest aspect of careers guidance in the 60 schools that it visited. About two-thirds of schools reported that they had cut down on their work experience provision for students in years 10 to 11. Can the Minister explain this? Most of the schools visited, especially those with sixth forms, are generally poor at promoting vocational training and, in particular, apprenticeships. Is the Minister aware of this?

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, on leading the debate. As she said, the move from state-sponsored careers guidance through the Connexions service to school-mandated careers guidance started in 2011. Only three other countries leave the responsibility of careers guidance to their school systems: New Zealand, the Netherlands and Ireland. In the case of the latter two, this has led to a reduction in the extent and quality of careers guidance provision. Have the Government taken this into account? In England it is estimated that the careers guidance element of the Connexions services received funding of £196 million in 2010-11. However, none of this was passed on to the schools after the transfer. It is therefore estimated that schools have to make an investment of £25,000 each for something that they had previously had for free. Can the Minister confirm this? Is this about means before ends?

The statutory guidance is very weak in that it is spread across two different documents. Ofsted has said:

“We were … told of a head teacher, who, when faced with the option of either buying careers guidance or extra tutorial support for maths and English, commented ‘If I do not hit the floor targets, I get fired. If I do not do careers, I am not sure that I do get fired’”.

The National Careers Service is all very well but there is a lack of face-to-face support for young people. Young people are going to be making the wrong choices about their careers. The recommendation is that the National Careers Service be expanded so that it has capacity-building and can play brokerage role for schools.

There have been so many comments in the press when employers have spoken about youth unemployment hitting 20%-plus, yet the manufacturing industry cannot attract young people to work in the sector. Works Management said that a survey revealed that 42% of people polled thought that careers advice in secondary schools was poor. Furthermore, 42% of people think that the secondary school teachers have a poor understanding of business and industry in general, while 57% of people believe that teachers should undertake two-week work placements. Would the Government encourage teachers to undertake work placements? Are they doing anything about this?

According to HC online, more than half of employers believe that young people receive inadequate careers advice, and almost two-thirds said that the young people they recruited lacked insight into the working world. That is really serious. Another CIPD survey found that more than two-thirds of UK employers have expressed willingness to be involved in the education system; but they need the opportunities to do that.

I am a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and today I sit on the advisory board of Economia magazine. ICAEW’s manifesto policy on skills and social mobility says that work experience should be mandatory in schools. How are the Government encouraging work experience to be mandatory in schools? They have a programme called BASE—business, accounting and skills education—which is a competition for students aged 16 to 19. It is fantastic; it is working really well. Yet this is being done on a voluntary basis; the responsibility is on schools. If we take the extreme example of a school such as Eton, its entrepreneurship society gets the entrepreneurial stars in this country, week by week, coming in and inspiring its students. How can the other thousands of schools in this country have access to that?

If we look at the destination measures system, what confidence is there that it will actually work? This is a serious situation. According to Ofsted, not all the schools visited had accurate and complete data on the students’ actual destinations. How are the Government going to deal with that challenge? Only one in five schools had well developed provisions for careers guidance.

I conclude with the private sector, which has such a huge advantage in this. For example, ISCO has training courses for the staff. What provision are the Government making for staff to be trained in careers guidance? This country has changed in the last three decades. It was a country with a glass ceiling; it was the sick man of Europe. Today it is an aspirational country. Our careers guidance needs to harness that aspiration, encourage our children and give them a really bright future.

19:21

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, for initiating this debate. I hope your Lordships will indulge me at the beginning of my contribution to the debate and allow me to explain a little about my professional background.

In the 1990s I was the vocational co-ordinator in a comprehensive school in north Wales. Among my duties was responsibility for the school’s careers policy and its implementation. I believe that we delivered high-quality careers education and guidance for our pupils. Careers lessons in the school were delivered through modules in the PHSE curriculum. We had an effective relationship with our careers service, which provided impartial advice that the pupils needed. Careers teachers were helped in their professional development by the education departments of the local authorities—and yes, we did take up work placements in local industries.

In common with many schools at that time, we used the system many noble Lords will remember—the Jiig-Cal programme. Jiig-Cal—or Job Ideas and Information Generator-Computer Aided Learning—did exactly what it said it would do. It generated ideas and information about jobs after pupils had completed questionnaires and the forms were read by a computer. Jim Closs, the designer of the system, has admitted:

“Sometimes pupils would react quite negatively to jobs of that kind being suggested to them, but one of the principles of careers guidance is to broaden the pupil’s horizons by putting before them ideas that they would never otherwise have considered”.

I agree with that. Although the system has received some criticism, studies have shown that 70% of the pupils who went through the system actually ended up in the jobs suggested for them.

From a teacher’s point of view, the most important factor was the process pupils went through before they completed the forms—being guided, and taking time to reflect on their own interests, skills and abilities, whether they felt they were academic or not, or preferred working indoors or outdoors. All those factors need to be considered when choosing a career. Above all, that led to pupils learning about themselves, valuing aspects of themselves and their choices and valuing and respecting the choices of others—whatever those choices might be.

I argue that almost everything that appears in the new guidance for schools in Section 29 were things we were doing then—except for bringing speakers from the world of work into our schools, and the emphasis on mentoring and coaching. Those aspects of modern careers guidance, inspiring pupils to consider other careers, would have greatly enhanced our provision at that time. However, there is increasing concern among professionals about the diminishing role of the classroom teacher in careers education and guidance. For me, there is a fear that inspiring young people on the one hand, without the reality checks of the processes we went through on the other hand, could lead to what I call the “Britain’s Got Talent” phenomenon—when someone appears on stage and nobody has ever told them that they cannot sing.

Perhaps we should learn from Australia, where, last year, the National Centre for Vocational Education Research reported on its study of more than 2,000 pupils. It found that while many pupils had planned to be lawyers, psychologists, designers and vets at age 15, when interviewed again at 25 the majority had ended up as sales assistants, primary school teachers and retail managers. The centre blames a “patchy” careers advice system which inflated pupils’ expectations, only for them to be dashed 10 years later. Psychologist Professor Helen McGrath said that parents—and, I would argue, teachers—need,

“to focus more on giving their children some realistic feedback about what their strengths are rather than giving that message of ‘you can do anything you want if you set your mind to it’ … You simply can’t do everything, and the end result is that you fall flat on your face when you realise that even if you work hard you’re not getting anywhere”.

Career Development Association of Australia vice-president Dr Peter McIlveen said that parents and educators must encourage kids to aim high but not aim for the impossible. He said:

“It’s vital that our kids dream big but also make those dreams realistic through good guidance”.

Good careers guidance has many aspects, and I welcome the detail we have been given in the documents. Those aspects include: mentoring, inspirational speakers, work experience and work visits, careers fairs, and interviews with careers officers, yes—but the input of dedicated careers teachers who help the child to understand his or her ambitions, abilities and skills, is also needed. Take away any one of those aspects and one is left with a system that is unbalanced and perhaps ultimately unfair to the child.

19:27

[Baroness King of Bow (Lab)]

I congratulate and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, on securing this debate.

We have all heard those stories from politicians and everyone else in the public eye; they go along to their school careers adviser at the age of about 14 or 15 to discuss their burning ambition, only to be told that they should shelve the dream and instead stack shelves. My careers adviser gave me slightly better advice. “What do you want to do?” she asked. “Become Prime Minister,” I answered. “Do you like reading?” she asked. “Yes,” I said. “In that case, I suggest you become a librarian”. I do not have anything against librarians, and I am extremely glad that they exist. However, given both my personality and my interests, I honestly had less chance of becoming a successful librarian than Prime Minister. Okay, I blew both my options, but my career advice highlights that unless advice is bespoke, professionalised, and inspirational to young people it is simply a complete waste of time.

In contrast, when I told my mum that I wanted to be Prime Minister, she replied, “And would you like to do that before or after you’re 30?”. I should add that I had to work in the Prime Minister’s office for only 10 minutes to realise that being Prime Minister is a terrible career choice, and not something I would wish on my worst enemy. However, the point is that my mum’s response instilled in me a matter-of-fact belief that I could have whatever career I wanted. That is why I am answering this debate today in the Lords instead of misfiling books in a library. Many people who are deemed to do well in life do so simply because people believe in them from a young age and give them both the tools and the expectation of success. That is precisely the job of an inspirational careers adviser: practical advice combined with great expectations.

What is the situation on the ground? As we have heard, the £200 million a year for the Connexions service has been axed and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, noted, we do not know where it has gone. Schools now have an unfunded mandate to provide careers advice. An Ofsted report last year found that a staggering 75% of schools offer poor careers advice. This surely is not a moment to withdraw resources from that area. Written evidence from Unison, the main union for careers service staff, is equally damning. Unison states that it is,

“extremely concerned about the future quality and availability of a viable careers service in England and we are particularly concerned that schools are not well prepared to fulfil their new duties as providers of careers guidance”.

Research by the University of Derby, with Unison, found a declining level of local authority involvement in youth and career support—as noble Lords would expect—and a consequent decline in the quality and quantity of overall support available. In general, therefore, local authorities have followed the direction of government policy and transferred responsibility to schools while focusing their resources on targeted services. In theory, that might not be such a bad thing, but those who were interviewed for the report were clear that the Government’s policy changes are unfortunately impacting negatively on young people. Many who work in the sector said that young people were now making educational and employment decisions without support and in many cases this led to unwise choices.

The Government make high-level inspirational statements. As we have heard, no one could disagree with a word of them—they are fantastic, we all agree with them and sign up to motherhood and apple pie. I do not really mean that sarcastically, but it comes back to the points made in the debate, particularly by my noble friend Lady Morris, that it just does not hang together and, unfortunately, cash-strapped schools are forced to go with the lowest bidder in terms of careers advice.

The CBI conducted a survey of 2,000 14 to 25 year-olds and 93% said that they were not provided with enough information to make an informed career choice. Only 26% received advice on apprenticeships and only 17% on vocational qualifications, another issue raised by my noble friend Lady Morris. This means that young people without parents to help or who are not connected have very little chance of fulfilling their potential. That brings us back to the heart of the matter. Good, targeted careers advice, critically offered early enough to make a difference, is one of the most effective policy tools that we have to increase social mobility and reduce inequality. That is why it is so vital and why it breaks my heart to see standards in this area eroded. As for the guidance itself, whether it is statutory or non-statutory, it cannot on its own rectify problems identified by employers, unions and Ofsted. There comes a point when the Government have to put their money where their mouth is.

The Government’s inspirational vision statement says that:

“The responsibility now lies with schools and colleges, who we have given a powerful new accountability to secure independent and impartial careers guidance”.

Yes, they have been given a powerful new accountability, but not a penny. I might be wrong. I hope that the Minister, magician-like with rabbits to pull out of his hat, can clarify which extra funds schools will have access to, to provide this inspirational careers guidance.

I do not have much time left, so I will mention the importance of enterprise education, which is absolutely critical. It is also timely, because in an interview today in the Daily Telegraph, the Employment Minister said that middle-class children should believe that setting up their own business is every bit as good as going to university or working for a big company. All children should believe that, and A4e is one of the organisations working in that area.

I end by asking the Government if they will provide the well trained staff and structure that are needed, and end their resistance to face-to-face sessions, which are so important. Let us ensure that we provide inspiration for our young people, regardless of whether they want to start their own companies or become librarians or, God forbid, Prime Ministers.

19:34

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sharp for securing this important debate and for her excellent summary of the history and status quo of the Government’s position on careers advice. I also thank other noble Lords for their valuable contributions.

There seems to be an assumption underlying the debate that there was once a golden age of careers advice and that we have to go back to it. I do not recognise that. Even if it was the case, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that the careers system that the Government inherited was clearly a long way short of that. I think that we all recognise that the Connexions model did not work. As Alan Milburn said, hardly one person had anything good to say about it.

I do not believe that we have ever had it right in this country since the days of choice emerged, probably about 60 years ago—before which people basically went into jobs that their parents did or that their parents organised for them. The system of careers advice that I recognise is one that I saw on a bookstall once, when I was in an airport in New York late one night—I cannot remember which; all airports look the same. It was a book written by Jack Welch and his wife. He was the inspirational head of GE. He had written a book about his experience as a manager. Then he and his new wife had gone around the world promoting the book for 18 months. When they came back, they wrote a small pocketbook on the best questions that they had heard. The best chapter was entitled,

“What am I going to do with the rest of my life?”.

He said that basically what you do is: you get a job; you do not like it very much; you get another job; and after about five jobs, if you are lucky, you find something that you enjoy. That was certainly the pattern of careers advice that I recognise in this country for the past 50 years, and certainly that experienced by many of my friends.

Of course we can do a lot better. We in this Government believe that people in jobs they love are best placed to enthuse and inspire a young person. For too long, careers guidance in our schools has been weak, characterised by an expensive, top-down approach and one-off careers interviews that did not prepare young people to take their place in the world of work.

The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, referred to Ofsted stating that the links with employers are weak. Frankly, for many schools, the links with business and the professions have been extremely weak for years. In our view, it is clearly getting better. Evidence from the McKinsey report on youth unemployment conducted across Europe was absolutely clear that the best careers advice is active engagement with business, but that face-to-face careers advice experience was extremely patchy. As for the head teacher to whom he referred who could not see the value of careers advice and was focused only on core standards, in my experience, for many successful head teachers in the country, the one way to get their pupils working for those exams is to engage them with work so that they have a clear line of sight and understand why they are working.

I certainly agree with my noble friend Lord Shipley that schools should have responsibility for that advice, because they know their pupils, their aptitudes, interests, passions, strengths and weaknesses. Through our reforms, this Government are driving closer working between schools and employers. We welcome business input into our schools—probably more so than anywhere else in the world.

We need to equip our pupils with an understanding of how their learning will help them to progress in a rewarding career, and schools and employers can do this by investing in the workforce of tomorrow through careers talks, mentoring, coaching, work tasters and work experience. From September, our guidance will encourage all schools to do what the best schools are doing: securing innovative advice and guidance on a range of ambitious careers. That is why this Government have given responsibility to schools and colleges.

Evidence from the Education and Employers Taskforce highlighted the positive relationship between the number of employer contacts that 14 to 19 year-olds experience in school and their outcomes—including the likelihood of their being NEET and their earnings if salaried. I am delighted to see a growing number of excellent organisations already working with schools to facilitate greater business involvement—organisations such as Business in the Community’s Business Class, which has 300 clusters around the country, as well as the Cutler’s Made in Sheffield programme, the Glass Academy in Sheffield, Make the Grade in Leeds, career academies, U-Explore, Barclays LifeSkills, the Education and Employment Taskforce’s Inspiring the Future, and the Speakers for Schools programme. All those organisations are building those vital links—the plumbing between schools and business.

At Pimlico Academy, my own academy, we have a substantial raising aspirations programme, bringing businesses and professional people to speak at the school. At Westminster Academy they have transformed the schools performance with the help of 200 business partners. At the Bridge Academy in Hackney the sponsor UBS runs a huge mentoring programme for the students and at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form in Hackney, they have an excellent programme of engagement with businesses including a speed-dating careers fair.

The guidance gives schools a responsibility to act impartially and make sure pupils can find out about the range of options available. The accompanying non-statutory guidance paints a clear picture of what good careers guidance looks like, highlighting case studies and examples of good practice. To further support schools, from October the reshaped National Careers Service will expand its offer to schools and colleges, making it easier for employers and educators to engage. Importantly, schools will now be held to account for the destination of their pupils, be that an apprenticeship, university, job or further study in school or college. The Chief Inspector of Schools has made clear his commitment to give careers guidance a higher priority in school inspections. We are strengthening our focus on that, to answer the point made by my noble friend Lord Cormack.

We have set out a clear vision for careers guidance, clarified responsibilities for schools through new statutory guidance and enhanced the role of the National Careers Service, alongside Ofsted’s tougher scrutiny.

On the point made by my noble friend Lady Sharp about the recommendations from Ofsted and the Select Committee, we have considered these and implemented a number of them. We published our action plan on the same day as Ofsted published its response to all the recommendations. We have strengthened the guidance in relation to a clear framework for schools. We have made it clear to schools that they must build relationships with other education and training providers.

As for the money—on a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, and the noble Baroness, Lady King—we are in a difficult economic climate, as we all know. We have protected the school budget, which is a fairly remarkable performance given the state of the public finances that we inherited, and we believe that there is money there for this, compared to other sectors.

My noble friend Lord Cormack referred to the culture—that unless one goes to university one is seen as a failure. We are determined to change this ethos, which is why this Government’s reforms have ensured that vocational qualifications are rigorous and can be as highly valued as the alternatives. That is why our new guidance focuses so clearly on apprenticeships. My noble friend referred to his concept of a careers panel, which is an excellent idea. As was noted, we have updated the guidance for school governors this year, which makes it clear that governors can play a key role in helping to connect schools with the local business community, since we know that governors from an employer background can help schools in this way. As for the citizenship ceremony, perhaps the idea could be promoted by forming a new charity or a co-operation with other charities, or through a pilot with a certain number of schools. I know that my noble friend has some interested schools.

The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, referred to the fact that not all schools have a complete set of destination data. The DfE is publishing key stage 4 and 5 destination data annually, and Ofsted is using this in school inspections to inform judgments on schools’ career guidance.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, referred to work experience. Hundreds of employers are offering work experience, including major national companies, and the offer of work experience has risen over the last couple of years from 63% of employers to 81%.

I think that the real picture is somewhat different from the one that has been painted. We have never had this right and we think that the model of engaging with business is the way forward. We need to get it developed—I have referred to a number of excellent organisations that are doing this. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that giving young people a clear line of sight to the workplace, particularly those from intergenerational unemployment backgrounds, is important in enabling them to fulfil their potential. It is not just economically important but also, as my noble friend Lady Sharp said in opening, a moral imperative. Once again, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions.

Health: Dental Implants

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Grand Committee

Question for Short Debate

19:47

Asked by

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to make the public aware of the medical need for periodontal checks following the fitting of dental implants.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, peri-implantitis may seem to be a somewhat obscure matter to debate today, but that is the very reason why I am raising the subject. As a long-retired dentist, I was quite unaware of the condition. I found it most interesting when I heard Professor Nick Donos, head and chair of periodontology and director of research at the UCL Eastman Dental Institute, address an international dental conference on this subject in London last month. I thank him and others who have provided me with valuable material for the discussion tonight.

This is an important and growing health problem and there needs to be an awareness and a degree of understanding of the present position and the growing risks associated with this increasingly popular form of dental treatment. The condition is peri-implantitis. When I attended my first international dental conference in 1955 in Copenhagen, dental implants were a new idea and early cases reported by those dentists present had often failed spectacularly. In some cases, large portions of a jaw were lost in the process, mainly due to the rejection of the foreign body—the dental implant —by the patient’s immune system.

Time moved on and it was found that the metal titanium was accepted by the body. Since then, titanium-rooted dental implants have become widely used in the replacement of missing teeth. Half a million adults have at least one dental implant, according to the latest Adult Dental Health Survey. Studies suggest that one third of these patients will have a milder disease—peri-implant mucositis—which is common and treatable. If undetected or untreated, these red swollen gums can develop into peri-implantitis, which is associated with both inflamed gums and jawbone loss around the implants. As with so many health conditions, smokers have a significantly higher risk of peri-implantitis.

The European Association for Osseointegration emphasises the importance of appropriate patient selection. Most of us would accept that view and, as patients, we would expect to receive sound advice from the appropriately trained dentists performing implant procedures. It is important to indicate for the patient, particularly in complex cases, that implant dentistry should be seen as a multidisciplinary treatment. Within the objectives of the General Dental Council curriculae for dental specialists, it is indicated that periodontology, the treatment of gum conditions, is the specialty in charge for the planning and execution of the surgical component, and prosthodontics is the branch of dentistry that deals with replacement of missing parts with artificial structures and executes the relevant implant superstructures.

Complications of implant therapy, particularly peri-implantitis, are within the objectives of periodontology. Some experts studying the condition of peri-implantitis, a growing problem, believe that there should be formal national registration of implants, national health and private, in the UK. This would probably be the first in Europe, and would enable regulation of the type and quality of the implant-related procedures.

An implant is a titanium screw that is inserted into the jaw under a controlled protocol and, when fused with the bone, forms an artificial tooth root. Their use is growing rapidly in the UK, and although they are costly they are often considered the treatment of choice for replacing missing teeth. They can also be used as a support for a more extensive prosthesis.

When I googled “dental implant”, as a patient often would if they had heard about this treatment, I was disturbed to read the advertisement:

“Get smiling again with our same-day dental implants”.

That is surely what can cause adverse conditions post-treatment and is contrary to all the recommendations from the official dental bodies, which believe the patient must be fully assessed prior to treatment and informed and treated if there is an existing periodontal condition before the implant procedure. It must also be made clear to them that an implant is not a treatment you just have and forget. Regular follow-up visits are required to ensure that a periodontal condition does not develop, first into mucositis, and then progress on to the more serious disease, peri-implantitis, which causes loss of bone supporting the implant and often loss of the implant itself.

Remembering the time when so many women were at serious risk from cheap silicone breast implants and the heavy cost of dealing with unsatisfactory, even dangerous, treatments, including removal or replacement of these, it is particularly important that we are aware that many people seeking dental implants are tempted by cheap offers from abroad. These usually have the great disadvantage that the patient does not have continuing care and may be totally unaware that periodontal follow-up is essential to ensure continuing oral health. These patients certainly need to be clear that care and control of the gums before and following implants are most important.

My noble friend Lord Colwyn sends his regrets that he is unable to be here tonight. He also sends the message, as someone who has done implants himself, that implants should be put only into healthy mouths.

When I tabled this Question for Short Debate, I had seen nothing in the press on the subject. I was pleasantly surprised to see that on 14 July the Daily Telegraph had a very informative article on peri-implantitis titled “The ‘Time Bomb’ in Dental Implants” about a patient, age 52, who had four teeth implanted at a cost of £13,000 in 2002. Three months ago this patient felt a lump on her lower jaw, near one implant. She went to have this checked, and it responded to antibiotics, but the X-ray showed that the bone supporting the implant was receding, and the diagnosis was peri-implantitis.

Ten years ago this disease was almost unknown, but it is now a serious possible consequence of implantation, particularly when the implant patient has not continued to have regular periodontal checks, with treatment if necessary, following an implant. Some studies suggest that one-third of implant patients will be infected, and because jawbone loss is silent and invisible, people do not realise that they are at risk. Early warning signs are red, swollen gums and bleeding, which is often apparent when tooth-brushing; smoking seems to aggravate the situation, and significantly more smokers develop peri-implantitis.

The Faculty of Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons points out that long-term assessment and maintenance need to be assured if this threat to stability of the implant is to be prevented. It believes that the General Dental Council should introduce minimum standards of education and training for complex dental treatment, such as implants, to ensure patients are treated by a qualified professional. It supports the view that the General Dental Council should include peri-implant assessment and maintenance in the undergraduate curriculum. Too often the practitioner who inserts the implant does not provide long-term support for the patient, discharging them back to their general dental practitioner.

Periodontal disease has been associated with diabetes, cardiovascular disease and pneumonia. Some people speculate that an increase of bacteria in the body may aggravate these conditions but it is not considered to cause them. Professor Donos says:

“The main challenge is for the patients suffering from periodontal disease who represent a significant proportion of the population. As you know, due to the silent nature of the disease, it does not always provide ‘pain’ as a symptom for the patient”.

He continues:

“I think it is important for the public to be informed that even though implants are successful and offer great functional and aesthetic solutions in terms of replacing missing teeth, appropriate patient selection is required”—

as my noble friend Lord Colwyn said—

“control of periodontal disease before and after implant placement is essential and all risk factors need to be controlled through regular follow up according to the susceptibility profile of the patient”.

In my experience, pain is the thing that brings many patients into the dental surgery. I cannot end this dental discussion without mentioning the report this week that 26,000 children in England aged between five and nine have been hospitalised to have multiple tooth extractions in 2013-14, which is nearly 500 children a week, at a huge cost to the NHS and a great disturbance and upset for the children and their families. However, that is a debate for another time: I flag it up here for the Minister.

Tonight, I hope that patients who want and should have dental implants will benefit from understanding the importance of dealing with periodontal conditions before and after treatment. I look forward to a positive response from the Minister and to his assurance that his department will create public awareness of this condition.

19:57

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, is one of our most active Members and I am sure we all owe her a great debt in bringing this matter to our attention tonight. I declare an interest as a member of the Faculty of Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons. Last Friday, I attended a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the fluoridation of the water supply in Birmingham. Will the noble Earl join me in congratulating the great city of Birmingham on this achievement? It is interesting that, when one looks at health outcomes, Birmingham is often towards the lower end of the table, but it is way up in the top 10 in oral health. Whatever one’s views on fluoridation—and I also declare my presidency of the British Fluoridation Society—there is no question that it has had a very positive impact in Birmingham and the West Midlands in terms of the number of children who have to go into hospital because of oral issues, which was a point raised by the noble Baroness.

As the noble Baroness said, the use of dental implants has grown rapidly across the UK in the last few years. That has been very welcome to many patients but we know that, on the other hand, alongside this rise, the General Dental Council has seen an increasing number of complaints, particularly regarding the lack of informed consent for treatment, damage to the tissue and bone surrounding the implant, and failures. The noble Baroness was very explicit about some of the health issues that can arise. I have looked very carefully at the briefing provided by the Faculty of Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons. It makes four points that I will put to the noble Earl, alongside the questions raised by the noble Baroness.

Essentially, the briefing says that it is very important for patients to be given adequate information about the risks and alternative options for treatment. Secondly, patients should be aware that periodontal and peri-implant checks are essential to ensure that problems are detected early. The stability of the implant is threatened by diseases such as the one mentioned by the noble Baroness. I do not dare attempt to repeat its name, although I believe that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, is perhaps braver than me on that. However, this is why checks are essential.

Thirdly, the GDC should consider ensuring that peri-implant assessment and maintenance is part of the normal undergraduate course. Fourthly, I would like to mention the Law Commission draft Bill. We are not to see the Bill, but it contains proposals to give regulators the power to annotate their registrar and indicate specialisms or other qualifications. Given that we are not going to have the Bill—I know that there will be some Section 60 orders—perhaps I could make a plea that this might be considered if a dental order is to be brought forward.

Finally, I refer to a very interesting note I received from the Faculty of General Dental Practice about the standards of training in implant dentistry. This is available from a wide variety of providers in the UK, including universities, royal colleges and hospitals. These standards have been developed to ensure patient safety and protection, and I understand that they also serve as a reference point for the GDC in consideration of patient complaints. The only question I wanted to put to the noble Earl about this is that, although this seems to be absolutely fine, how can we ensure that more dental teams take up these training opportunities?

Clearly, we have a good system where standards are very much developed. The providers have to provide training in line with those standards, and the General Dental Council is there to follow up complaints when there are indications that dentists are not practising according to those standards. I wonder whether the noble Earl thinks that there is an issue of some dental practitioners not doing that, which then has an impact on their provision of clinical services.

20:02

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, before I respond to the particular points raised by my noble friend on the issues to which she drew our attention, I begin by paying tribute to the way she has consistently championed the commitment of members of her profession to improving the oral health of the population and the quality of dental care provided in this country.

The oral health of the nation has been transformed since the creation of the NHS in 1948, and the rate of improvement has picked up pace since the introduction and widespread use of fluoride toothpaste in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the growing awareness of the need for good oral hygiene.

The coalition made two key commitments in relation to dentistry in 2010: to increase access to NHS dentistry and to improve oral health by reforming the NHS dental contractual system. We are making solid progress on that reform. As noble Lords know, there is currently an engagement exercise aimed at dentists and the wider dental community. As part of this I took part last month in a web chat, and I was encouraged by the positive—though, of course, rightly robust—questioning and debate from those dentists who took part.

However, we are not waiting for this more fundamental reform before starting to tackle access and oral health. We are already making progress on delivering on those commitments. The people of this country appreciate the ability to access dental care when it is needed, and the number of people seeing a dentist under the NHS since May 2010 has increased by 1.5 million. We are also committed to working with our partners, including those in the profession, to improve the oral health of the population—with a particular focus on children. The latest epidemiological data published by Public Health England demonstrates that progress is being made. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I follow with interest the decisions being taken locally about fluoridation of water.

These decisions are best taken locally and the arrangements we made under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 are intended to increase democratic legitimacy of decisions on fluoridation; I am pleased that the noble Lord attended the 50th anniversary of the city of Birmingham’s fluoridation scheme. Dental caries continues to affect a sizeable proportion of the population and is a common cause of children being admitted to hospital, as my noble friend mentioned, for the removal of decayed teeth. Public Health England recently published a health monitoring report which showed lower rates of tooth decay and hospital admission in fluoridated areas compared to non-fluoridated areas. In March, Public Health England published guidance for local authorities on improving oral health for children and young people. That guidance advises on the range of measures, including water fluoridation, that local authorities might consider as part of their oral health improvement strategies.

One of the real drivers of this improvement in oral health has been the greater appreciation by the public of the value and importance of both good oral health and acceptable appearance. With this value now placed on oral health has come significant technological development, and again the dental profession must be congratulated on the way it has researched and developed new techniques and procedures to improve oral health and functionality; the use of implants, which my noble friend focused on, is a case in point. We recognise that inequalities still exist and my officials are working with colleagues in Public Health England, NHS England and local authorities to tackle those inequalities; nevertheless, the overall trend is positive.

My noble friend pointed out that smokers are more at risk of peri-implantitis. Public Health England’s Smoke-free and Smiling guidance supports dentists to make brief interventions to help patients who want to stop or cut down to access dedicated stop-smoking services. Dental surgery is a key opportunity to get across brief messages of issues that have implications for oral health—and in this case, of course, the patient’s wider health.

Dental implants can be used in a range of situations. They can play a key role in reconstruction, post-trauma or major surgery. They can sometimes be used, as my noble friend mentioned, as a support for a more extensive prosthesis following surgery for head and neck cancer, and can also be used to retain restorations in the mouth where teeth are missing. I know that the vast majority of cases where implants have been used to replace missing teeth have historically been provided in the independent sector, outside the auspices of the NHS. There are, of course, many other treatment options to be considered, including bridges or dentures, depending on the individual clinical circumstances.

The NHS has a duty to commission services which are both clinically appropriate and cost effective and it is important when discussing the replacement of missing teeth that all those options are discussed. We also need to be aware, as my noble friend mentioned, that some patients choose to travel abroad to have implants fitted because the initial treatment might be available abroad at a lower cost. The General Dental Council has good guidance available on its website for members of the public considering travelling abroad for dental treatment. It is important that people travelling abroad for this sort of treatment understand that, without the ongoing clinical care and support that this type of treatment requires, what looks like a low-cost option initially might ultimately turn out to be high-cost—both financially and from a health outcome perspective.

I am aware that NHS England is providing a series of commissioning guides to give clarity to commissioners and clinicians when discussing treatment options with patients. For dentistry, four such guides are in development, focused on specific areas of dental care. One of these is a restorative commissioning guide and the appropriate use of implants is, I understand, included as part of that work. As my noble friend quite rightly mentioned, appropriate post-placement care is vital if these restorations are to be successful in the long term.

There has been a significant increase in the placement of intra-oral implants in the last 20 years and, although the immediate result can be instantly impressive, it is vital that patients receive good aftercare, including the periodontal checks my noble friend referred to and instruction on how to maintain a healthy interface between the implants and natural tissue. Indeed, in the third edition of Delivering Better Oral Health: An Evidence-Based Toolkit for Prevention, published recently by Public Health England, there is a section on peri-implant health which focuses on these very issues. This provides detailed guidance for clinicians on what they should do at each visit for patients who have had implant treatment. We would expect clinicians to carry out procedures only where oral health is good enough to support the treatment being provided—the point made by our noble friend Lord Colwyn, who cannot unfortunately be with us—and to provide aftercare advice to patients, including advice on self-care and the need for regular check-ups.

However, we know that there is more to do. My noble friend will also, I hope, be pleased to hear that my officials and the Chief Dental Officer have already recognised the issue she raises as a potential area for growing concern. A UK-wide working group, which includes representation from the dental faculties, has been established. Chaired by the Chief Dental Officer, it will look at developing clear and consistent cross-system guidance relating to treatment planning prior to the placement of implants, the education and training required by the clinicians—a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt—and best practice for aftercare, as referred to by my noble friend. It will also look at how appropriate, easily understood information can be made available to members of the public considering this form of treatment. I am pleased that this group has been set up and understand that it met for the first time earlier this month.

I hope that my noble friend is reassured by the fact that we have already recognised this as an area where public awareness needs raising and that we are taking action to address this. At the end of her excellent speech, my noble friend mentioned the recent data regarding the admission of young children for the administration of a general anaesthetic for removal of teeth. This is unacceptable as dental caries is a preventable disease which can be almost eliminated by the combination of good diet and correct tooth-brushing, backed up by regular examination by a dentist. NHS England is working with colleagues within and outside the profession to educate and inform the parents of these young children so that they are not subject to this extremely unpleasant experience at such an early age.

Committee adjourned at 8.12 pm.

House of Lords

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Lords Chamber

Wednesday, 23 July 2014.

15:00

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Coventry.

Uganda: LGBT People

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Lords Chamber

Question

15:07

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they propose to take over the abuse of the human rights of LGBT people in Uganda as a result of the passing of the Anti-Homosexuality Act there.

[The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)]

My Lords, we continue to press Uganda to defend human rights without discrimination on any grounds. The safety of LGBT individuals in Uganda is of great concern. We have sought assurances about their protection and, with our support, EU Heads of Mission in Kampala have initiated strengthened political dialogue. We are committed to engaging closely with civil society groups and are stepping up our support to organisations that protect minority rights.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

I know my noble friend understands the deep concern that exists on this matter, in both this House and the other place, and I thank her for it. What progress, if any, are the Government making in their efforts to persuade the Ugandan authorities to repeal this terrible law which infringes some of the most fundamental human rights? Will the Government reconsider urgently their decision not to impose carefully targeted sanctions on those responsible for this appalling law?

[Lord Tomlinson (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Warsi]

My noble friend raised this issue when the Anti-Homosexuality Act was passed in Uganda. We have deep concerns about that Act and the then Foreign Secretary, William Hague, raised these in a Statement at the time. Noble Lords will be aware that the Act criminalises the promotion of homosexuality, the owning of property where homosexuality may take place and a range of other actions which raise huge concern about how the LGBT community can be protected. With regard to sanctions, we keep all matters under review. However, it is important that whatever action we take, including sanctions, actually has a real impact. At the moment, there is a difference of opinion, even among LGBT NGO groups, about whether sanctions would have the desired effect.

[Lord Tomlinson (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for my excess of enthusiasm. Does the noble Baroness agree that we diminish our international reputation on all matters concerned with human rights when we constantly denigrate the European Court of Human Rights, when we constantly criticise the European Convention on Human Rights and when we sack an Attorney-General because of his support for those two things?

[Lord Luce (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Warsi]

I get the distinct impression that maybe I am not needed any more. The noble Lord raises an important issue and it is one that I have raised at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. As the Minister with responsibility for human rights I have said consistently that the way in which we conduct ourselves nationally impacts on our international reputation. What we do internationally will impact on who we are as a domestic nation. Therefore, the noble Lord does make an important point. I would stress to him that, certainly, the Government take the issue of human rights incredibly seriously. It is a huge part of my brief and he will see the commitment in the work that the Government do.

[Lord Luce]

My Lords—

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, I apologise to the Minister for my enthusiasm. I have not asked a question in this House before so I wanted to get on with it. The Minister will be aware that the most reverend Primates the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York wrote to the President of Uganda in January to reiterate a statement made by all the Primates of the Anglican Communion, in which they said:

“The victimisation or diminishment of human beings whose affections happen to be ordered towards people of the same sex is anathema to us”.

In that spirit, do the Government intend to provide asylum to those who are fleeing the worrying consequences of this law which enshrines such diminishment?

[Noble Lords]

My Lords—

[Baroness Warsi]

We have an eager House today.

We take our responsibilities in relation to people who come to this country to apply for political asylum very seriously, which is something that we should be proud of. I think that the right reverend Prelate would accept that it would not be possible for us to offer asylum to anybody who has been suffering persecution on the basis of sexuality, gender, race or religion around the world. Therefore, the approach of successive Governments has always been to work with the country to ensure that the country itself protects those citizens. There is some hope. The Ugandan Government made a statement on 7 July reiterating their commitment to the rights of individuals and to ensuring that minority communities had access to healthcare, NGOs and civil society organisations. It is important that we ensure that the Ugandan Government stick to those commitments they have made.

[Lord Luce]

My Lords, I must apologise to the Minister for trying to answer questions for her. Does she not agree that the Commonwealth is the right forum in which to discuss such issues, particularly as we have all signed the Commonwealth charter committing us to certain values and principles? Is that not what the Commonwealth is for?

[Baroness Warsi]

I am a supporter of the Commonwealth, as are noble Lords across this House. We are all realistic enough to acknowledge that despite the Commonwealth charter, which was supposed to be a watershed moment, there are numerous Commonwealth countries that do not live by that charter, including in their approach towards LGBT communities. It is, therefore, important that we use the Commonwealth as a vehicle but that we use all other vehicles available to us to ensure that these rights are protected.

[Lord Chidgey (LD)]

Is my noble friend aware that President Barack Obama has described Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act as odious, and that in June the US Government announced sanctions against Ugandans involved in human rights abuses? There has also been a shift in funding from the Ugandan health ministry to alternative organisations. Will our Government reconsider and follow the lead of the Americans?

[Baroness Warsi]

I am aware that the United States reviewed its position after the passing of the Act in June this year. They brought forward a number of proposals, including ceasing support for certain programmes, redirecting healthcare funding and reallocating funding for a public health institute. That is the approach taken by the United States. I come back to this: LGBT campaigners say that different approaches work in different places. It is important that whatever we choose to do, we do it in a way that is in line with the campaigning that is going on, is effective and actually works on the ground.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, homosexuality has been criminalised in Uganda since British colonial rule and that position, regrettably, has been reflected in 42 out of the 53 Commonwealth countries. However, this new Act has unleashed a new wave of extreme and violent homophobia, including physical attacks, arbitrary arrests, blackmail and evictions. People’s lives are at risk now. I ask the Minister to reconsider her position in these unique circumstances. If the United States can act now so should we.

[Baroness Warsi]

We need to challenge the culture change that this Act has led to on the ground. Countries in the West have an additional responsibility because there is a real concern in Africa at the moment that much of the radicalisation and preaching that creates the culture that leads to this hatred and consequences for LGBT communities is coming from preachers who come from the West. There is a job we can do in our countries to make sure that we do not perpetuate this.

Economy: Productivity

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Lords Chamber

Question

15:15

Asked by

[Lord Haskel]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to raise the United Kingdom’s productivity.

[Lord Popat (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s long-term economic plan is working, with GDP increasing by 0.8% in the first quarter of 2014. Productivity is also growing, with output per worker increasing by 0.6% in the first quarter of 2014. Alongside deficit reduction and an active monetary policy, we are making longer-term structural changes to support long-term growth. The Government’s industrial strategy policies and four key growth ambitions are also attracting investment and creating jobs.

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

I welcome what the Minister says but is it actually working? Thanks to the Government’s policy of the job-rich, low-wage, low-skill, long-hours economy, as a nation we are producing fewer goods and services than we did six years ago. With such a policy, how do the Government intend us to pay our way in a competitive world, reduce our balance of payments deficit and raise living standards, if not through productivity?

[Lord Popat]

My Lords, the party opposite is quite often desperate to find worrying economic news. I will talk about productivity: our growth is up, exports are up, manufacturing is up, employment is up, SMEs are up and inward investment is up. Productivity is an area that has remained static. From experience, noble Lords will know that this is a long-term project; it takes time to filter through our economic cycle, to see more productivity.

[Lord Taverne (LD)]

My Lords, one of the most important factors in the improvement of our productivity lies in our strong record in scientific research and development. Does the Minister agree, as most of the vice-chancellors of our universities have made clear, that the greatest threat to our research and development in science would lie in our exit from the European Union?

[Lord Popat]

My Lords, let me cover the European Union. We need the European Union for trade and the European Union needs us so exit is not an option. What is important is that we negotiate reforms within the European Union to make it more practical in terms of business and productivity. The noble Lord is quite right. One of the areas in which we invest heavily to increase productivity is research and development. It is important that we continue doing that.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that productivity has something to do with the 30 million workers out there? If the Minister agrees with that, is he aware that many of the countries doing much better than us—10%, 15% or 20% better in northern Europe—have something called works councils where everybody is involved in looking at all the questions about world market share, technology, productivity and so on? There is a big gap in this country, under this Government, who are doing nothing about it.

[Lord Popat (Con)]

My Lords, there are several reasons why our productivity has been a little weak. The good news is that it has gone up by 0.6% in the first quarter of 2014. Yes, we need more investment to increase our productivity. Compared to the G7 countries, a larger proportion of our productivity comes from our active involvement in the financial services industry. We need to encourage more manufacturing. We have the right tools and policies in place for that to happen. It is happening but it will take time to filter through the system.

[Lord Vinson (Con)]

My Lords, one of the best ways of raising productivity is to increase demand. Unfortunately, the pound is rising so fast that it has now gone well above its purchasing power parity, making it much harder to export and much easier to import, the very converse of what needs to happen. Will the Government continue to look at every possible way of import substitution and, in particular, look at why a trading nation should not have some concern over its rate of exchange, the rate at which it trades? Could they suggest to the governor that he might begin to raise an eyebrow about the high pound and deleterious effect it is having on trade, productivity and, ultimately, employment?

[Lord Popat]

My Lords, import substitution is not the answer in this very competitive world. As to depreciation of the currency, experience tells us that our currency is worth 25% less than it was at its peak in 2007. Depreciation is not the answer. We should let our currency fluctuate freely in the open market. Experience tells us that a depreciating pound will not result in higher exports.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord May of Oxford (CB)]

Building on the admission that one of the greatest drivers of productivity is research and development, does the Minister agree that we need to do something to promote a more risk-taking culture? In the United States, bankruptcy is almost a condition for going forward in Silicon Valley; in our case, it means that it is hard to get a credit card afterwards.

[Lord Popat]

I will cover the points raised by the noble Lord. First, on research and development, we are investing £30 million in the sector and we are giving incentives to companies to carry out research and development. As to low productivity compared to other countries, we have the right industrial and growth strategies in place to make sure that productivity goes up. With regard to asking companies to invest, we have given the right fiscal tools, including higher tax allowances, for companies to invest more.

China: United Kingdom Trade

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Lords Chamber

Question

15:22

Asked by

[Lord Whitby]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to increase trade with China.

[Lord Popat (Con)]

My Lords, trade with China is at record levels. The Government are committed to helping even more British companies to do business in China. We have invested significant additional resources into UK Trade & Investment and the China-Britain Business Council that will substantially increase the support available for British companies. The Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills have all led large trade delegations to China.

[Lord Whitby (Con)]

I welcome the Minister’s reply. My question relates to visa applications. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, visited China recently, he vowed to address the visa difficulties confronting Chinese tourists, business employers and students wanting to come to Britain. Will my noble friend kindly update the House on what progress has been made to ameliorate these difficulties? Also, having visited Birmingham International’s extended runway yesterday, where he witnessed the inauguration of a direct flight from Birmingham to Beijing, will my noble friend welcome that extra airport capacity, and will he use his office to ensure that Chinese airlines use it?

[Lord Popat]

The noble Lord raises an important question on the subject of visas and tourism. Tourism is our fourth-largest export earner. The number of UK visas issued to Chinese nationals continued to rise in 2013. We have issued 373,000 visas to Chinese tourists and have increased the number of students coming to the UK to the tune of 14%. We encourage Chinese students to come and study at our best universities in the UK. As regards airport capacity, which has been an issue for a long time in this House, yes, we do have a capacity issue with airlines, but I am pleased to say that I was able to receive the first chartered flight from Beijing to the regional airport in Birmingham yesterday morning.

[Lord Cotter (LD)]

My Lords, the Government recently announced that 60 new Foreign Office staff have been placed across China. Can the Minister give me an update on that? Hopefully, the numbers are increasing, the staff will be more widespread throughout China and increased language training will be part of the approach. Do the people involved have experience in business, particularly to help small businesses to trade within China?

[Lord Popat]

My Lords, small businesses are the engine of the economy. I am pleased to say that we have a large number of people from UKTI now based in our Chinese embassy. English is an international language, but it is important that they all learn Mandarin as well. Language plays an important part in bridging the gap between us and the Chinese when it comes to trade. I am pleased to say that UKTI is proactive. In fact, one of our embassies that I visited, which was a diplomatic centre, has become more of a business centre, too. Embassies play an important role in enhancing trade, both in China and in other emerging markets.

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Davidson of Glen Clova (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, there is time for both noble Lords to be able to ask a question.

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon]

My Lords, according to a report on 17 June in the Times, the Business Minister, Michael Fallon, said that human rights must not stop trade with China. Does the Minister agree that that statement demeans the very concept of human rights?

[Lord Popat]

My Lords, human rights are a major concern for this House. In fact, there was a Question on human rights earlier today in relation to Uganda, which is the country of my origin. We take human rights very seriously, but to address them we must quite often cement our relationships with countries by having more trade. I am pleased to say that we raise this issue every time our Ministers meet their counterparts in China—my right honourable friend, Hugo Swire, did so during his trip to China in May, and the former Foreign Secretary did the same thing in February. Our concerns are publicly outlined in our annual human rights report, which was published on 10 April 2014.

[Lord Davidson of Glen Clova]

My Lords, there is concern that the new UKTI China initiative is marked by a number of features: a large amount of public relations; considerable new expenditure; an astonishing paucity of Mandarin speakers among the new recruits; and a focus on what is called internal reorganisation rather than business getting. Can the Minister identify, aside from the usual aspirational platitudes, what measurable targets are going to exist for UKTI and all the new expenditure in terms of the benefits to UK business?

[Lord Popat]

My Lords, extra resources given to UKTI by the Chancellor will help UK companies to enter the Chinese market to win business. Jaguar Land Rover is a classic example and is benefiting hugely from the demand from China. UKTI plays an important role in engaging Chinese business with UK businesses. At the same time, it is also promoting “Exporting is GREAT”, and that is working very well. Soon we will see the benefits; indeed, we already see the benefits, as bilateral trade between the UK and China is to the tune of £75 billion. The growth rate of the exports is much higher than that of our imports.

[Baroness Wilcox (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister will correct me, but am I right in saying that the Intellectual Property Office has sent out Mandarin-speaking ambassadors from this country to protect the intellectual property rights of people with small and medium-sized businesses who go to China? I understand that they are working extremely well and that the project has been an enormous success.

[Lord Popat]

The noble Baroness has made an important point. We are addressing the issue of intellectual property and we now have legislation in place. We are asking our Chinese counterparts to comply with our regulations on intellectual property.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Popat]

My Lords, I am afraid that I did not hear the question.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

Can the noble Lord tell the House how many additional flights from Heathrow to China have been introduced since this Government came to power?

[Lord Popat]

My Lords, some 39 flights depart from Heathrow to China every week.

Pensions Advice

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Lords Chamber

Question

15:30

Asked by

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what safeguards will be in place to ensure that people receive sound advice when seeking to access their pension funds.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, every individual with defined contributions pension savings will on retirement have a new right to free and impartial guidance to help them make informed decisions about how they use their pension savings in retirement. The Government will legislate to give the Financial Conduct Authority responsibility for setting standards for guidance and monitoring compliance with those standards. The FCA has published a consultation paper alongside the Government’s response on its proposed standards.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, what has been announced by the Government so far is wholly inadequate. We all remember the pensions mis-selling scandals of the 1980s when people were enticed out of SERPS and then fleeced. What qualifications will individuals need to have in order to be able to give this advice, and what guarantees will be put in place to ensure that people do not see their pension pots go in fees, charges and wholly inappropriate products?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the key innovation in the way we are planning to introduce this change is that of giving every individual coming up to retirement an entitlement to free guidance. To ensure that the guidance is impartial, we have decided that it will be provided by independent organisations which have no actual or potential conflicts of interest; it is not going to be the pension companies providing that guidance. A team has been established within the Treasury to lead on service design and implementation, bringing together expertise from across government, the Pensions Advisory Service and the Money Advice Service. The FCA will be the ultimate backstop in terms of the quality of the advice given and the monitoring of it. We will legislate to give the authority that explicit power in the Pension Schemes Bill later in this Session.

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister endorse the wisdom of my father who, in giving me an instruction shortly before he died, said that after his death I was to ensure that my mother took no advice whatever from either the vicar or the bank manager?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, being married to a vicar, I could not possibly say that vicars are not always good sources of advice. The key challenge raised by the Question is that for many people pensions are a subject of complete bemusement. This reform, which I believe is very welcome, will give people much more choice over how they spend their money in retirement. However, they will be able to spend it wisely only if they are given proper guidance, and that is what the Government are committed to ensuring.

[Baroness Drake (Lab)]

My Lords, guidance to help people make choices about how to spend their pension funds is of course to be welcomed, but given that the Government expect the industry to respond to greater choice by providing new retirement income products, how will they ensure that these new products meet the interests of savers in terms of quality standards, transparency and level of charges, so avoiding new manifestations of consumer detriment occurring yet again in the pensions and investment industry?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, this is why we have set up a new framework for regulation and why we established the Financial Conduct Authority. We have given the authority much greater powers than the FSA had to deal explicitly with these problems. We have to be sure that the new products which are coming forward meet the standards that the noble Baroness wishes to see. The FCA is tasked with that job and is absolutely determined to avoid the problems of mis-selling that we have seen in the past.

[Baroness O'Cathain (Con)]

My Lords, is it at all possible that any information on pensions that goes to the ordinary man or woman in the street, like me, could be passed by the Plain English Campaign because there is nothing worse than page after page of small print in stupid words?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I completely agree. For many years I have been trying to persuade the financial sector to do as the medical sector does and establish a professional body of writers to try to ensure that the material that people get is comprehensible. As far as this particular process is concerned, the FCA is looking to provide a template that pensions providers will complete, which might be on as little as a single sheet of paper, that will provide the basis for the guidance that is subsequently given.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside (Lab)]

Do the Government recollect that millions of people, even today, are bombarded on a daily basis by different companies, offering help to get payment protection policies returned and so on and so forth? How will they guarantee that this new policy will not mean that we will be bombarded daily by people telling us that we must try to draw down our pensions?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the key thing is that people get guidance from a trusted source. There will be a commonality of approach. The FCA is producing very detailed technical guidance, which everybody providing the personalised guidance will provide. I recommend that the noble Lord looks at the FCA consultation document that came out earlier in the week, which explains how it is going to do that. There is a danger that we are so concerned that things might not work that we never innovate.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interest in the Financial Ombudsman Service board. In the Budget, the Chancellor announced that everybody would get,

“free, impartial, face-to-face advice”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/3/14; col. 793.]

on their retirement options. Now we learn that it will be guidance, not advice, and that face-to-face could mean online or over the phone. Will the Minister please tell the House how many people in 2015-16 will actually get face-to-face guidance? Will he reassure the House that that commitment will not be watered down any more? People coming up to retirement need advice they can trust.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the difference between guidance and advice is simply that within the financial services sector advice is a regulated activity which, as the noble Baroness knows, requires those who offer it to have gone through a significant process. This is a different level of advice. As far as face-to-face advice is concerned, the Treasury has undertaken a considerable amount of consultation. Many people have said that they would much prefer, in the first instance at least, to get their advice online or to do it on the phone. We have said, however, that any individual who wishes to have face-to-face advice will have it, and they will. It is simply that not everybody wants it that way.

Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Excluded Activities and Prohibitions) Order 2014

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Lords Chamber

Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Ring-fenced Bodies and Core Activities) Order 2014

Motions to Approve

15:38

Moved by

[Lord Newby]

That the draft orders laid before the House on 25 June be approved.

Relevant document: 4th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. Considered in Grand Committee on 21 July.

Motions agreed.

Police and Crime Commissioner Elections (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2014

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Lords Chamber

Motion to Approve

15:38

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

That the draft order laid before the House on 30 June be approved.

Relevant documents: 5th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, 6th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 21 July.

Motion agreed.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Lords Chamber

Committee (3rd Day)

15:39

Relevant documents: 2nd Report from the Constitution Committee, 3rd Report from the Delegated Powers Committee, 14th Report, Session 2013-14, from the Joint Committee on Human Rights

Clause 29: Secure colleges and other places for detention of young offenders etc

Debate on whether Clause 29 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)]

My Lords, I wonder whether I might assist the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, as I appreciate that the microphone did not come on at the beginning. I also appreciate that he is speaking from a position where many noble Lords are leaving either side of him. Perhaps noble Lords could leave speedily and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, might just hesitate for a few seconds to allow them to speed past him.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, on Monday I listened with great interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, said about the proposed secure college in moving his comprehensive Amendment 43C and to what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, said about the site selected for it and the unanimous opposition of all involved NGOs to the proposal. Both explained vividly why the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and I feel sufficiently strongly about it to oppose Clause 29 standing part.

Before explaining my case, I compliment the Minister on honouring his admonition to the House at Second Reading to keep an open mind and for not resorting to the rhetoric used by his Secretary of State about what he clearly regards as his pet project. At Third Reading in the other place, Mr Grayling said that it was beyond him how the Opposition could criticise his once-in-a-generation reforms, urging them to “think again” before they played party politics,

“with the future of young people … and to turn away from siren voices that said that this was a brutal new regime”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/6/14; col.1071.]

At a public conference I attended, he said that opposition to the secure colleges that he and the Deputy Prime Minister were committed to delivering with haste was a “totem of the left”.

Independent Cross-Benchers do not play party politics. I entirely agree, along with, I suspect, the vast majority of this House, with the Secretary of State’s analysis of why reform is needed and that the educational content of child custody must be improved. My criticism is not about the imposition of an alleged brutal new regime but, rather, that we lack any information about what regime is to be imposed on an establishment whose formation flies in the face of all the evidence of what does or does not work to satisfy the needs of children in custody. The Minister made much of the importance of allowing potential contractors to be creative and innovative but, as many noble Lords have pointed out, there are practical limits to that, such as the perpetual movement of children in and out of places of detention, requiring many individual syllabi.

My criticism is based on what I saw, marked, learnt and inwardly digested of the practical realities when responsible for inspecting secure children’s homes, secure children’s centres and young offender institutions, and on what I have seen and heard subsequently. Both at Second Reading and on Monday, the Minister said—unarguably—that we need to do better at rehabilitating young offenders because youth custodial outcomes are presently not good enough. By recognising that some people would continue to require separate specialist accommodation, the purpose of Part 2 of the Bill remains to establish a statutory framework for a pathfinder secure college, which the Government suggest is a solution to the problem. Educationalists and others will be invited to deliver a broad and intensive curriculum to support and engage young people. The House has already debated a consultation on the rules to ensure that establishments operate safely and securely, which is to be launched before Report.

In that connection, can the Minister confirm or deny that the person in NOMS responsible for writing the rules and policies for secure colleges is the former governor of HMYOI Brinsford, who was moved after the Chief Inspector of Prisons gave it a dreadful report, describing it as the single worst jail he had ever visited, to HMP Hewell—which is about to receive a dreadful inspection report—and from there to this role in NOMS? If that is true, I must question the judgment of whoever made the appointment.

While admitting that transformation could not happen overnight, the Minister claimed that the Government’s vision was justified by the fact that small local facilities simply could not deliver the high-quality and broad-ranging facilities that meet the diverse needs of young people. If Parliament did not share that vision, the construction of the next generation of facilities would have to take place within the existing framework.

15:44

I entirely accept that the proposed secure college is a possible solution to the problem but, unlike the Government, as expressed in the impact assessment, I contend that it is neither the right nor the only one. I question the Minister’s comparison with free schools because parents are not free to choose a place of custody; providers can make a profit; and I suspect that current minimum statutory requirements on the curriculum may be increased, judging by yesterday’s Statement about some free schools in Birmingham.

The Government have presented no evidence that they have tested or costed a means by which their anticipated improvements in education and training will be realised, giving them a benchmark against which to judge competitive bids. Nor do they have a basis to support their claim that the college will instil in young people, many with dreadful records of exclusion from, and poor attainment at, school, a commitment to, and desire for, continued engagement in learning. Experience shows that this results only from dedicated one-to-one support over time, and time is not on the side of staff who have an average of only 79 days to provide it.

Additionally, as anyone who has had anything to do with troubled young people knows only too well, there are no quick fixes in turning their present and future around. Therefore, the Minister will understand why so many hope that the Secretary of State’s haste is based on proof that he can do what he says in the stated time and not just that the Government have had planning permission to build a YOI on the Glen Parva site since 2008. The plans that I have seen appear to be of what can be crammed into a given area, rather than a careful design to accommodate the various and varying needs of 320 damaged children, including space to let off the steam of adolescence.

As many noble Lords have said during the debate, I submit that the secure college proposal is so undeveloped that it is both unreasonable and irresponsible of the Government to expect Parliament to rubber-stamp it until it knows more. Neither as a soldier nor as chairman of an NHS hospital trust would I have been happy to launch any initiative on such flimsy evidence. I say that not only because construction is not due to start until the next Government are in power but because of the proposal’s impact on countless young people. I will not repeat any of what was said on Monday; instead, entirely in line with my agreement with the Secretary of State’s analysis of the problem, I want to be constructive and outline two alternative solutions, both known to NOMS and the Youth Justice Board but apparently ignored by the Government.

In conclusion, I will suggest alternative ways forward. My first alternative is one that I have mentioned many times on the Floor of this House. I declare an interest as an original member of the advisory board of what was previously known as the Young Offenders Academy and is now the Secure Foundation. At its heart is the provision of each young offender with long-term contact with a responsible adult, achieved by conducting everything on one site, with a catchment area of one hour’s travel by public transport. By “everything”, I mean education, job training, healthcare, substance abuse treatment and activities, including those associated with youth clubs and cadets, that are accessible on a 24/7 basis.

In addition, there will be a hostel for the homeless and a low-level custody centre for those serving community sentences, who go home at night. Originally a pilot project was planned for Greenwich and adjacent boroughs but, following the riots, the mayor asked that it should be somewhere more affected by them. It is now hoped that it will start next year in Haringey under the direction of a highly respected former member of the Youth Justice Board.

There is widespread support for the project, not just among local authorities but among organisations that contribute to the integration and settlement of young people. These are far more appropriate words than “rehabilitation” or “resettlement”, because too many young people have been neither integrated nor settled into the community before. Some of these organisations are chambers of commerce, which see the opportunity to identify and train potential employees, and those responsible for healthcare and substance misuse treatment, which see the benefit of continuity and availability.

Furthermore, the project, which has been proved to be far cheaper than a young offender institution, has attracted the attention of Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, among others, not least because it combines manageable size with preserving the principles of maintaining closeness to home, development of good family contact and links to local authorities of children in care, all ignored in the Government’s vision.

My second suggested alternative is the solution run very successfully in Spain for more than 20 years by the not-for-profit organisation, Diagrama, which is currently competing to run an STC in this country. One of its 38 establishments, of varying size and each with a catchment radius of 30 to 50 miles, has just been awarded the title of best children’s custody centre in Europe. Diagrama’s child-centred ethos is to create living environments and services conducive to the main task of integrating young people and consistent with the needs of developing children; to provide children and young people with the skills they need to lead positive and fulfilling lives; and to do whatever it takes to meet the needs of children, formal and informal, in partnership with their parents, families, communities and existing support services.

This child-centred approach is also being replicated in the United States, where the growing trend is to turn away from large establishments in favour of what is called the Missouri model, in which no facility has more than 50 beds. Family therapy is practised and there is general recognition that trained specialist staff building relationships with children are better able to deliver a positive regime than less qualified custodial officers.

The key to Diagrama’s success is the quality of its staff, all those working with children being required to have university degrees. Education, which forms the basis of every working day, is broad—academic, vocational, physical and relationship with both staff and fellow offenders. Much work is provided by and done in local communities. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, will remember, during the inquiry he chaired into the use of restraint and seclusion on children in custody, we visited Orchard Lodge, a secure home then run by Southwark Council and tasked with holding children with mental health problems. We found that experienced staff, who had been there on average for 11 years, did not need to restrain as much as less experienced staff elsewhere. Negotiation rather than punishment is also the norm for the experienced Diagrama staff, who have been in post on average for 13 to 15 years, and there has never been a suicide in any establishment. I first heard of the organisation when completing my own thematic review of young prisoners in 1997, and the then director of secure units for children at the Home Office reported:

“The whole atmosphere was quite different from that in UK establishments. It was more relaxed, but it was also very purposeful”.

Only last week, two people who really know what they are talking about in this context contacted me separately to praise what they had just seen in Spain. When I asked Diagrama’s United Kingdom director to sum up its ethos in two words, he replied. “Love and boundaries. Children need to have both”. To satisfy the Secretary of State, the word “tough” can safely be added as a prefix to both.

It seems to me that the Government have two choices. Either they can charge ahead in haste, committing a vast amount of public money to an untried vision about whose delivery they will know nothing until they open the competitive bids for an unspecified contract, employing an unspecified number of staff with unspecified qualifications—which runs counter not only to experienced advice but to readily available evidence about what works and does not work with children in custody. No responsible chief executive would dare to make such a proposal, riddled as it is with such uncertainty either to their board or its shareholders. I contend that the Government should feel similarly about their duty to their board, Parliament, and to their shareholders, the public—their electorate—for whose protection they are responsible.

Or the Government can call a halt to the secure college proposal, which they would be perfectly justified in doing thanks to the success of the Youth Justice Board in reducing the number of children in custody to a relatively small number of the most damaged, dangerous and disruptive, all of whom need specialist treatment. This is not to suggest calling a halt to trying to find a solution to the problem of better educating young people in custody and better integrating them into the community, but rather that the Government should adopt a different approach by co-ordinating the contributions of all ministries involved: justice, education, health, communities and local government, and work and pensions, as well as voluntary sector organisations such as Childhood First, which look after the most troubled and difficult children on behalf of local authorities.

I fully accept that no single small local facility can meet the diverse needs of a large cohort of young people, but a number with different facilities can. That could be done by interconnecting all existing establishments used to detain different categories of child offender into a national network designed to meet all needs with similar provision in every region in England and Wales. The £85 million currently earmarked for the secure college could be better spent on refurbishing some of the existing accommodation. A national network along the lines of Diagrama’s operations in Spain could include some establishments being made secure foundation hubs, thus combining all that is best about localism with all that is known to work with and for young children in custody and in the community.

Children will be in custody whichever party is in power and, as I said, there are no quick fixes for improving how their needs are met. Therefore, I suggest not only examining this proposal on an all-party basis but acknowledging and exploiting its success in custody and the community. Rather than appoint another one-off inquiry, responsibility should be delegated to the chairman of the Youth Justice Board. I have not consulted him, but I can think of no one better than the noble Lord, Lord McNally, to carry out the task.

I do not expect the Minister to answer in haste; indeed, I hope that he will not attempt to do so. Necessarily, opposing that a clause should stand part seems destructive but, in trying to persuade the Government to think again before embarking in haste on a project I fear they will come to regret at length, I am thinking about the long-term future for young people in custody. If the Government agree to do so, I hope that those made responsible for the thinking will accept the importance of listening to those who know far more than they do about the practical realities of dealing with difficult and damaged young people. As I have said many times, people are not things, particularly when they are young. If I decide not to seek the opinion of the Committee at this stage, it is because I hope for a considered government response before Report. I beg to move.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I had not meant to speak but feel moved to do so because I was very persuaded by what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said. He spoke of the Brinsford young offender institution, which is in my former constituency. He and I became acquainted because of the assiduous attention that he devoted to that institution. His initial report—which was an exceptionally damning one, as I am sure he would agree—led to a turnaround in that institution of a very marked nature, and, indeed, he reported on it more favourably later on. It seems to me that we have had no more effective or dedicated Chief Inspector of Prisons than the noble Lord, and he devoted particular time and attention to young offenders. He speaks with an authority that very few people can begin to command. All I would say, very briefly, is that if the noble Lord—having looked in detail at a proposal which does have certain superficial attractions—has come to this conclusion, it behoves government and others to think again very carefully indeed.

I hope that my noble friend the Minister, for whom I have a very great regard, will give an undertaking to have further consultations with the noble Lord and others to try to come up with a solution that meets the requirement that we all surely have—the rehabilitation of young offenders, many of whom have backgrounds which do not condone their actions but explain what they have done. Young people need, above all, that tough love and care and concern of which the noble Lord spoke. I found his remarks exceptionally persuasive. If he believes that what we need in this country is to learn from what has been achieved in other countries, particularly Spain, we should seek to do that.

Clearly it would be wrong to divide the House today on this—the whole purpose of this House is to have exploratory Committee sessions and then to come back, perhaps to vote, on Report. I hope that a vote will not be necessary, because this is not a subject that ought to divide us on party lines. We should have a totally common concern about it. I urge my noble friend to have the sort of discussions that I have just mentioned so that we can put some flesh on the bones. It is a very vague proposal. We do not really know what we are voting on. It is a little reminiscent of that extraordinary episode a couple of days ago.

Let us take to heart what the noble Lord said in his extremely persuasive speech and try to find a solution that really will fit all. I suspect that would be a solution that relied on a number of disparate facilities rather than creating one institution which would be—I hate to think of this—a sort of national for-profit institution. The only profit that can truly be achieved from having any sort of change in the way we treat our young offenders is the profit that rehabilitation brings and the fact that they do not offend again.

16:01

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I am a patron—probably the only patron—of a secure unit in Exeter, which, when the children are there for long enough, does an extremely good job. The education there is excellent. The unit receives children under the terms of the Children Act—Section 25, I think—and, certainly in the past and probably still now, children who have offended. It is a good institution. I very much support what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said. I am very concerned that this excellent small unit, which does a useful job in Exeter, will be completely got rid of in favour of a large secure college situated somewhere which is miles away for the children who are not from Devon and Cornwall.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, earlier today I spent some time with an academic who left a young offender institution at the age of 15 without any qualifications. He has some sympathy with what the Government are proposing. As my noble friend said, the impulse to put education at the heart of meeting the needs of these young people is absolutely right. My difficulty, I am afraid to say, is that there is so little detail in what the Minister is proposing that I can see many very poor outcomes arising from it. As parliamentarians, we need to know more about what is going to be delivered to these young people.

I visited the Orchard Lodge unit that my noble friend described and, like him, I was most impressed by the high quality of multidisciplinary services that these young people receive. There may be lessons to be learnt from the research into the educational outcomes of looked-after children. I think that Professor Sonia Jackson was the academic who first drew attention to the disparity in educational outcomes between looked-after children and the general population of children at the end of the 1990s. This is relevant because many among the population in the secure estate have come from local authority care. She wrote to me recently, updating her research and looking again at the continent. She found that the United Kingdom has the best statutory framework for looked-after children and care leavers that we know of. That is a great endorsement of what this Government and the previous Government have done in terms of the legislative framework around these vulnerable young people. However, she also found that we have poorer educational outcomes than many countries on the continent. She ascribed this to the fact that we have such low expectations in terms of the educational qualifications of those who work near these young people.

As I mentioned earlier, in Denmark 90% of staff in children’s homes have a degree-level qualification and in Germany 50%. However, only 30% do in this country. As an authority was telling me recently, less than half of the managers of children’s homes have a degree-level qualification. If we are looking carefully at the policy to improve educational outcomes for our troubling, and often very troubled, children, we must take on board what my noble friend has said and his example from Missouri, where units are staffed by people with degree-level qualifications. I am reminded of the very interesting fact that the principal indicator for a good educational outcome for any young person is the level of qualification of their parents. If a parent has a degree, it is likely that their child will get a degree. It seems to make sense to look at the level of qualifications of people who work near these young people and to ensure that, as far as possible, they are well educated, so that those young people are likely to do far better in their own education.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, for the first time I have some hope that there may be an answer to the problem of that part of the Bill that has troubled everyone on all sides of the House, and which will never work in practice no matter how well intentioned it may be. We have now had from my noble friend a very clear outline of the sort of institution that would make sense.

As we all know, so many of the children who end up in this position not only have had appalling backgrounds but often have had no education at all. One of the first things needed is a basic test of the extent to which they are able to read or write. I hope that the Minister will take this issue away and be persuaded that his proposals are absolutely no good and will not have the support—let alone the extra cost that they would involve. They would provide a solution that would be totally unsatisfactory.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. In his introduction, he gave a very comprehensive analysis of the secure college proposals and came up with positive alternatives, which he has every reason to believe would be more favourable than the secure colleges model.

I want to concentrate on one particular aspect that, as far as I know, no other noble Lords have looked at, and that is the costs involved. As I understand it, an adult male prison place costs about £40,000 a year; a place in a male young offender institute costs about £80,000 a year; a secure training centre place costs about £140,000 a year; and a place in a secure children’s home costs about £210,000 a year. Not surprisingly, those costs are completely dominated by the staffing ratios, which are what control the costs of running prisons. When I put the issue to the former Minister, Jeremy Wright, regarding the proposed staffing levels for the secure colleges, his answer was that that would be a matter for the company that was bidding for the contracts. However, this is fundamental to the cost and the quality of the education provision for young people in custody.

Why are the Government so reticent in talking about what they hope to be the running costs of these institutions when they are up and running? Like all noble Lords, I have had many briefings on this matter, and there was reference to a cost of £60,000 a year per boy in a secure college. I have not found any further reference to that and I do not know whether the figure is right, but the House would be better informed if we knew exactly what the Government aspire to in reducing the per-year costs of having boys in these secure colleges. The Government should not be reticent; there is nothing wrong with trying to save costs, but the Committee would be much better informed if it knew what cost they aspire to.

[The Lord Bishop of Rochester]

My Lords, I hesitate slightly to speak in this debate, not least because I am still rather new to your Lordships’ House and new in my role as bishop to prisons. However, I cannot help but note the wise advice of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, in encouraging some space for rethinking. Many of us would applaud the overall intention expressed by the former Prisons Minister to establish somewhere that is primarily an education facility but with detention aspects. The difficulty for some of us is that we cannot at the moment see the detail of how that might be provided. Some of the points that have just been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, about staffing levels and so on are key to this. We encourage the Government to have the courage to be a bit more prescriptive regarding who might be the eventual provider than is the case now.

If a mechanism could be found for us to move forward without the need for the Committee to divide on this—which would put some of us in a difficult position—I am sure that it would be appreciated. Like others, I look forward to the Minister’s response in the hope that some consultative way forward on this might be found. I am sure that many of us around the Committee would be more than happy to be part of such a process.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, having seen fashions come and go in a long career of working with young people, I am concerned that this proposal might be yet another fashion. What we know of the young people we are talking about is that we have reduced the number of those needing these sorts of facilities to those with the greatest level of disturbance, who come from the most complex backgrounds, and who are going to need extraordinary intervention.

What we know most of them have in common—in my experience and, I am sure, that of my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham or any of us who have worked with these young people—is that they have had failed relationships. In fact, few have had any consistent relationship, many of them from when they were babies. This will have affected their total development. We know that the one thing that works for young people who have had a series of failed relationships in their families and thereafter, including in their education with their teachers, is one-to-one, close intervention, where they build a relationship—sometimes for the first time—and are able to learn from that that one does not have to have negative consequences.

I applaud the Government’s intention in building this college to pay attention to the education of these young people. Other people who have heard me speak on the Floor of this House about the previous Government’s phrase “Education, education, education” will have heard me say that, “Without welfare, welfare, welfare, children do not learn”. Relationship understanding helps children to learn; a deficit in it cannot be made up unless they have some sort of understanding of what makes people work and that they have value. They can then build their esteem.

I join other noble Lords, following the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in asking the Government to think about this programme again. The intention is good, but they would regret the outcomes. I say very seriously to the Minister that, in my time, I have run these huge establishments as a director of social services and as an assistant director. I have closed them. I have run small establishments. I have seen what works. I have no doubt that this fashion will be regretted in the future if it goes forward. The Government have a wonderful opportunity to put something else together that will cost less, be of better quality and really make a difference to these children’s lives.

16:15

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I said everything I wished to say about secure colleges and the proposals when I spoke to the amendments in my name on Monday. However, I associate myself with the positive suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Cormack, backed up by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol and others, that, given the very serious difficulties that face the present proposals for the implementation of the clause, this might be an opportunity for the Government to consider withdrawing it and coming forward with something else.

I repeat that we all applaud the proposal to give young offenders in the prison estate more educational opportunity. We all share the view that young people in the prison estate are there often precisely because they have not had educational opportunities in the past. In a sense, it is not what is in the Bill—the provision that the Secretary of State may provide secure colleges—that we object to; secure colleges would be capable of having all the aims that were set out in our amendment, but would be provided in a very different way from that which is presently proposed. Our concern, which my noble friend now understands is shared across the House, is that the proposal for implementation by the single pathfinder college that is now envisaged runs counter to all the evidence on the future of our penal system for young offenders. For that reason, I suggest the Government may wish to reconsider the whole future of the secure college proposal.

[Lord Woolf (CB)]

My Lords, I am not as expert in the matters raised as many who have already spoken in this important debate, but I have one advantage, which is that I am fully instructed by the Prison Reform Trust. The second is that, at one stage, I had to make a report—known as the Strangeways report—into deep problems in our prison system. Certain general lessons were set out in that report, which I think I am right in saying all those who are knowledgeable in this area still regard as being the right recipe for positive progress. We have had great advantage in hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, based in turn on what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. I urge the Minister to take the very wise course that is being pressed upon him. We do not want to make a mistake of the sort that has been indicated could happen.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, as noble Lords have already demonstrated, there is no shortage within your Lordships’ House of people with not only an interest in but considerable expertise of—derived perhaps from professional or even judicial experience—the problems that we are discussing. However, I think we would all agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that there is none with the particular degree of involvement and expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. The House is indebted to him for his continuing interest in this problem and for the positive way in which he seeks to assist the Government and, through the Government, society in dealing with an intransigent and difficult problem affecting numbers of our young people.

I was particularly interested to hear from the noble Lord today about the local academy which is to start, I think he said, next year, and also about the Missouri experience. If indeed there is—and it is clear that there will be—an opportunity to see how the proposed academy, which I think he said would be built in Haringey, works, then surely it would be sensible to learn from that experience and, if it is successful or even if it is not, to build on that experience in order to craft a way of dealing with the Government’s proposal here. As I said at Second Reading, and again on Monday in Committee, we all agree with their proposal to the extent that we recognise the importance of providing education as part of the way of dealing with the problems of these young people. If, instead, the Government go ahead with their own proposal, next year there will be built an institution catering for 320 youngsters. There is a widespread view in this House and certainly outside it that that is simply too large a number of young people to afford a realistic possibility of attending adequately to their problems.

It so happens that I had tabled an amendment which proposed a much smaller college as a pilot. The number of places that I suggested was 50. I did not know about the Missouri experience in suggesting that figure but, on the basis of some of the discussions that have been held outside this Chamber, it seemed to be a reasonable size. I am reassured by the noble Lord’s confirmation that that appears to be a very successful project. Again, I commend that kind of approach to the Government in looking at how they might carry forward their very well intentioned objectives. I also refer them to the experience of Finland, which has a very good record in dealing with youngsters who have committed offences, and it has a successful record in ensuring that they emerge from care—let us call it that rather than “custody”—into society.

I do not know the extent to which the Government have looked beyond these shores, as the noble Lord suggested and as I am now suggesting, to see what the experience of other countries and jurisdictions might contribute. However, as matters stand, many of the criticisms that were voiced earlier remain unanswered. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, asked a perfectly valid question about her local institution. She asked where the secure unit in Exeter will go. The same question remains to be asked about a whole range of institutions that are currently operating at, as I acknowledge, different rates of cost.

In Committee on Monday, I referred to the fact that the number of places in secure children’s homes has been reduced to 138, so there has clearly been a reduction—of 28 places nationally—in that area. It remains to be seen what the future will be not only of those homes but of the other training facilities, because it is envisaged that some of those who are currently in other institutions will transfer to this new college and presumably any other new colleges that might come on stream. Therefore, there is a very real risk to the kind of institutions that the noble and learned Baroness referred to.

As the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and my noble friend Lord Ponsonby said, there is so little detail in the proposal that it is difficult to be confident that, at the end of the day, we will emerge with a fully developed project that will do the job which the Government intend—we agree with that intent—to see carried out. I do not expect the Minister, just two days later, to answer the questions that I posed on Monday. However, some of them are worth repeating. As is his normal, courteous practice, he said he would identify questions asked by noble Lords, write to us and place the reply in the Library. I will touch on some of them as a gentle reminder of some of the issues that were raised. One was the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and, in particular, its concern that there was no equality impact assessment. That seems particularly important in relation to gender, as there is a real concern about the current proposal of having girls in the same large institutions as boys. A second concern was the requirement for special educational needs to be catered for.

There are also questions around the secure children’s homes, to which I have already made reference. The Minister implied that there were, perhaps, some shortcomings in these establishments. What improvements in service have been identified as requiring attention? We have heard from the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that a place in one of those homes costs around £200,000 a year. If that is regarded as too high, what do the Government consider an appropriate figure, both for the individual, on a per capita basis, and in terms of the aggregate cost? Reverting almost to the question posed by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, how many children now in secure homes do they envisage will transfer to the larger college? It is slightly disturbing that the duty to use best endeavours to ensure that the needs are met of children who have been assessed as needing EHC plans would be placed on the principal of a secure college. On Report in the other place, the Minister said that,

“a great deal of further thought will be given to how those needs can be met”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/5/14; col. 538.]

It is only two months since that observation was made, but can the Minister indicate—not necessarily today—that that has been followed up and with what result?

Many noble Lords are concerned, as I am, about staff to children ratio. Can we be assured that it will not simply be left to the contractor to opt for a figure just in terms of numbers, but that these will be numbers with the sort of qualifications that, as noble Lords have indicated today and in previous debates, would surely be required to attend to the complex needs, including the educational needs, which are the main object of the project?

16:29

There are still, as I have indicated, a number of questions that will have to be addressed by the time we get to Report. I note that the Minister in replying referred to the issue that was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, of the relatively short period in which, on average, these young people will actually be present in the college. I believe that the average will be some 79 days. The Minister acknowledged that,

“a sufficient bank of time in a secure college would be intended, with an individually tailored plan”.—[Official Report, 21/7/14; col. 1035.]

What sort of time are we talking about and who determines what sort of time will be ultimately allocated? Will it be a matter for the college or for the department in entering into the contract?

However, there is still the overriding problem that at the moment we are talking about a 320-place institution to be built in Leicestershire. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about a 50-place institution that operates within a fairly narrow geographical area and has a catchment radius of 30 to 50 miles. That will not happen unless one is built in London. We might then achieve that kind of proximity, but we will not achieve it if we seek to house one-third of the total number of youngsters nationally within one institution in Leicestershire. It simply will not happen. That means that they are a very long way from their homes and communities. Moreover, it means that the relationship with the local authorities from which they have come and to which they will return is bound to be more difficult. Yet, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, implied, it is very important that there should be that connection between the children’s services department of the relevant local authority and any institution which is dealing with these young offenders—and, for that matter, with the relevant arm of National Health Service England which commissions the medical services. It obviously makes it much easier on that side if the same body is commissioning the service for the youngster when he or she is at home and wherever they are resident if they are sent to an institution of this or, indeed, any other kind. It cannot be helpful if a case is passed to and from different arms of the health service any more than it can if there is a problem around regular contact with the relevant local authority.

I want to make a final point about distance and I cannot recall whether this was mentioned when we discussed these matters in Committee on Monday. There is no provision within the plan for this college for overnight accommodation for visiting families. I do not know whether that is an oversight or whether it is deliberate, but it is a significant omission. If we are talking about people having to travel a considerable distance, and on the face of it that will be the case, it is clearly necessary to facilitate overnight accommodation, at any rate for some people. However, absolutely no provision was made in the presentation that we received recently.

There are very many unanswered questions here. None of us wants to see the Government’s objectives of supplying education undermined in any way. We want to help the Government to achieve those objectives. However, we do not think that there is sufficient detail here or sufficient indication of how the Government will commission the provision of such an institution. We think that there is too much reliance on someone out there, one of the four selected potential contractors, to come up with a scheme of their own devising over which, as matters stand, Parliament would have no oversight whatever. It is too big a risk to take without having some element of parliamentary oversight. For those reasons, unless matters can progress—I hope they can—the Opposition would certainly support the noble Lord if he felt constrained to put these matters to the test by a vote of the House on Report.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, listening to the debate three further brief points occur to me. First, I discussed the matter of cost with an academic who currently works in the area of care leavers and has done through his career. He is a graduate who came through care and spent time in the secure estate. How much should we spend on young people while they are in care? He pointed out the immense cost of failing to intervene effectively. It could be many millions of pounds if one thinks of time in the adult secure estate, time spent in the health service, and time just not working. That is one aspect to keep in mind when thinking how much one needs to spend at this point to avoid poor outcomes later.

Another point is on gender equality. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, and I visited the first mother and baby unit to be opened in a secure training centre. A significant number of young girls, if they are included in this college, may be pregnant or may already be mothers, so we need to think about how to manage that particular issue. There is one more point on the question of cost. It may be cheaper to employ more qualified staff. Research on the continent shows that one can have lower ratios of staff if the staff are more qualified. Indeed, this question of cost is very interesting. It should not, perhaps, discourage us hiring very well qualified people to work with these young people if the ratio can be less because of their higher qualification.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks) (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a very useful and well informed debate. It continues the debates we had on Monday. I respectfully ask those in the Chamber at the moment to read the debate on Monday in which I gave a reply—I think for more than 20 minutes—in which I dealt with a considerable number of the points raised, although I did not purport to deal with all points. Indeed, I said on that occasion that I was proposing to write to sweep up any points that on examination of Hansard I had not dealt with adequately. I adhere to what I said then and will include any further points that have arisen out of the debate today.

What has emerged—as my noble friend Lord Cormack quite rightly said—is that we all have the same concern about providing the most helpful outcomes for troubled young people. It was also common ground that the focus on education is most welcome. What there is a lack of confidence in at the moment is whether the secure colleges can provide precisely what all of us in this House would wish to achieve for young offenders. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, is quite right, of course, that many of those who find themselves in this situation come from troubled backgrounds. Many have been in care and present particular challenges for whatever establishment is going to have them when they are serving the sentence passed by the court.

The clause which is the subject of this stand part debate is the statutory framework for the creation of secure colleges so that the Government can trial a new approach to youth custody. Clause 29 provides the Secretary of State with the power to provide secure colleges, which is a new form of youth detention accommodation in England, and replaces the current Section 43 of the Prison Act 1952 with the new section. The current section gives the Secretary of State a power to provide young offender institutions, remand centres and secure training centres. As your Lordships will know, there are no remand centres in operation. The new Section 43 will additionally give the Secretary of State the power to provide secure colleges in England and Wales. Clause 29 introduces Schedule 5, which makes a number of amendments to other legislation to reflect the fact that secure colleges are being introduced.

I remind the Committee of the context for our proposed reform of the youth custodial estate. At present, we pay around £100,000 a year for a place in youth custody, and yet almost 70% of young people go on to reoffend within 12 months of release. In the case of secure children’s homes—the advantages of which were very much emphasised by those in debate on Monday—the cost rises beyond £200,000 a place, and yet the reoffending outcomes are no different.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

Does my noble friend accept that the comparison of costs for secure children’s homes with other institutions is perhaps a little unfair? It is the nature of secure children’s homes that they take the most difficult and troubled children, so the costs per year of a place in such institutions is necessarily considerably higher.

[Lord Faulks]

It is true, and I am going to come on to deal with that. The different establishments are there, in the view of the Youth Justice Board, to deal with the different challenges that the individuals present. My point is that secure children’s homes are no panacea. The starting point is that the overall rate of reoffending is simply not acceptable. That is why we are introducing secure colleges.

I entirely accept the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that the Government should be aware of the long-term cost as well as the short-term cost. Indeed, the whole purpose of secure colleges is that, with the benefit of proper education, the Government consider that there should be a cost-saving in the long term because of the accrued benefit for young people who go to secure colleges.

[Lord Beecham]

I am sorry to intervene at this point, but it is sensible to do it now rather than later. Are we to infer from that that the Government’s ultimate intention is to dispense with the 138 places in secure children’s homes or is it their view that there will still be some place for secure children’s homes? If so, how will they approach determining how many?

[Lord Faulks]

I respectfully ask the noble Lord to be a little patient; I am going to deal with that point in the course of my remarks. I have not been speaking for long. I have been much criticised for not giving the House information. I should perhaps remind the Committee that there were meetings offered first to the party opposite, then to this side and to Cross-Bench Peers. There has been written information and there was a further meeting at which the details of secure colleges, including demonstrations on visual display units, were supplied. That, together with the answers I have given and the answers I propose to give further, should give the Committee at least as much information as it can reasonably expect.

I have heard in the course of the debate arguments that there are better ways to improve the youth custodial estate and particular emphasis was placed on the secure children’s homes. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for whose expertise the Committee is indebted, mentioned a number, in particular Diagrama, a Spanish not-for-profit organisation that runs custodial facilities. The Ministry of Justice is aware of the work of Diagrama, and it is an example, as I understand it, of the type of innovation that we want to introduce and attract into secure colleges. We have, as I said previously, an open mind, and we are anxious to encourage innovation. However, as the noble Lord quite rightly said, he would not expect me to comment from the Dispatch Box on the advantages or disadvantages of the specific matters that he raised in his speech, valuable though his contribution is to the general approach to trying to find the right answer to these difficult problems.

16:44

The truth is that no current model of youth custody is delivering the outcome that we all want to see, nor is it providing sufficient value for the taxpayer. It is for that reason that we are introducing secure colleges, which we think will foster a culture of educational development and provide enhanced rehabilitative services, while also achieving savings. All young people deserve access to high-quality education, which will allow them to fulfil their potential. Secure colleges will have education at their heart, with all other services designed in support of raising educational attainment. That is all the more important for young people who set off on the wrong path, as many of those young people will have done.

In the government response to the Transforming Youth Custody consultation, we set out our plans to develop a pathfinder secure college in the east Midlands. It is proposed that the purpose-built establishment will accommodate up to 320 young people and will open in 2017. The proposed size of the pathfinder reflects both the regional demand for custody in the Midlands and the east of England and the Youth Justice Board’s considerable experience of commissioning youth custodial services. With careful and detailed planning we are confident that we can deliver a secure college that will not only provide a broad curriculum and a range of services to young people but ensure their welfare and safety.

At the meeting on 8 July, I was pleased to share with a number of noble Lords, many of whom are present in the Chamber, the design plans for the secure college. I have listened to the concerns expressed about the ability of a single establishment to meet the needs of a broad cohort of young people. These matters are at the forefront of our minds as we work with Wates to design the pathfinder secure college. I want to reassure noble Lords that the opening of the pathfinder secure college will be extremely carefully managed. As I said previously, we recognise that there can be many challenges in establishing the culture and regime in a new facility, and we expect the introduction of young people to the pathfinder to be carefully phased over a period of time.

Clause 30 introduces Schedule 6 to the Bill, which,

“makes provision about contracting out the provision and running of secure colleges”.

Under this framework the Secretary of State will be able either to contract out the operation of a secure college or directly manage it. These provisions are similar to the contracting out provisions for young offender institutions and secure training centres. They also set out the duties which will apply to secure college custody officers.

There was considerable debate in the other place and, indeed, when the Bill was debated here on Monday about the relationship between the Bill and the use of force to ensure good order and discipline in secure colleges. The Bill provides for the use of force by a custody officer in discharging his duties, but only in the circumstances authorised by secure college rules. Secure college rules were also the subject of debate, and I gave a fairly full answer about how those secure college rules should be arrived at.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, asked a specific question about who was to be responsible for the draft. It will be for the Ministry of Justice to draft the secure college rules, drawing on the expertise of the Youth Justice Board, and taking into account the outcome of the consultation to which I referred on Monday. That will influence and decide our approach to the appropriate rules. Our position on force is that it may be used only as part of ensuring good order and discipline when there are clear risks to maintaining a safe and stable environment for young people. The use of force is a necessary and proportionate response to protect the safety and welfare of the individual or of others. The rules are the correct place to set out the boundaries on the use of force, and our proposed approach, as I said on Monday, will be the subject of public consultation.

The Youth Justice Board is responsible for commissioning the provision of secure accommodation for young people who are either on remand or have received a custodial sentence. It was established to provide leadership to the new youth justice system, the principal aim of which is to prevent offending by children and young persons. One of its functions is to commission places for children and young people who are remanded or sentenced in custody.

The Youth Justice Board currently has the power to secure accommodation for young people who are in custody for various reasons, as set out in Section 41(5)(i) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Clause 31 provides additional powers to the Youth Justice Board to enable it to commission secure accommodation for young people who have received certain sentences under the Criminal Justice Act which are not currently referred to in Section 41(5)(i). These are a sentence of detention for serious offences, an extended determinate sentence of detention and an extended sentence of detention for public protection. In addition, Clause 31 omits two provisions which have become unnecessary as no young person is serving these sentences.

I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, is concerned about cost. The average cost of a place in youth custody is about £100,000 per annum. We are confident that the operating cost of the pathfinder secure college will be substantially lower, but I hope the Committee will understand that the exact price will be determined through competition, and there is a degree of commercial sensitivity about that. Providing detailed cost estimates at this stage would risk prejudicing the outcome of the competition which will follow.

We believe that this proposal is one which, as a pathfinder, and gently introduced in the way that I described on Monday in terms of younger people and women, will provide an answer and will help the very real problem that has been identified by the Government and acknowledged by all noble Lords who participated in this debate. Of course I remain open to meetings with the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, or any other noble Lords who wish to draw my attention to particular features of the inadequacy, or indeed the adequacy, of the plans. These colleges, with their emphasis on education, are a genuine answer to what has been an intractable problem of reoffending.

I say once again what I said about the block of education. These are not supposed to mimic precisely school terms. Very many of these young people have simply had no continuity of education at all, and a sufficient block with an individual learning plan, which I described at some length on Monday, will, we say, provide real benefits to these young people.

While respecting the profound reservations that have been expressed by the noble Lords, I ask that relevant clause stand part of the Bill.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I have a question. I apologise if the Minister dealt with it on Monday, when I was unable to stay for that part of the discussions. I referred, in my brief speech, to the family provisions for putting children into secure accommodation under, I think, Section 25 of the Children Act. Will any of those children go into secure colleges? If they will not, there is a real danger that there will not be any places for them if small secure units do not have both the children who offend under the criminal law together with the children who are beyond control under the Children Act.

[Lord Faulks]

I dealt with these points on Monday. We are proposing to keep these secure children’s homes open for the appropriate offender. The involvement of the Youth Justice Board will, we suggest, ensure that the right offenders find their way into secure colleges.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I must admit that I am disappointed by the line that the Minister has taken, particularly in view of the very helpful contributions made by the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Marks, and the right reverend Prelate. I had hoped that, by outlining all these suggestions, we would not have merely one solution put forward to us—pathfinder or not, staged or not—but there appears to be no give on the general intent. Yes, the Youth Justice Board is responsible for commissioning, but what the Youth Justice Board has always been responsible for commissioning is a situation that it inherited. So far, I am not aware that there has been any attempt to look right across the whole system and perhaps design something using the existing situation to make better use of it to provide the aims that we all want. The Government have come up with the solution of the secure training centre, which has attracted opposition from all those who have had anything to do with young offenders. I hope they will be given more attention.

I am grateful for the contributions that have been made across the Committee. As I said at the start, I do not intend to seek the opinion of the Committee with a vote at this stage, because we all have to go away and read not only what happened on Monday, to which the Minister referred—indeed, some of it has come up again—but what has been raised here. I hope that the Government will have considered this, on calm reflection, when we come back to it on Report. The Government will know that many people long to take part in the deliberations and contribute what they have because they feel excluded from this. They feel that this is a solution that has been put to them without any explanation. Yes, there have been meetings and they have had the site explained, but we have not had all the details of the regime and answers to all the other questions that have come up, because the Government have admitted that they simply will not know the answers to those until they have opened the envelopes from the competitive bidders.

Personally, I would have been much happier if any development of a site by a contractor was in conjunction with the provider of the education to make certain the contractor is doing what the education provider needs. However, as we do not know who the education person is, what is the point of a designer going ahead with something that the person who is going to use it has not had any say in?

I very much hope there will be a great deal of consideration. As I say, I hope the Government will engage those who want to get involved to make sure the solution for our young children is the best possible, based on all the experience there is and all the good practice that is known.

Clause 29 agreed.

Schedule 5: Secure colleges etc: further amendments

Amendments 42M to 43 not moved.

Schedule 5 agreed.

Clause 30 agreed.

Amendments 43A to 43D not moved.

Schedule 6: Contracting out secure colleges

Amendment 44

Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

44: Schedule 6, page 92, line 28, at end insert—
“(4) Where the Secretary of State enters into a contract with another person under paragraph 1(1), and that person is not a public authority for the purposes of section 3 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (public authorities), that person shall be designated by the Secretary of State as a public authority for the purposes of that section in relation to that contract.”

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the Committee will be pleased to hear I will not detain it long on this amendment, which follows similar amendments moved during earlier parts of the Bill. The amendment seeks to ensure that the Freedom of Information Act procedures will be available in respect of the operation of the secure colleges, if they are built, by designating them as a public authority. The amendment would require the Secretary of State, when entering into a contract to provide or run a secure college with another person that is not a public authority, to designate that person as a public authority for the purposes of that section of the Act.

The Minister just referred to two possibilities: one is that the Secretary of State enters into a contract with such an outside body to provide the facility; the other is that the Secretary of State, the department or some other public body—perhaps the Youth Justice Board, which is a recognised public body—would carry out that function. The intention, clearly, is that it should be a contracted-out service. I understand that four bidders to provide the service have been selected, and I believe them to be—I may be wrong and, if so, no doubt the Minister will correct me—effectively private sector bodies.

17:00

Schedule 6 states:

“The Secretary of State may enter into a contract with another person … to … provide a secure college or part of such a college”,

which in effect the Secretary of State has done, and to,

“run a secure college or part of such a college”.

Interestingly, paragraph 1(2) of Schedule 6 also provides that:

“The contract may provide for the running of the secure college, or the part of the college, to be sub-contracted”.

So you could have more than one layer of contactor engaged in the provision of this service.

Similarly, Part 3 of Schedule 6 goes on to empower the Secretary of State to,

“enter into a contract with another person for functions to be carried out at a directly managed secure college”—

which is not currently envisaged—

“by secure college custody officers provided by that person”.

In that case—as I say, this is not envisaged for the initial college—the Secretary of State or a public body could effectively sub-contract the position of custody officers to an outside organisation.

Two aspects of this are of some concern. First, by definition, we are dealing with a troubled and potentially troublesome group of young people. We have debated discipline but other problems, not necessarily of that kind, could also arise. It is therefore important that there should be access to freedom of information where issues arise that need to be explored. As it stands, the Bill would not allow that in a contracted-out institution, whereas it would if the service was provided by a public authority. I cannot understand why a distinction should be made between the two.

The second point that I wish to raise relates to the monitoring of a contracted-out secure college. That is dealt with in paragraph 5 of Schedule 6, which provides that:

“Every contracted-out secure college must have a monitor. … The monitor must be a Crown servant appointed by the Secretary of State. … The monitor must … keep the running of the secure college by or on behalf of the principal under review, … investigate any allegations made against secure college custody officers … and … report to the Secretary of State on the matters described”,

in that part of the schedule. That is precisely the kind of area in which freedom of information requests might be thought relevant. That is one point.

My second point is a question to the Minister, and again I do not ask for an immediate reply. Given that a report is to be made to the Secretary of State, is it envisaged that such a report and the Secretary of State’s response to it will at some point be placed in the public domain, either by a report to Parliament or in some other way? It seems to me that that would be a necessary condition. I invite the Minister to give an indication of the Government’s thinking on these matters. I beg to move.

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, Amendment 44 seeks directly to extend the Freedom of Information Act to providers of secure colleges who have entered into a contract with the Secretary of State under Schedule 6 to the Bill. The amendment, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said, is similar to Amendment 11, which we debated in Committee on day one. It would provide for private providers not currently subject to the Freedom of Information Act to make information available both in response to FoI requests and proactively through publication schemes.

As the noble Lord said, the amendment differs in one respect from Amendment 11 in that it would lead to the formal extension of the FoI Act to providers of secure colleges, whereas the amendment debated previously sought to achieve the same ends in relation to providers of outsourced electronic monitoring services through the code of practice that the Secretary of State would issue under new Section 62B of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act, which is being introduced through Clause 6 of the Bill.

As we set out in the debate on Amendment 11, the Government recognise that there are concerns about the position of private providers of public services, under the Freedom of Information Act. The issue of outsourced public services was considered in some detail during the post-legislative scrutiny of the Freedom of Information Act carried out by the Justice Select Committee in 2012. The committee recommended the use of contractual provisions, rather than the formal extension of the Freedom of Information Act, to ensure that transparency and accountability are maintained. In particular, the committee said that it believed that,

“contracts provide a more practical basis for applying FOI to outsourced services than partial designation of commercial companies under section 5 of the Act”.

The committee also felt that,

“the use of contractual terms to protect the right to access information is currently working relatively well”.

The Government recognise not only that concerns exist in this area but the potential challenge that the increased delivery of public services by non-public sector providers poses to transparency. It is for that reason that the Government accepted the committee’s recommendation. Later this year, the Government will issue a revised code of practice under Section 45 of the Freedom of Information Act to promote transparency about outsourced public services in response to FoI requests. As we explained in the debate on Amendment 11, the guidance to be provided in the code will promote and encourage the use and enforcement of contractual or sub-contractual obligations to ensure that contractors provide information held on behalf of public authorities. It will go further than the current obligations under the Act. It will encourage contractors voluntarily to provide additional information beyond that held on behalf of the contracting public authority where, for example, doing so would help the contracting public authority to provide a more meaningful response to requests.

The Government and the Information Commissioner will monitor the effectiveness of the code. If it does not prove successful, the Government have said that they will consider what other steps may be necessary to ensure accountability, including the possible formal extension of the Freedom of Information Act to contractors. As I have indicated previously, we believe that our approach represents an appropriate balance between transparency and minimising burdens on business. As a result of the steps that we are taking, I suggest to the House that the measures proposed through these amendments are, with respect, unnecessary. I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I will withdraw the amendment and I am grateful to the noble Lord for reaffirming the Government’s general position. He did not—I do not criticise him for this—quite deal with the further point I made about having a monitor, particularly the issue of the Secretary of State reporting on the outcome of such issues. He may wish to consider that. I hope we can clear up that point because, if the Secretary of State is issuing or preparing a report, it should be in the public domain. That may very well be intended but perhaps we can deal with that matter before Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 44 withdrawn.

Amendments 44A to 48 not moved.

Schedule 6 agreed.

Clauses 31 and 32 agreed.

Amendment 48A

Moved by

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

48A: After Clause 32, insert the following new Clause—
“Application of reporting restrictions to social media
Sections 39 and 49 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 shall apply in relation to public electronic communications networks as they apply in relation to newspapers, and sound and television broadcasts.”

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 48A and others in this group. Amendment 48A is largely self-explanatory. The Children and Young Persons Act was enacted in 1933, well before the advent of the internet or any sort of social media. The purpose of this amendment is simple: to make it beyond any doubt that any repeating of things that are sub judice to do with a child’s identity would be prohibited and that orders under Sections 39 and 49 apply to social media just as they do to print and broadcast media. That is the effect of Amendment 48A.

Amendment 48B, which is in my name and the names of other noble Lords, seeks to close a legal loophole whereby children can be named before they are charged and appear in court. This is an anomalous situation that makes a mockery of the anonymity protection. In the recent tragic case of the murdered Leeds schoolteacher Ann Maguire, the Sun newspaper printed the name of the boy accused of her murder before he was charged. Now that the matter is before the court, it is illegal to name him. This is an illustration of the loophole that this amendment seeks to close. Pre-charge naming undermines any anonymity later afforded by the court. I am pleased to see that noble Lords from other sides of the House have added their names to this amendment.

The purpose of Amendments 48C and 48D is that anonymity provided by Sections 39 and 49 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 should last for a lifetime. Lord Justice Leveson has ruled that Section 39 orders expire when the child reaches the age of 18. This judgment is being appealed and the appeal is due to be heard in autumn this year. Lord Justice Leveson has said:

“It is for Parliament to fashion a solution: the problem requires to be addressed as a matter of real urgency”.

He is referring to precisely this question of whether anonymity should continue beyond the age of 18. The purpose of Amendments 48C and 48D is that the default situation should be that anonymity should be granted for life unless a court orders that it be lifted.

Why is this a good principle? The principal aim of all youth justice is to prevent reoffending. I would argue that naming a child as an offender, particularly in this day and age, would work against that child’s interests. Their name is likely to get on to the internet and to stay on the internet. It will make it more difficult, once the child is identified and named as an offender, for that child to change their ways. More than that, it will punish innocent families. We know that children identify very strongly with their siblings, more strongly than adults do. I have been made aware of a number of cases where the names of children who have been charged with an offence have come to light and the families, particularly the siblings, of the children have suffered as a result. This only serves to worsen the situation and to set back the prospect for rehabilitation. That is the purpose of Amendments 48C and 48D. I beg to move.

17:15

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 48B, as have my noble friends Lady Linklater and Lord Carlile of Berriew. We have also tabled Amendment 48F. However, the purposes of our amendment are identical to those of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, so I will be brief.

There are three purposes to this group of amendments. The first is to ensure the extension to electronic media of those provisions dealing with restrictions on reporting of offending by children—restrictions that in a previous era applied to newspapers and standard television broadcasts. The public electronic media should all be treated in the same way. The second purpose, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, said, is to deal with pre-charge naming of children, which undermines the anonymity granted to them only later. Section 44 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 would deal with that but has not yet come into force. The purpose of the final subsection of the proposed new clause in Amendment 48B is to deal with that. The third point, as the noble Lord explained, is to amend Sections 39 and 49 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 to establish that anonymity given to children should last beyond their 18th birthday unless there is a substantial reason why the position should be changed. That would be subject to an order of the court. In those circumstances, I invite the Minister to accept these amendments and ask the Committee to do so, too.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, it would appear that in this area, as in others, we are short of information about the number of cases in which young offenders are named. There does not appear to be a dataset indicating how many of these young people are being named and, apparently, has there been no research of any great depth on the impact of being named on such young offenders or their families—as my noble friend pointed out, particularly in relation to their siblings.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, as long ago as 1989, stated that as well as the right to privacy, “best interests” of the child should always,

“be the primary concern in making decisions that may affect them”.

It is striking that, although it is a matter for the courts whether the child should be identified, the applications tend to be made by the media on the grounds of public interest. The capacity of the media to identify their interests with the public interest is of course unlimited, but in this rather sensitive area it might be thought that the principles of the convention should be taken a great deal more seriously. Some of the ways in which the media have portrayed young offenders, complete with photographs—my noble friend mentioned a case where a child’s photograph was prominently displayed—and emotive language such as how “young thugs” should be dealt with, are not conducive to meeting the requirements of the convention, which we should all respect.

I understand that the Government are looking at the existing law on reporting restrictions and had indicated that they would be coming to a conclusion some time this year. They may not have done so, but I do not know whether the Minister is in a position to indicate when that review might be completed. It would be helpful to the House to know when that might occur. In fact, the Government—I should, in fairness, say successive Governments—have not responded to the UN committee’s report, which is dated as long ago as 2008. In addition to the general principle to which I referred, that report made the strong point that respecting privacy should extend especially to avoiding messages that expose the child to shame and are against their best interests.

This is potentially quite a serious issue. From my experience as a councillor and, indeed, as chairman of the social services committee in Newcastle in the 1970s, I recall very well the famous case of Mary Bell, who was a young child when she committed offences that became notorious. Rather like the subsequent Bulger case—or rather, those who were guilty of killing Jamie Bulger—she became exposed to a great deal of publicity. That made assimilation into adult life extremely difficult for her, as it has for other defendants, it would appear, including those in the Bulger case. This is a very sensitive area in which we need a clear position from the Government in terms of a response not only to the amendment but perhaps more importantly to the UN convention requirements of as long ago as 2008.

Of course, there may be public interest in knowing what is happening, but a public interest in knowing does not necessarily amount to a matter of public interest. The two terms become confused. I hope that that is not the position that the Government ultimately end up with. There are clearly issues here that can have a long-term impact on young offenders. I entirely take the Minister’s point: the whole point of dealing with these young offenders is to ensure they do not offend again and can assume their place in society. We should not facilitate making that any more difficult by permitting disclosure when it is not necessary. I hope that the Government will look sympathetically at the amendment moved by my noble friend and respond to the long outstanding report and recommendations of the UN convention.

None of us would say that people—even young people—who commit serious crimes should not be punished or go through the processes that the law prescribes. They should not, however, be subjected to public obloquy in addition to that. It is rather disconcerting that, at the time of the riots in London a few years ago, the Home Secretary seemed keen to publicise the identity of some of those, particularly young people, who were involved in criminal and quite disgraceful behaviour. I think that many of us would feel that, in that sort of case and for that sort of young offender, publicity might be regarded as almost a badge of honour and is therefore not to be encouraged from any perspective. I hope that that situation will not recur. In the mean time, we have a number of offenders, some of whom are involved in very serious offences, whose anonymity has been done away with in a way that cannot be conducive to helping them to reform and to assume a normal place in society.

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, I am grateful for the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and those tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, and the noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Dholakia. All have shown considerable commitment to the subject of how we respond to children and young people in the youth justice system. Some have direct experience of how children and young people are dealt with in court, as magistrates, lawyers or counsellors, in one or more of those capacities or in some other capacity. I welcome the opportunity to debate the issue of youth reporting restrictions. Noble Lords’ amendments bring into focus a range of issues, each of which I will deal with in turn.

First, as to online content, noble Lords are seeking to address a potential lacuna in the existing reporting restrictions framework which was remarked upon by the High Court in the case of MXB v East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust. The court commented that information that would normally be prohibited from publication in a newspaper could be published and made available to the public via Facebook or Twitter. The present position therefore appears to be not entirely clear, although it may conceivably become clearer in the light of further developments in case law. However, we know that the publication of information through online content is in many ways quite different from the more traditional forms of communication that Sections 39 and 49 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 were intended to cover. For example, information can now be published, updated, viewed and replicated almost instantaneously in a way that could not have been envisaged by Parliament many decades ago.

However, the ability to view such information may be restricted by the author of the online content to a very limited set of individuals indeed. We must be mindful of the boundary between private correspondence via e-mail, which the current youth reporting restrictions framework, rightly, in no way seeks to curtail, and publication to the world at large. It is worth noting that, in its recent reports on the law of contempt, the Law Commission considered what statutory definition might capture online content and identified a drafting solution very different from that put forward by the noble Lord. I wish to reassure noble Lords that the Government are aware of the concern that has been raised and are giving further thought to this very technical and complex issue. In light of that assurance, I hope that, in due course, the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

As to criminal investigations, Amendment 48B, also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, seeks to commence Section 44 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, which has been on the statute book for some time. Section 44 applies whenever a criminal investigation begins into an alleged offence and means that no information enabling the identification of a young person under 18 suspected of committing the offence may be reported by the media. Section 44 also gives the Secretary of State the power to extend the protection to children and young people who are alleged to have been the victims of, or witnesses to, a criminal offence but only by means of an affirmative order. Hansard indicates that on 29 June 1999, during Committee stage in the other place, the affirmative procedure in respect of victims and witnesses was introduced by the Opposition when in government. A number of objections were raised in respect of Section 44 and were considered in a process in which parliamentary scrutiny went hand in hand with discussions with the print and broadcast media. I have recently received letters from the Newspaper Society and the BBC outlining similar misgivings.

During what I referred to as hand-in-hand discussions, it was suggested that it may be time to look at whether the media’s own regulatory arrangements to protect vulnerable young people could be strengthened in a way that is specific to young people who might be harmed by publicity about crime. Given the significant restriction that Section 44 potentially imposes on the freedom of the press and the possibility that its aims might be achievable through other means, it was determined that Section 44 should be extended to victims and witnesses only after both Houses had been given the opportunity to debate the issue again. Since then, the section has never been commenced and guidance and regulations have been pursued instead.

17:30

The noble Lord’s amendment seeks to nullify the affirmative resolution procedure and, instead, commence the whole of Section 44 on Royal Assent of the Bill. No case has been made that a previous decision by Parliament, to ensure that an extension of Section 44 is debated fully by both Houses before it can be implemented, should now be reversed, nor that this is the appropriate mechanism for commencing provisions in legislation. A decision will have to be taken by the Executive to commence this amendment should it become part of the Bill.

Of course, the noble Lord’s purpose in tabling this amendment may be to prompt a debate on the merits of Section 44—whether now is the time to commence the section and whether all alternatives have been exhausted. This is not the right time to consider commencing Section 44, in the light of the significant changes to press self-regulation recently introduced by the Government. As is well known, the royal charter was granted by the Privy Council on 30 October and has been sealed. Both the industry and the Government agree that independent self-regulation is the way forward. The Government believe that a royal charter is the best way to ensure that independent self-regulation operates successfully. We should therefore give this new approach a chance to succeed. I would, therefore, ask noble Lords to pause to consider whether Section 44, as enacted, might pose at least as many problems as it is designed to solve.

It appears that Section 44 would impose restrictions on the press that are so broad as to be potentially impractical. For example, in the case of the tragic murder of Ann Maguire in a Leeds school, to which the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, referred, Section 44 would have stopped the identity of the alleged offender being released into the public domain. However, it could also have meant that little could have been reported about the crime other than that a teacher had been killed in a school somewhere in England and Wales. Therefore, in the light of the recent developments in press self-regulation and the breadth of the restrictions that Section 44 appears to impose, I ask the noble Lord not to press his amendment.

I am grateful to noble Lords for raising the issue of extending youth reporting restrictions beyond the age of majority. They have, no doubt, done so in response to a recent High Court judgment that considered the existing law in this area. In the case of JC and RT v the Central Criminal Court and Others, the President of the Queen’s Bench Division, Sir Brian Leveson, stated that a reporting restriction under Section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 expires automatically once the child or young person reaches the age of 18. Noble Lords have carefully made sure that this amendment also applies to Section 49 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, thereby capturing proceedings in the youth court, where the majority of criminal cases involving children and young people are heard.

While there are some technical flaws with the amendment as tabled, the Government intend to address the lacuna in the current reporting restrictions framework. Further to the quotation referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, the President of the Queen’s Bench Division remarked:

“It is truly remarkable that Parliament was prepared to make provision for lifetime protection available to adult witnesses in appropriate circumstances … but not to extend the protection to those under 18 once they reached the age of majority”.

He went on to identify victims and witnesses as requiring protection within the criminal justice system as a matter of urgency.

I would like to revisit this matter on Report. In the light of that request, which I hope noble Lords will accept is entirely sincere and an appropriate response to this debate, I hope that they will, in the mean time, not press their amendments.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that response, which I found constructive in a number of respects. On Amendment 48A, the noble Lord said that he would give further thought to this matter and pointed out the issue of the amendment being so broadly worded that it might include private correspondence by e-mail. I acknowledge the point: the matter needs to be looked at more carefully.

On Amendments 48B and 48C, the noble Lord referred to the previous Government introducing the affirmative procedure and the adoption of new self-regulation procedures within the media. These are probing amendments and we on these Benches will consider whether to bring them back on Report. I acknowledge the points that the noble Lord made in addressing them and I was pleased with his response to Amendment 48D, when he said clearly that he wants to revisit the issue on Report. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 48A.

Amendment 48A withdrawn.

Amendments 48B to 48D not moved.

Clauses 33 to 35 agreed.

Amendment 48E

Moved by

[The Earl of Listowel]

48E: After Clause 35, insert the following new Clause—
“Duties of custody officer before charge
In section 37(15) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (duties of custody officer before charge), for “17” substitute “18”.”

[The Earl of Listowel]

My amendment would give 17 year-olds detained by the police the right to be held in local authority accommodation rather than a police station. I draw the Committee’s attention to the “Newsnight” programme broadcast on Monday 14 July, in which parents whose children had been affected by the current arrangements spoke very movingly about their experiences. I would be glad to furnish your Lordships with a link to that. Certainly, I will make it my job to ensure that those taking part in the debate have that link.

Children under the age of 17 already have the right to be placed in local authority accommodation, and for good reason. Police custody is an unsuitable environment for children. It is a highly intimidating environment and staff are not trained to support vulnerable children, unlike in local authority accommodation. Recent cases have demonstrated the terrible consequences that can result from detaining children in such an unsuitable environment at what is a deeply frightening time for them.

Kesia Leatherbarrow was a vulnerable 17 year-old. Her inquest has not yet taken place but we know that she was discovered dead in a garden in December 2013, after being arrested and held in a police cell for three days. Kesia was arrested for possession of cannabis and criminal damage. She was kept in custody at Ashton police station over the weekend before being sent to Tameside magistrates’ court on the Monday morning. She was bailed to return the following day, when the youth court would be sitting, but died shortly afterwards. Being held in the more supportive environment of local authority accommodation might have made all the difference. She could still be with us today.

Seventeen year-olds can appear very adult, but they are not: they are children. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is clear on this point—children are those below the age of 18, and all are entitled to the same protections. A 17 year-old should not be treated differently from any other child. However, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act is inconsistent on this point. The police station is the only remaining part of the criminal justice system where 17 year-olds are not uniformly recognised as children. The one other part where an anomaly exists—the Criminal Justice Act 1991 in relation to cautioning—will be amended by this Bill.

In police stations, 17 year-olds have some of the protections afforded to children but not all. This is an ongoing issue and one which the Home Secretary has said she will resolve. However, I am disappointed that she has not yet done so, despite a clear ruling from the High Court. In 2013, in the case of HC v Home Secretary, Lord Justice Moses ruled that it is unlawful for 17 year-olds in the police station to be treated as adults and denied the protection of having a parent or other adult with them, which is given to younger children. The court ruled that they must not be treated as if they were adults. In particular, they must be allowed to have a parent or appropriate adult with them. After the case, the Home Office accepted the court’s ruling and gave assurances that it would conduct a full review of all laws that treated arrested 17 year-olds as adults, not just the provision of an appropriate adult. For example, in a letter to Nick Lawton, whose son Joe killed himself after being treated as an adult in police custody, the Home Secretary wrote:

“We will ensure that in future that 17 year olds will receive the appropriate assistance and support while they are in police custody”.

Then in response to a Parliamentary Question in October 2013 the Minister for policing said:

“We will consider all legislation which appears to treat 17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system and bring forward legislative proposals as necessary”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/10/13; col. 65W.]

Despite these assurances, the Home Secretary has so far made only limited changes that were specified by the High Court, which means that 17 year-olds now have the right to have a parent with them, as I have mentioned.

The point of most concern is the fact that young people have no right to be transferred to local authority accommodation even if the police are concerned about them and can see that they are very vulnerable. The police still do not have the right to make such a transfer. This is the matter that my amendment addresses. The parents of Kesia Leatherbarrow, along with the parents of Joe Lawton and Eddie Thornber, two other children who died after being treated as adults in police custody, are campaigning to get the Home Secretary to make the changes necessary to ensure that 17 year-olds are always treated as children in law. A recent letter to the Home Secretary said:

“I personally am very upset and feel wronged by both your letters because you have only changed one part of the code and failed to take the steps to get Parliament to amend any other relevant legislation. Had you looked into and changed all the legislation, as you intimated in your letter to me, there was a good chance that Kesia would be with us today. You could include in the current Bill before Parliament changes to Section 38(6) of PACE about the transfer to local authority care as opposed to being kept in a police cell overnight … We are distraught that another 17 year old has died unnecessarily when you as Home Secretary were fully aware of your duty to 17 year olds. While we cannot bring back our own children, we will not stop campaigning on this issue until every piece of legislation that treats 17 year olds as adults in the criminal justice system is amended to give the most vulnerable among us the help we are entitled to under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other laws”.

We owe it to these families and to 17 year-olds throughout the country to ensure that they have the protection to which they are entitled. The right to local authority accommodation is a fundamental protection that is available to all other children, and I hope that the Government will make good on their promises and accept my amendment. I recognise that they have been looking at this issue, I beg the Minister to bring something into this legislation, perhaps by the time we reach Report. We can then be confident that no more young lives will be lost in these circumstances. I beg to move.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. I urge the Minister, before we reach Report, to take the opportunity to contact a really wonderful NGO, Just for Kids Law, which is run by a remarkable set of lawyers led by Shauneen Lambe. The lawyers have been supporting and sometimes acting as intervenors in cases involving young people of 17 who are being kept in custody or interrogated without an accompanying adult. Anyone who is the parent of a teenager or whose children were recently teenagers knows that at that age a person is on the cusp of adulthood. They are moving out of childhood and into adulthood. It is often a very difficult stage where young people appear to be very mature and yet at the same time they are childlike and vulnerable, as the noble Earl said. I know that the Home Secretary and the Home Office have been looking at this issue—I see that the Minister is nodding his head in confirmation. For some time there has been a problem around the ages defined in different pieces of legislation. I would urge the Government to look at this amendment closely. Even if a categorical answer cannot be given to us today, I hope that the opportunity is taken to speak to the people at Just for Kids Law because they really know their stuff in this area. They have all the details about the families who suffer so terribly at the loss of their children.

17:44

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Listowel. Article 1, as he said, of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as a person under the age of 18. In 2010 the Government made a commitment to have regard to children’s rights when developing law and policy affecting children. In the majority of the youth justice system, 17 year-olds are rightly treated as children and so are entitled to the same protection as all other children. The police station is the only part of the criminal justice system where 17 year-olds are not—uniformly, at any rate—recognised as children.

At present, one other anomaly remains: 17 year-olds are still not entitled to the protection afforded to other children when they are cautioned. However, I think we all welcome the fact that Clause 32 rectifies that. Of particular concern is the fact that if they are detained by the police, 17 year-olds are not entitled to a local authority bed—my noble friend made the point firmly that they must still be detained in police custody.

Police custody is an intimidating and frightening environment that is unsuitable for children, particularly the sort of children who are as damaged as those who are likely to be in that situation. We have heard about the tragic consequences that can result, and I offer my condolences to the family of Kesia Leatherbarrow, the 17 year-old who was found dead following detention in police custody. By contrast, local authority accommodation has trained staff. As my noble friend Lord Listowel has mentioned on many occasions, trained staff are important in such situations. They are more supportive and far more appropriate.

I cannot see the rationale for denying 17 year-olds access to local authority beds. It is clearly desirable and is in keeping with the UNCRC. The Government are still making progress in other areas to ensure that 17 year-olds are treated as children in the youth justice system—for instance, under Clause 32. I urge them to do the same with regard to the provision of local authority beds, and to accept the amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the Committee is indebted to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and to other noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, for raising a matter of concern and for pointing out the inconsistency that now applies, particularly in regard to the welcome change that the Bill incorporates, and to which other noble Lords have referred, about having an appropriate adult present when a 17 year-old is being charged or interviewed.

Noble Lords have spoken in moving terms about the problems faced by vulnerable young people in the circumstances that the amendment addresses. Clearly, from their point of view, it would be highly desirable for a different sort of accommodation to be made available. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, who has not participated in the debate, might agree that it is better from the police’s point of view if they do not have responsibility in an area where, as the noble Baroness has just pointed out, they do not have the expertise to look after vulnerable young people who might be capable of inflicting harm upon themselves in a difficult and unusual situation.

Both sides of the equation, as it were, argue for a change and a degree of consistency across the legislative framework. It would, however, be desirable, if it has not yet been undertaken, to consult with the Local Government Association representing local authorities in England and Wales to ensure that the local authorities have an awareness that this will, necessarily, impinge to some degree upon their responsibilities, and for an adjustment to be made in the financing that would no doubt be required to provide a safe, temporary haven for these young people before they make their court appearance. If the Minister is unable to give an unequivocal response today, I join others in hoping that, between now and Report, matters might be progressed.

This may be seen primarily as a matter for the Home Office but it is clearly of interest for the Ministry of Justice and I hope that the two departments between them—possibly with, as I said, the involvement of the Department for Communities and Local Government and maybe even the Department for Education, which has a potential interest in respect of children’s services—might come to a fairly rapid conclusion about what is not an inherently complex matter in a way that would satisfy the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and, more particularly, those who have undergone a traumatic experience with their own children and do not wish to see that repeated in respect of other 17 year-olds and their families.

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, I begin by acknowledging the contribution that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has made to our debates generally on the plight of young people, particularly those who are or have been in care, who, sadly, often find themselves in the position that this amendment particularly focuses on. I join others in expressing the Government’s deepest sympathy with the family of Kesia Leatherbarrow. It was, as all noble Lords have pointed out, a tragic case.

The main purpose of the amendment is to include, within the definition of “arrested juvenile” in Part 4 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, 17 year-olds in the context of police detention following charge. I acknowledge that although 17 year-olds may often appear confident and adult, that can conceal vulnerability, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, pointed out. In line with the current treatment of 10 to 16 year-olds the amendment would have the effect of requiring a 17 year-old who has been charged and denied bail to be transferred to local authority accommodation when it is both appropriate and practicable for the police to do so.

I understand that this proposed amendment, which has at its heart a laudable intention, is related to the Hughes Cousins-Chang High Court ruling of April last year. The Government did not appeal that ruling and accepted the findings of the court, which related solely to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act codes of practice C and H. Specifically, the ruling required that 17 year-olds, when arrested on suspicion of committing an offence, must be provided with an appropriate adult and have a parent or guardian informed of their detention. The Government made these changes in full as soon as possible, allowing for the statutory obligation to consult on all changes to the PACE codes, and these provisions were made mandatory in October.

Since the implementation of the High Court ruling, the Government made clear their commitment to review the primary legislation relating to the treatment of 17 year- olds as adults in the criminal justice system. This was to consider whether changes should be made for similar reasons. I can confirm, as noble Lords have already indicated, that an internal review has already been launched and that the work is continuing. Whereas this amendment concerns specifically the case of detention following charge, the review covers all the legislation where 17 year-olds are treated as adults in the criminal justice system. It includes, for example, Section 65 of PACE, which relates to the age at which a person can give their independent consent to the taking of fingerprints, impressions of footwear, and intimate and non-intimate samples at the police station.

The Home Office review also covers the consequential changes that would need to be made to other legislation should 17 year-olds be regarded as juveniles. For example, an amendment to Section 37(15) of PACE, which is the proposition here, would also require amendments to the Children (Secure Accommodation) Regulations 1991, the Bail Act 1976, the regulations of 1991, the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, and so on. These are just some examples, for which other departments have responsibility. Those examples demonstrate the breadth and complexity of the legislation, which needs to be properly thought through before change is made.

It is of the utmost importance that any change in the law is workable in practice and not merely symbolic. We need to be sure, for example, that local authority accommodation will be available to 17 year-olds were the law to be changed, that adequate transportation exists and that police officers are trained properly to understand the requirements of this change. The appropriate adult change, which has been referred to, is considerably less complicated operationally than that which is the subject of this amendment. Any amendment to primary legislation needs to be subject to proper consultation, appropriate consideration and full scrutiny by Parliament. This amendment, though laudable in its aims, represents, we respectfully say, a somewhat hurried approach to the issue of how we treat people at the age of 17 at the front end of the criminal justice system.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, referred to the police’s knowledge of young people in dealing with 17 year-olds. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, tried to elicit a contribution from my noble friend Lord Paddick as to the unsuitability of the police to deal with 17 year-olds.

[Lord Beecham]

In fairness, I was not saying that the police were not suitable but that it is placing an undue burden upon them. That is a rather different point.

[Lord Faulks]

I stand corrected by the noble Lord. I would remind the House nevertheless that the police are under a duty, under Section 11 of the Children Act 2004, to make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. The statutory guidance accompanying Section 11 makes clear that these arrangements include adequate training and dealing with children aged under 18.

While this is clearly an important issue and one that the Government take extremely seriously, for the reasons that I have given I am unable to commit myself to having an answer by Report. I hope that we will have, but I am afraid that I am unable to give that commitment. I can say that the review is a matter of importance and will be thoroughly undertaken. I hope that, with that reassurance, the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I am grateful to the Minister for his careful and considered reply and his kind words to me. Perhaps he could write to me on whether or not he has a final date for the internal review. I am grateful to the Minister for his considered and sympathetic response to the amendment. I will take away what he says and consider it over the Recess. I thank all the noble Lords who spoke in the debate for their contribution and for their support for the amendment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 48E withdrawn.

Amendment 48F not moved.

17:59

Clause 36: Instituting proceedings by written charge

Amendment 49

Moved by

[Lord Faulks]

49: Clause 36, page 35, line 5, leave out “court” and insert “designated officer specified in the notice”

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, the Government have tabled a total of 14 minor and technical amendments to this clause, Clauses 38 and 39 and Schedule 7. As noble Lords will be aware, the intention is to introduce a new single justice procedure alongside the current written charge and requisition procedure. These changes are necessary in order to ensure that our new procedure fits together with some older provisions on the summary justice procedure in the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980.

Amendment 49 is essentially a drafting amendment, clarifying that the single justice procedure notice must be served on a designated court officer, rather than a court building.

Amendment 50 relates to an issue raised during the House of Commons Committee about the information sent with the notice about the defendant’s DVLA record in cases involving driving offences. We undertook to consider this further and ensure that the provisions allow a single justice to view a defendant’s driving record before sentencing, as is currently the case under the written charge and requisition procedure. We believe the current drafting is too restrictive, so this amendment introduces a new provision that will enable a single justice to try cases using documents that have been described to the defendant, as well as those served on the defendant. It makes clear that in order to rely on any previous convictions, the prosecution must give the accused notice of their intention to do so at the time of serving the single justice procedure notice.

The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, has tabled an amendment to Amendment 50. As I have said, Amendment 50 allows the prosecution to give notice to the defendant of their intention to rely on certain information. The noble Lord’s amendment would limit that information to information that is specified as relevant to the charge.

With great respect to him, I do not think that amendment is necessary. The existing and cardinal rule of evidence will of course apply: all evidence which is irrelevant or insufficiently relevant to the facts in issue should be excluded. It has never been our intention, in tabling Amendment 50, to depart from these rules. Prosecutors can be trusted, as they currently are under the written charge and requisition procedure, to abide by these rules and put before the court only information relevant to the case.

The weight attached to the evidence will remain a matter for the single justice, on the advice of his or her legal adviser. We have introduced further safeguards, which I will come to in a moment, to make clear that a single justice can, of course, consider the nature of the evidence when deciding whether to refer a case to a traditionally constituted magistrates’ court. Therefore, if the single justice has doubts or concerns about the evidence before him or her, he or she can refer the case to a Bench of two or even three magistrates. I therefore respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, not to move his amendment.

Amendment 53 relates to Amendment 50 and provides further clarification on admissibility. The principle behind Amendment 53 is that evidence is admissible as long as it has been served on the accused at the same time as the single justice procedure notice. This provision also introduces additional safeguards in Section 16F(2), which points a single justice to consider whether he or she should proceed with a case under the new procedure where the nature of the evidence suggests that it would be not be appropriate to do so.

Amendment 51 introduces a provision that makes explicit that, where the accused has indicated that he or she wishes to plead guilty in their response to the single justice procedure notice, the court can try the case as though the accused has indeed pleaded guilty.

Amendment 52 provides some clarification to new Sections 16B(1) and 16C(1), which are to be inserted in the Magistrates’ Court Act 1980 by Clause 38. It makes clear that there are two distinct occasions when a single justice will consider the appropriateness of using the single justice procedure: prior to conviction and post conviction. This amendment aims to avoid the situation where a single justice may decide to refer a case to a traditional magistrates’ court simply because it would be inappropriate to sentence without first having convicted and issued a summons in the proper way.

Amendment 54 adds to the range of sentencing powers available to a single justice in respect of driving offences resulting in penalty points on an offender’s licence.

The next set of amendments modifies current legislative provisions to ensure that they operate effectively in cases heard under the single justice procedure. Amendment 57 makes changes to Section 11 of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, which provides that a court cannot impose a disqualification from driving in the absence of the defendant unless a hearing has resumed after an adjournment. Where a single justice is considering imposing a driving disqualification, and the defendant has indicated they wish to make representations on that, the single justice will already have adjourned the case and summonsed the defendant to a traditional magistrates’ court. This amendment ensures that the traditional magistrates’ court can decide the case without having to go through the process of adjourning it again.

Amendment 58 provides that in any case where the single justice considers that the accused is “likely” to have been misled by a variance between the written charge and the evidence presented by the prosecutor, the matter is no longer appropriate for consideration under the single justice procedure and should be referred to a traditional magistrates’ court. This will ensure that a less stringent test applies for cases dealt with under the new procedure.

Amendments 59 and 60 apply to cases involving prosecutions for traffic offences which may result in disqualification from driving. They concern the requirements in such cases for the defendant to present his or her driving licence to the court on the day of the trial. These arrangements are set out in Section 7 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988. Amendment 59 modifies these arrangements for cases heard under the single justice procedure. Instead of having to present their driving licence on the date of the trial, defendants will be required to present their licence post conviction once they have been notified by the court of the intention to disqualify. Amendment 60 is a consequential amendment resulting from these modified arrangements. It provides that in cases where the defendant has been issued with a receipt after having surrendered their driving licence in relation to another offence, it would be appropriate for them to produce this receipt instead of their driving licence.

The final set of amendments is purely consequential amendments to other legislation. Amendment 56 enables a summons to be served in Scotland and Northern Ireland following a decision by a single justice that it is no longer appropriate to continue trying a case under the single justice procedure. Amendments 61 to 63 ensure that the single justice procedure applies to Section 68 of the Pension Schemes Act 1993, Section 55 of the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 and Section 164 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.

As I have indicated, all these amendments are necessary to ensure that the single justice procedure works effectively, that it works well alongside other relevant provisions within our legislative framework and that it works in a way which continues to protect the rights of defendants. I beg to move.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s move to single justice procedures. I have sat on many hundreds of these types of cases and it is absolutely not necessary for three justices to sit to make such determinations.

I have three amendments—the noble Lord referred to them in his comments—which the Magistrates’ Association has asked me to put forward to clarify particular issues. As the noble Lord said, Amendment 50A is an amendment to the Government’s amendment which seeks to add that specified and relevant information should be made available to the court. The concern raised by the Magistrates’ Association is that magistrates should have access to the right information, such as DVLA records, as appropriate. The amendment was worded in a wider sense because if one was dealing with television licences one would need information on non-payment. The amendment is to ensure that magistrates, when sentencing, have specific and relevant information in front of them.

Amendments 50B and 51A would require the court to give public notice of trials under the single justice procedure and to publish the outcomes of these trials. I know the Magistrates’ Association has been consulted fully on these changes and everyone is aware that we are dealing with high volume, low level regulatory cases more than anything else. Nevertheless, it is important that these cases are dealt with properly and that the public should have confidence in our legal system. Therefore they need to know when the trials are happening and the results of those trials. The purpose of the amendments is to provide some clarity on what the Government intend to do in making sure that the trials and their results are well published.

As the Minister pointed out in his comments, if anyone turns up for a trial, the matter would be put off to be dealt with by a Bench of three. That is, of course, right and proper.

[Lord Beecham]

It is some 23 years since I last appeared before Newcastle magistrates. I should make it clear that I was in a professional capacity, although I had the pleasure recently of seeing them in a political capacity. As I think I mentioned at Second Reading, I attended a meeting of what is now the Northumbria Bench—in the current state of play, of course, there is no longer just a local Newcastle Bench. Unlike my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, who of course has long experience as a sitting magistrate, I was initially attracted to the notion that some have suggested; namely, that, although the procedure is generally to be welcomed, it should be not one magistrate but two who sit on these matters. However, I am persuaded not only by the eloquence and logic of my noble friend but, perhaps more relevantly, by the almost unanimous opinion of the local Bench in Newcastle and Northumbria that such a precaution is unnecessary.

There are, however, a number of issues, which are the subject of amendments to which I shall now refer. The first of those is Amendment 49A, which would ensure that there is a proper procedure for determining which offences can be tried under the new system. It is obviously sensible for many of the offences which have been canvassed in discussion—television licences and matters of that sort—to be dealt with in this way, but the amendment would require that the issues be determined by regulations and approved by Parliament. We do not want added to the list for disposal in this way matters which are not necessarily the first that come to mind as more or less formalities. It would not be asking too much of the Government for them to indicate what they intend and how many offences and for them to proceed by way of regulation. In this case, the negative procedure would be quite acceptable.

Amendment 49B would remove the automatic paper trial if the defendant did not respond to the notice that would have been given. There is a potential for difficulty to be encountered here if, for example, the defendant does not understand English or the purport of the document. What is sought in the amendment is that failure to respond would not itself trigger the automatic transfer to dealing with the case on the papers.

Amendment 49C, on the provision of evidence in respect of vehicle licensing cases, would require the court to be satisfied with the position as recorded by the DVLA, so that the defendant would have an opportunity to say that matters had been dealt with on the basis of the DVLA providing information. It is a relatively modest requirement.

18:14

Amendment 50C would, contrary to the provision of the Bill as we understand it, remove the provision that would require the court to proceed as if a party were absent, even if he or she appeared after the beginning of proceedings. So if someone is late in coming to court but turns up, the procedures should not take place without a hearing.

Amendment 50AA is important and would remove the provision that permits the court to proceed in chambers. It is envisaged that the court would simply operate behind closed doors, as it were, with no possibility of the public being present. Many of us feel that that would be unsatisfactory. Justice needs to be seen to be done. I suspect that it is unlikely that there would be a queue of people to sit enthralled while decisions are made and handed down, but it is nevertheless better for justice to be administered openly so that, if there is an interest, members of the public and, for that matter, the press could attend.

Publicising the results of the hearing is the subject of Amendment 51B. Again that is a question of justice being seen to be done and information being available. The Magistrates’ Association, if I recall correctly, is sympathetic to those suggestions. I hope that the Minister will recognise that the Opposition certainly support the principle of the Government’s proposal, which we welcome. It may well speed up matters. Nevertheless, there need to be safeguards, particularly in relation to the public aspect of the administration of justice, which is not normally conducted behind closed doors in this country, even in routine matters. I hope that the noble Lord will give consideration to these amendments.

[Lord Faulks]

I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this useful debate. In addition to my response and the moving of government amendments, the debate has enabled the Government to place on record the rationale behind these provisions, which are broadly welcomed. I am reassured to hear, as I knew was the case, that the Magistrates’ Association is very much in sympathy with this, as are magistrates such as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and Newcastle magistrates’ court, which, sadly, misses the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. There is general consensus that this is a move in the right direction. Nevertheless, I also understand that there is the feeling that there should be safeguards to ensure that there is no sense that these hearings take place behind closed doors unless it is entirely appropriate that that should be the case.

I shall deal first with Amendment 49A, which seeks to require that the list of offences to which the new single justice procedure should apply is set out in secondary legislation. Our intention is that all summary, only non-imprisonable, offences should be in scope of the procedure. However, we anticipate this procedure being used only in the more straightforward cases, such as where the particular circumstances of the case mean there is no direct victim or specific threat to public safety involved, or cases that involve offences designed to regulate the conduct of some particular activity in the public interest where there is a minimal or no mental requirement needed to prosecute. In legal terms, this would mean cases where there is no mens rea or it is easy to prove mens rea.

We expect offences that are technically in scope of the legislation but which might not be suitable for the new procedure to be initially filtered out by prosecutors who make decisions on the handling of these types of cases on a daily basis. It will, of course, be for a single justice to decide whether a case is appropriate for this procedure, and he or she can refer it to the ordinary court at any time. I fully understand the temptation to try to limit or specify a list of offences to which the single justice procedure might apply. However, we have high-quality magistracy in this country who are well used to exercising their powers to determine the right forum within which cases should be heard.

Amendment 49B relates to the rights of the defendant under the single justice procedure. Our provisions allow the court to use the single justice procedure unless the defendant explicitly states that he or she does not want that to happen or intends to plead not guilty, in which case it will automatically be referred to a traditional magistrates’ court. The objective of the single justice procedure is to address the current situation, whereby a significant number of defendants fail to engage with the process at all. Although the effect of the amendment would be to allow a single justice to consider any case, regardless of the defendant’s response, I understand that the intention is to remove the ability of the single justice to hear cases where the defendant has not responded. I recognise that this may be in response to concerns about the assumption that, where a defendant does not engage, the case should nevertheless still be heard by a single justice. However, it should be remembered that the defendant will have the right to request a traditional hearing in open court at any point before his or her case is considered by the single justice. If a defendant does not know about the case until after it is finished, they can make a statutory declaration to that effect, which will start the proceedings again from the beginning.

Amendment 49C would introduce a new requirement that the documents sent to the defendant with the single justice procedure notice should include a copy of the submission from the DVLA informing the court of any penalty points on the defendant’s driver record. It is the explicit responsibility of the holder of a driving licence to ensure that it is kept up to date by surrendering it as and when required for details to be changed or endorsements added. If there are endorsements on a driving record that do not appear on the counterpart of the corresponding driving licence, the licence holder might well be committing a further separate offence. I assure noble Lords that courts will have direct access to DVLA records. The days that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, remembers of a moth-eaten driving licence being handed up to the justices have departed. A single justice will have information about an offender’s previous offences before them when trying a motoring offence.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

My Lords, I am sorry to disabuse the noble Lord, but those days are not departed. In fact, it is far more common for the defendant not to be able to produce a driving licence at all.

[Lord Faulks]

I defer to the noble Lord’s experience in that regard, although the new format of the driving licence makes it slightly less destructible than its predecessor. I maintain nevertheless that the courts do have access to the DVLA records, so, when trying a motoring offence, a single justice will have the information even if the defendant does not produce a driving licence at all. I am therefore confident that the safeguards we have built into this procedure make the amendment unnecessary.

Amendment 50AA would remove the provision that a court can decide a case under the single justice procedure other than in open court. That would undermine one of the main drivers behind this policy. We consider the time wasted and costs incurred in requiring magistrates to sit in open court and decide cases disproportionate in the type of straightforward, low-level cases that this procedure will apply to. Safeguards are in place to enable a prosecutor to ensure a case is heard in open court by issuing a requisition and a defendant to ensure the same by indicating his or her wishes in response to the single justice procedure notice. I reassure the noble Lord that the fact that a case is heard under the single justice procedure will not impact on the court’s duty to ensure that proceedings are open and transparent. The press and public will continue to have access to information about these cases, as they do now.

Amendment 50C would allow a single justice to hear and consider evidence from a party to the case if they turn up when the single justice is considering the case. In practice, parties will not know when a case will be considered by a single justice under this new procedure, so it is extremely unlikely that this situation would occur. However, there is a risk that it could be seen as encouraging prosecutors to turn up and assist the court. That could be perceived as unfair and unequal, particularly if the case was being heard other than in open court. We could not allow evidence to be heard by a magistrate when a single justice was making a decision, as that would lead to unfairness if the other party had not been given the opportunity to consider that evidence. In any case, there is clear provision in the Bill stating that when a person wants to be heard by a magistrates’ court, they are perfectly able to request a hearing.

Amendment 51B would introduce a legislative requirement to publish in advance details of cases to be heard under the single justice procedure and to publish the outcome of these cases. It is, of course, vital that the media and the public continue to have access to information on these cases under the new single justice procedure. However, the appropriate place for such provisions is within the Criminal Procedure Rules. Those make it clear that certain specified information must be made available to journalists and other members of the public on request. The rules also allow the court to make certain additional case information available to third parties on request. The Criminal Procedure Rule Committee will be invited to review the Criminal Procedure Rules to make sure that they are fit for purpose for the single justice procedure.

I can reassure the noble Lord that the fact that a case is heard under the single justice procedure will not impact on the court’s duty to ensure the proceedings are open and transparent. The press and public will continue to have access to information about cases, as they do now. There is a protocol in place between Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service, the Newspaper Society and the Society of Editors whereby magistrates’ courts routinely make written lists of cases and results available to local media, most often by e-mail. This arrangement will continue.

Amendment 52A introduces another condition on which a defendant can make a statutory declaration so that, in addition to being unaware of the proceedings, the defendant can state that they did not understand the information contained in the single justice procedure notice and the accompanying documents. This deals with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, about things such as language difficulties. The associated documentation sent to defendants under the single justice procedure will be no more complex that the documentation which is currently sent in this type of case; indeed, we are confident that the flexibility afforded by this new procedure will enable us to make the whole system for these cases more easily understood by defendants. As with the existing process, prosecutors have developed strategies to identify those who may require further assistance and Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service is also considering, as part of implementation planning, how it will continue to discharge its duty to provide assistance to unrepresented defendants. The provisions, as set out, provide magistrates’ courts with the flexibility they need to operate the single magistrate procedure effectively while ensuring that the rights of defendants are protected.

I will say a little more about the suggestion put forward by the noble Lord about the availability of information on case outcomes. I agree that the information should be available as soon as possible after the trial has concluded. In both cases, the noble Lord suggests that this should be within 21 days. However, such detailed procedure should not be contained within the legislation itself. As I said earlier, the appropriate place for such detail is within the Criminal Procedure Rules.

We know that journalists and the general public seldom attend to watch this type of hearing and this is the reason behind the protocol to which I referred. As to the listing, we accept that it is vital for there to be access to information and we anticipate that cases will initially be listed in the same court buildings as they are at the moment. This arrangement with local media will replicate exactly what currently happens in practice. In future, we will want to take advantage of the fact that consideration of cases in writing can happen anywhere, and maximise the efficiency that can be derived from this greater flexibility. In doing so, we will want to maintain flexibility and transparency.

There are opportunities, as part of the criminal justice system digitisation agenda, to look more radically at how we can use the opportunities of digital to preserve and perhaps enhance open justice. It is our intention to make case information available on a self-service basis and enable the press and public to access cases in real time and follow the progress of the digital process online in a more meaningful way than they can at present. The rule committee will be invited to review the rules to ensure they are fit for purpose for the single justice procedure. I am sure that such a review will want to take into account the proposals made by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. Any necessary amendments can be made, subject to annulment by either House of Parliament in the usual way.

I hope that, in the course of rather too long a response to those amendments, I have been able to allay any concerns and explain the thinking behind the single justice procedure. With that reassurance, I hope noble Lords will not press the amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

That was a very thorough response for which I am extremely grateful, but one thought has just occurred to me in relation to some of the noble Lord’s later remarks. I may be wrong, but I understand that it is possible that some of these cases will be taken, as it were, to some other court and thus will not necessarily be heard in the place where the offence was committed. Perhaps I have misunderstood the noble Lord, but if that is right, does that not make the question of the openness of the process in terms of recording the outcome more difficult? There will not be a local reporter in, say, Newcastle for a case that has been transferred from there to Middlesbrough. Perhaps the noble Lord could look into this because I would be interested to hear his views on it. I think that it would be regrettable. If we are to have this process, it should be based in the local court where the offence occurred and where it would normally be dealt with.

18:30

[Lord Faulks]

Perhaps I may look into that and confirm the position in writing to all those who have taken part in this debate.

Amendment 49 agreed.

Amendment 49A not moved.

Clause 36, as amended, agreed.

Clause 37 agreed.

Clause 38: Trial by single justice on the papers

Amendments 49B and 49C not moved.

Amendment 50

Moved by

[Lord Faulks]

50: Clause 38, page 37, leave out lines 9 to 12 and insert—
“(3) The court may not hear any oral evidence and may consider only the contents of the following—
(a) the documents specified in subsection (2),(b) any document containing information to which subsection (3A) applies, and(c) any written submission that the accused makes with a view to mitigation of sentence.(3A) This subsection applies to information if—
(a) a notice describing the information was served on the accused at the same time as the documents specified in subsection (2), and(b) a copy of the notice has been served on the designated officer specified in the single justice procedure notice.”

Amendment 50 agreed.

Amendment 50A, as an amendment to Amendment 50, not moved.

Amendments 50AA to 50C not moved.

Amendment 51

Moved by

[Lord Faulks]

51: Clause 38, page 37, line 19, at end insert—
“( ) If the accused served on the designated officer specified in the notice a written notification stating a desire to plead guilty and to be tried in accordance with this section, the court may try the charge as if the accused had pleaded guilty.”

Amendment 51 agreed.

Amendments 51A and 51B not moved.

Amendment 52

Moved by

[Lord Faulks]

52: Clause 38, page 37, line 32, leave out “try the written charge” and insert “convict the accused in proceedings conducted”

Amendment 52 agreed.

Amendment 52A not moved.

Amendment 53

Moved by

[Lord Faulks]

53: Clause 38, page 40, line 7, at end insert—
“16F Admissibility of statements
(1) A statement contained in a document is admissible in proceedings conducted in accordance with section 16A as evidence of a matter stated if, in the particular case—
(a) the document is one in relation to which section 16A(1)(c) is satisfied, or(b) section 16A(3A) applies to the information in that document (as the case may be).(2) Subsection (1) does not prevent a court taking into consideration the nature of the evidence placed before it when deciding whether it is appropriate to try the written charge in accordance with section 16A.
(3) In this section “statement” means any representation of fact or opinion.”

Amendment 53 agreed.

Clause 38, as amended, agreed.

Clause 39: Trial by single justice on the papers: sentencing etc

Amendment 54

Moved by

[Lord Faulks]

54: Clause 39, page 40, line 32, at end insert—
“( ) making an order under section 30A of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 (order to disregard penalty points if approved course attended);”

Amendment 54 agreed.

Clause 39, as amended, agreed.

Clause 40 agreed.

Amendment 55 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.

Amendment 55A

Moved by

[Lord Low of Dalston]

55A: After Clause 40, insert the following new Clause—
“Protection arrangements for children and dependants
(1) The Criminal Justice Act 2003 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 174 (duty to give reasons for, and explain effect of, sentence) insert—
“174A  Duty to ask about children etc left behind
(1) Directions must be made in accordance with Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 to secure the results referred to in this section.
(2) Immediately after a court has given its decision to pass an immediate custodial sentence on a defendant who was on bail when awaiting sentence, the court must ask whether the defendant has children or elderly, disabled or otherwise vulnerable adults dependent on them for their care (“dependants”), and, if the defendant or any other person in court states that the defendant does have such responsibility, the court must ask what arrangements there are for their care.
(3) If it appears that there are no arrangements in place for any such dependants, the court must either —
(a) allow the defendant to make a telephone call to secure such arrangements, or(b) direct any appropriately skilled person present in the court to make enquiries with the aim of ensuring that such dependants are provided with suitable short-term care to meet their needs;where necessary, this may require contacting the appropriate local authority children’s or adult social care team.”(3) The Bail Act 1976 is amended as follows.
(4) In section 5 (supplementary provisions about decisions on bail), after subsection (5) insert—
“(5A) Directions must be made in accordance with Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 to secure the results referred to in subsections (5B) and (5C).
(5B) Immediately after a court gives its decision to withhold bail in criminal proceedings from a person to whom section 4 of this Act applies, the court must ask whether the defendant has children or elderly, disabled or otherwise vulnerable adults dependent on them for their care (“dependants”), and, if the defendant or any other person in court states that the defendant does have such responsibility, the court must ask what arrangements there are for their care while the defendant is on remand in custody.
(5C) If it appears that there are no arrangements in place for any such dependants, the court must either—
(a) allow the defendant to make a telephone call to secure such arrangements, or(b) direct any appropriately skilled person present in the court to make enquiries with the aim of ensuring that such dependants are provided with suitable short-term care to meet their needs;where necessary, this may require contacting the appropriate local authority children’s or adult social care team.”(5) The provisions inserted by this section shall come into force two months after the day on which this Act is passed.”

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I can be quite brief. This amendment arises from a conversation which began at Second Reading when the noble Lord, Lord Blair, and I identified the problem of children and vulnerable adults who are dependent on an adult who is sentenced to a prison sentence being left without support when the offender is sent to prison. It is estimated that some 200,000 children have a parent in prison at any one time, which is nearly three times the number of children in the care system. They are twice as likely as other children to experience behaviour and mental health problems, and three times as likely to go on to commit an offence themselves. Sixty-five per cent of boys with a convicted father will themselves go on to offend. Therefore, there is an obvious need for these people to be picked up and supported, yet there is no official way of identifying them or ensuring that their need for support is taken care of.

Organisations such as Barnardo’s and other members of the Families Left Behind campaign report from their work in prisons that a lack of identification of the children or vulnerable adults dependent on a parent or carer remanded in custody or sentenced to imprisonment often puts the child or vulnerable adult at risk. They have records of cases where children have been left with friends or neighbours as a temporary measure and are then passed on to other friends or associates; cases where children have been left with individuals who misuse drugs and alcohol; cases of children left at school with no one to collect them and with no one contacting the school; and cases of children left with elderly relatives, relatives with disabilities, relatives in distress or relatives living in poverty who have offered to step in to provide emergency care but do not really have the resources to do so.

In the past, the probation service would have stepped in to bridge the gap but, with the probation service progressively becoming more of an offender management and less of a social service, a vacuum has opened up. In 2011, with the support of the NSPCC, Action for Prisoners’ Families and HM Courts and Tribunals Service, Pact published a range of resources aimed at promoting good practice in relation to children and dependent adults whose primary carers had been sent to prison, including guidance asking magistrates to check that there were no immediate welfare needs. Three years on, however, it is clear that many courts are not following this guidance, and there continues to be a lack of awareness of the need to make sure that arrangements are in place for the care of children and dependants of people placed in custody. Accordingly, the Families Left Behind campaign is calling for a statutory duty to be placed on courts to ask an individual, when they are sentenced to prison or held on remand, whether they have any dependants. If they do, steps can then be taken to ensure that appropriate care arrangements are in place.

At Second Reading, the Minister acknowledged the problem and undertook to consider it. I am very grateful to him for the constructive discussions he has made possible and to the members of the Bill team for the positive contribution they have made and for all their help in getting the amendment right. As a result, I am hopeful that we now have an amendment that the Government can broadly support. The Minister felt that a statutory duty might be a bit heavy-handed and suggested that the amendment might be better couched in terms of guidance. Accordingly, the amendment now seeks to achieve its effect through directions, although I note that the word “duty” remains in the heading of the proposed new clause. The Minister may have something to say about that.

The amendment would amend the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and the Bail Act 1976 to put in place a system for courts to establish whether an individual sentenced to prison or held on remand has children or vulnerable adults who are dependent on them and who may need immediate welfare support. The proposal is that, immediately following the decision to send someone to prison, the defendant will be asked by the court whether they have children or vulnerable adults dependent on them and, if so, whether care arrangements are in place. If there are no such arrangements, the defendant will be given the opportunity to make a phone call to family members to inform them about the situation and make the necessary short-term arrangements, such as for collecting a child from school or nursery, or ensuring that they are not left at home alone. If this does not achieve a satisfactory result, the court should direct an appropriately qualified person in the court—for example, probation staff, the defendant’s legal representative, court staff, a voluntary sector organisation or a police liaison officer—to take specific action before the defendant leaves court. Where necessary, this may entail contacting the appropriate local authority children’s or adult social care team.

I hope the amendment may give us a basis for moving ahead consensually on a matter which, once pointed out, has prompted concern across the whole House. I beg to move.

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Low, in this matter and I am grateful to the Minister for the co-operation that he and his office have shown in relation to the amendment.

I declare an interest as the chairman of the Thames Valley Partnership, a criminal justice organisation which, as it says on the tin, is in the Thames Valley. I came across this problem in relation to some of the partnership’s work, as there is at the moment absolutely no statutory requirement for anyone, for instance, to inform a school that a child attending the school has a parent who is now in prison. The failure to do this is also often compounded by the embarrassment of the other parent. She is not going to mention it but the other children in the playground will know who has just had their father sent to prison and the bullying and exclusion start. This relatively short amendment, which imposes the lightest of requirements on the sentencers, fills an obvious lacuna.

I apologise to the House that I was not in attendance for the first 30 seconds of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Low, so I do not know whether he mentioned the fact that the numbers are vast—200,000 children, which is three times the number in care. Obviously, that is not every year in terms of sentences but there is a long-term impact. Some of the work done by the Thames Valley Partnership shows that children increasingly, as they grow older into their teenage years, lose contact with the parent in long-term custody.

I hope the Government will accept the amendment. I understand there are a number of routes we can take between now and Report. Whether this is done through statute or practice direction, I hope that we can close the gap which leaves children vulnerable when some parts of the agencies of the state know what has happened but are not talking to one another.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, my name is on the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Low, has made a powerful speech. I do not intend to repeat his arguments and I shall not detain the Committee long.

In this case we must surely be seeking a balance. There is the need to ensure that the position of children or dependents of a person detained in custody is properly protected at a time of considerable trauma and family disturbance. The impact on the children of a parent, particularly a mother, going to jail has been well documented—it has been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and in briefings that your Lordships will have received from Barnardo’s and other NGOs—and that is one side of the balance. The other side of the balance is that we have to do this without tying up the courts in extensive bureaucratic form filling, much of which is time consuming and may prove ineffective. It is the balance between those two considerations that Amendment 55A seeks to achieve.

All that remains for me to do is to thank the Minister, his officials and, indeed, the Government for the courtesy they have shown in considering this difficult matter. I hope that this redrafted amendment will commend itself to him.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Low, and other noble Lords on Amendment 55A. I do so having supported a similar amendment to the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill in November 2013, to which an amendment was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, with my support. This is a straightforward request. It simply requires the courts to inquire whether individuals who are refused bail or are sentenced to prison have caring responsibilities for any children or vulnerable adults; and, if they do, to allow them or another—probably social services—to take the appropriate action to provide care and support. With representatives of the Families Left Behind campaign, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and I had a very good meeting with the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who was very helpful and encouraging to us at that time. I was even more encouraged later when I received a reply to a letter I had sent to Lord Justice Gross, the senior presiding judge in England and Wales, who agreed to reissue existing guidelines to the courts on this matter. Although that is certainly most welcome, we need to underpin the whole issue with this amendment.

18:45

Young children and vulnerable adults are being put at risk, and we have a chance to do something about it. The proposed change would not have any bearing on decisions of the courts about length of sentence or whether or not bail should be granted. It would place no burden at all on the courts to make care arrangements. It is simply a safety net and, had it existed before, the cases which were brought to my attention would not have occurred. A seven year-old boy would not have been neglected and left alone when his mother was sentenced. A woman, on being sentenced, was not aware where her daughter had been placed and a social worker had to make calls to four different councils before finding that the child had been hospitalised. There was a case where a 19 year-old was left in charge of five brothers and sisters when his mother was unexpectedly denied bail.

The noble Lord, Lord Low, and others, have already referred to the fact that 200,000 children in England and Wales live with the experience of a parent being in prison. There are no figures available for the number of vulnerable adults who might suddenly be without a carer who is imprisoned. However, that figure, too, is likely to be significant when we consider that the prison population is around 80,000 and one in eight adults in Britain is a carer. This is a big problem, which would become much smaller if this amendment were agreed to. I hope the Minister sees the sense in this.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I also support the noble Lord, Lord Low, and other noble Lords on Amendment 55A, which will help meet the needs of a vulnerable group of people. As we have heard, they are children and adults dependent on someone who is sent to prison. This amendment is supported by the Families Left Behind campaign, which includes a number of organisations that offer support to the children and families of offenders through direct provision of services, advocacy and research. One such organisation is the children’s charity Barnardo’s, and I declare an interest as one of its vice-presidents.

In an Oral Question last year, I asked the Government to give consideration to this issue by putting measures in place to protect vulnerable children. Barnardo’s has found that children of prisoners are a highly vulnerable group who are twice as likely to experience depression and problems with mental health, alcohol and drug abuse. They are more likely to live in poverty and poor accommodation or to be part of the care system. We have recently been hearing about how many children and young people have been abused while in care—something which destroyed their lives for ever and imprisoned them. Sadly, many of these young people go on to offend and are disproportionately represented among young offenders. These children suffer through no fault of their own.

The reasons for parental imprisonment often relate to family problems, including domestic violence or drug and alcohol abuse. This is not a perfect environment for any child to be brought up in. It can seem to them that the whole world is against them. Despite all this, there is currently no requirement to identify any child or dependent adult that an individual remanded or sentenced to prison may be leaving behind. Believe it or not, there is not even the slightest check on arrangements for their safety, care or well-being. Therefore, these children—as we have heard, there are around 200,000 of them—are unlikely to be offered any targeted support because often there is no record of them and no requirement to identify them. Disturbingly, they are not known to children’s services.

This is why Barnardo’s and the Families Left Behind campaign call for the introduction of a statutory duty on courts to ask whether an individual has dependants when they are sentenced or held on remand, in order that it can be confirmed that appropriate care arrangements are in place. This will not impact on courts’ resources or create any additional work. It will just be a case of asking two simple questions. Barnardo’s has found that defendants will not necessarily volunteer this information without being asked.

Therefore, I ask the Minister whether the Government will create a statutory duty on courts to identify defendants who have children dependent on them. By collecting this data, we will be better placed to detect vulnerable children with a parent in prison and ensure that these children get the support they need. Like the Families Left Behind campaign, I believe that Amendment 55A will ensure that children and adults are better protected when their loved ones are in prison.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I, too, have had correspondence from those very concerned about this issue. I do not intend to take up your Lordships’ time by going further into this whole matter, but in as far as this is not already in place it clearly needs to be, and the sooner it is put into effect the better. I am still rather surprised that it does not exist automatically as a natural procedure in court.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

My Lords, first, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Low, for not being in the Chamber for the whole of his contribution. I wish to make a couple of points. The first is that this is good practice within magistrates’ courts at the moment. Certainly, every court I have sat in has made these inquiries. Nevertheless, I take the point that it may not be universal practice and it may not be a statutory requirement.

Secondly, I wanted to pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blair, about informing the schools and so on. It seems to me that this amendment does not go that far; all it does is allow the defendant to make a telephone call. Some of the defendants I see in front of me would make a telephone call, but one might not have confidence in the telephone call that they made. Therefore, I think there needs to be a more active inquiry by, for example, social services or the probation service about the possibility of dependants at home. Nevertheless, I agree with the objectives of the amendment. I look forward to the Minister’s response about the practicalities and also whether the amendment goes far enough.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

I am delighted to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Low of Dalston, Lord Blair and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. With their wide range of experience they have correctly identified that, despite the best of intentions, the support of the Courts Service and of charities, in too many cases courts are not making sufficient checks with regard to the immediate welfare needs of children and dependent adults. The amendment seeks to put in the Bill what should happen at present but has clearly not been delivered in many cases, and that is a matter of much regret. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blair, that this is a fairly small measure but it deals with an important issue that needs to be addressed.

My noble friend Lord Touhig told the House of a number of young people and children who were put into difficult situations because simple provisions were not in place. I agree also with many noble Lords when they said that the children of prisoners were a highly vulnerable group of people who need to be looked after.

As the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, explained to the Committee, the amendment will require the courts to inquire of a defendant who has been sentenced or remanded to prison whether they have dependants and whether arrangements have been made for them. If they have not, they would be allowed to make a phone call to make arrangements or, where that is not possible, the court could direct someone to take action before the defendant leaves court.

People sometimes need to be sent to prison. All this amendment does is to seek to ensure that adequate immediate provision is made for dependants. As the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said, all we are requesting is for two simple questions to be asked. I do not think this amendment in any way places a burden on the courts that could not be handled. If the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, is going to say that, I hope he will explain very carefully why he thinks that is the case and answer the point that I and other noble Lords have made in this debate, which is that the voluntary provision has failed and that continued failure is likely to cost far more to dependants and to their welfare.

I see the provision working fairly simply. When I sat in court as a magistrate, although that was some time ago, courts adjourned for all sorts of reasons. It is very easy for questions to be asked and action taken. It is also true that in many cases, especially if the defendant fully expects to receive a custodial sentence, arrangements for dependants will have already been made.

All we are looking for is a clear set of proportionate responses to come into play with the welfare of the dependants of someone who has received a custodial sentence at their heart. I hope that the Government can either accept this amendment or at least look at this issue again and the problems that have been identified before we come back to it on Report.

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, the amendment from the noble Lords, Lord Low and Lord Blair, and my noble friend Lord Hodgson, seeks to place a statutory duty on a court to inquire into the arrangements for care of dependants of those being sent into custody. I recognise that the proposed new clause is a revised version of one debated by this House during the passage of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill 2013. I welcome the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and the interest that he continues to show in this important issue, just as I welcome the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, with her connections with Barnardo’s. I should also reiterate that I was grateful, too, for the opportunity to discuss some of the details of the previous version of this new clause, not the one that finds its way into the amendment, with the noble Lords whose names appear on the amendment, together with some staff from Barnardo’s.

As my noble friend and predecessor in this position, my noble friend Lord McNally, said last year, the Government completely understand the concern behind this proposed new clause. We should all be concerned with the welfare of children and other dependants of those who are about to be sent into custody. I do not disagree with anything noble Lords have said about the importance of protecting these children and vulnerable adults. We should all recognise that the children of those sent into custody can be subject to immediate risks to their welfare, and there is the risk that they themselves will fall into crime.

The Government support the desire to identify and ensure that children of offenders are cared for. Unfortunately, the Government cannot accept this new clause, even in its revised form, for the reasons that I will explain. The new amendment seeks, via an amendment to the Criminal Justice Act 2003, to require the Lord Chief Justice to issue a practice direction under his powers in the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. In this way, Parliament is being asked to approve a provision which would require the Lord Chief Justice to issue a practice direction and require the Lord Chief Justice to issue a direction with the particular content set out in this proposed new clause. This, noble Lords will appreciate, would amount to an inappropriate restriction on the Lord Chief Justice’s powers and discretion to issue practice directions which the Constitutional Reform Act is designed to protect. However, I understand the thinking behind this amendment and the Government agree that it would be better to approach this problem not by a statutory duty, but by more practical measures. This might include, via the independent bodies that are responsible for these things, guidance, practice directions or procedure rules.

We welcome the changes that noble Lords have made to the clause, which goes some way to addressing the concerns expressed in regard to the earlier version. We remain concerned, however, by the focus on post-sentence or post-remand consideration.

The proposed new clause applies only to the post-sentence process, or the process following the decision to withhold bail, but the existence of dependants is also of vital importance to the decision to remand or sentence to custody—in other words, pre-sentence. As for the Sentencing Council, the current sentencing guidelines already specifically mention care of dependants in relation to the approach to the sentencing decision. There is a clear process for making representations to the court with regard to sentence. Information supplied post-sentence, although it may help with making care arrangements once a person is sent into custody, is simply too late to enable the court to consider the full circumstances of the offender.

19:00

The need to care for children, and the impact of the loss of a parent or carer, is a well established mitigating factor in sentencing. As the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, said, it is often at the forefront of inquiries made by the court, and it is likely that anyone represented is bound to explain, through their lawyer, the circumstances that exist in an offender’s home. The weight to be given to the impact of separating a parent and child is set out in case law. The courts can, and in certain circumstances must, consider and inquire into the potential impact of a custodial sentence on dependants. If they do not where it is relevant, that could give rise to an appeal against the sentence. We therefore encourage information about dependants to be placed before the court as soon as possible.

I should make it clear that the Government have never had any concerns about the consideration of dependants before sentence being likely to lead to “soft sentences”. As I have indicated, it is clearly a responsibility of the court to consider these factors in remand and sentencing decisions. This amendment, I suggest to noble Lords, would place a specific requirement on the Lord Chief Justice and is too focused on the post-sentence process.

In view of the importance of this, I will say a little more about specific issues which arise, in particular as regards female offenders. I will mention some practical things that are already happening and how we might develop things further. I start by making the point that offenders who are primary carers are likely to be —although they will not always be—women. The National Offender Management Service already takes steps to ensure that dependants of women sentenced to custody are identified and their needs addressed. Prison Service orders state that, as part of the reception into custody process, female prisoners should be offered at least one free phone call to enable them to resolve urgent family and childcare issues. Women should be allowed more than one call where it is necessary to sort out complicated childcare arrangements.

We are developing the custodial estate so that women who the courts have decided must go into custody can stay closer to home and maintain links with their families. Under our transforming rehabilitation reforms, all women’s prisons are to become resettlement prisons—I am due to visit Holloway this Friday. This will mean that most female prisoners will serve their sentence as close to their home, and importantly their children, as possible, which is vital if we are to help women break the pernicious cycle of reoffending. In addition, as part of the implementation of the estate review, the provision of family days in women’s prisons is being reviewed, with a view to developing and increasing the number of events held across the women’s estate. This work is being taken forward with input from governors, commissioners and members of the advisory board on female offenders.

I have stressed that we consider it is too late if we are identifying dependants after the sentencing decision, but this has to be an issue that we look at in the criminal justice system as a whole. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Blair, will agree that the police have an important role here. It is often the police who have the best information on the existence of children and are likely to be the first authority to detain a person, and therefore to have an impact on any dependants. We need to ensure that information on dependants that is gathered at all stages of the criminal process is recorded and shared where appropriate.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My noble friend talks about the importance of this information being inquired about before sentencing. But is it not better that it should be inquired about at some point rather than not at all?

[Lord Faulks]

I entirely agree with my noble friend. It is important that it should be acquired before sentence rather than after sentence.

The Children Act 2004 already requires inter-agency co-operation to safeguard and promote the well-being of the child. It is important that probation staff—albeit that in the view of the noble Lord, Lord Low, they have become more concerned with offender management —those working in court or those preparing pre-sentence reports have a responsibility to consider the impact of custody on an offender’s children. All those who have read such reports will realise that that is almost always a central feature of them. If there is a likelihood of custody then children’s services will be alerted by probation to ensure that arrangements are in place to safeguard the well-being of any children. We are working to ensure that this system of assessment and referral is as robust as possible for both pre-sentence report assessment and court practice. This is a very important role for the new National Probation Service.

Much reference was made to the existence of troubled families, and quite rightly so. The Government understand the challenges and poor outcomes faced by children dealing with parental imprisonment, including higher risk of mental illness, poor educational outcomes and offending in later life. I agree it is important that these families receive appropriate support, alongside support for offenders’ rehabilitation and for tackling inter- generational offending. We have already had conversations with organisations such as Barnardo’s to discuss the issues raised by its report On the Outside, published in May this year, and intend to expand our discussions wider to other government colleagues, criminal justice system agencies and practitioners such as legal representatives.

The scope of this approach is potentially very wide—childcare is obviously a pressing concern—but there are also other concerns for families of offenders: financial support, continuing accommodation and so on. This is another reason why it is simply not realistic for the criminal courts to step in and manage an offender’s life after they have been convicted. However, there is a role for government here. That is why we are working across government, and in partnership with local authorities under the troubled families programme, to turn around the lives of 120,000 families suffering from the most complex problems by May 2015. We have already announced an expansion of the programme to an additional 400,000 families from 2015-16. The next phase of the programme will focus on families with a broader range of problems.

I should also mention the important role of the charitable voluntary sector. My noble friend Lord McNally has in the past paid tribute to the work that organisations such as Pact have done and continue to do to support the families of those in custody. I add my own appreciation of that important work and my commitment that the Government will look at how we can both publicise and support the services those organisations provide. I am glad to hear that Lord Justice Gross is concerned that some further guidance should be given in relation to the problem identified by the amendment.

[Lord Touhig]

Perhaps I did not make it clear that, in his reply to me, Lord Justice Gross said he would reissue the existing guidelines, not set out any new ones.

[Lord Faulks]

I am grateful for that clarification. Perhaps reissuing the guidance will bring it home to those who see it. Perhaps for the first time it will remind them of the pre-existing obligation.

I started my response with a list of reasons why the Government could not accept the proposed new clause, but we believe that the issue should be addressed. It is a difficult area but we are now making progress in developing consensus on the best approach. I hope we can continue to work with noble Lords who have consistently shown an interest in this matter, with Barnardo’s, with the judiciary and with the legal profession to develop the best way to tackle this issue. Although I cannot accept the amendment, we are very much concerned to ensure that nobody should slip through the net in the way that the amendment is directed. I hope that, with the reassurance I have given, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

The amendment identifies a problem. The Government refer to guidance and advice. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, said that in his court there is not a problem. What worries me is that there will be best practice in lots of courts but there will be one or two cases where that is not the case. That is why we want this duty on the face of the Bill. I am worried that guidance will not be enough. That is my main problem.

[Lord Faulks]

In fact, the amendment places a statutory duty on the Lord Chief Justice. Of course, whatever one does in terms of guidance, not all courts are necessarily going to be as good as each other, but we hope that, by taking various different steps, we can ensure, in so far as it is possible, that the problem that can exist is unlikely to arise in practice.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Is the noble Lord saying that if the amendment was worded to put a duty on the courts and not on the Lord Chief Justice, the Government would look at that?

[Lord Faulks]

No, I am saying that I do not think that a statutory duty is the answer.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have spoken in this debate. It bears out my contention that there is concern about this issue across the House. Indeed, that concern is shared by the Government. Like the Minister, I would hope that we are not yet at the end of this discussion and that discussions and work can continue with a view to finding a solution around which we can all unite. We have a bit of time because of the Recess and we will not be coming back to this until Report in the autumn. In particular, I would like to thank the Minister for his meticulous reply, to which I have listened carefully. There are obviously a number of issues that need to be addressed. There was the question that the amendment related purely to after sentence. We put that in because we were concerned about issues of this kind contaminating the sentencing process. However, if the noble Lord feels that that is not an issue, that can certainly be revisited. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, made some useful points about the inadequacy, perhaps, of a telephone call and that in some respects it is important that whatever process we put in place should go further than this amendment. I very much welcome having further discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, about that and seeing whether there are ways in which we can take account of the concerns that he raised.

The most important points came from the Minister about the inappropriateness of trying to achieve what we want to achieve through a practice direction. We thought that, in that way, we were seeking to put in place a more light-touch process than creating a statutory duty, but if that is not appropriate, we can certainly revisit that and avoid trying to do things by statutory practice direction—trying to effect practice directions by referring to them in the amendment.

I would make this point, to which I think the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, also referred. The Minister indicates that we should work through a range of pragmatic steps that can be taken by a variety of bodies and that they might be collected together in guidance, but there is evidence that guidance is not working. There is guidance around but there is still a problem. I continue to feel that there is a need for whatever we put in place to have a statutory basis. Therefore, I would like to continue discussions with the Minister to see whether we can get a statutory basis with which he is happier and which would give what we are all trying to achieve a bit more teeth than the guidance, which is not working, would appear to have. With those remarks and, in the hope that we can do more work over the summer and come back with an agreed result in the autumn, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 55A withdrawn.

19:15

Schedule 7: Trial by single justice on the papers: further amendments

Amendments 56 to 63

Moved by

[Lord Faulks]

56: Schedule 7, page 101, line 39, at end insert—
“( ) After subsection (1) insert—
“(1A) The documents falling within subsection (1)(a) include a summons directed to a person that is issued after the person’s trial has begun.””

57: Schedule 7, page 102, line 7, at end insert—
“3A In section 11 (non-appearance of accused: general provisions), after subsection (5) insert—
“(5A) Subsection (4) does not apply in relation to proceedings adjourned under section 16C(3)(a) because of section 16C(2) (adjournment of a section 16A trial because the accused indicates a wish to make representations).””

58: Schedule 7, page 102, line 7, at end insert—
“3B In section 123 (defect in process), after subsection (2) insert—
“(3) In the application of this section to proceedings conducted in accordance with section 16A—
(a) a reference in subsection (1) or (2) to evidence adduced on behalf of the prosecutor at a hearing is to be read as a reference to evidence placed before the court on behalf of the prosecutor, and(b) subsection (2) is to be read as if for the words from “has been misled” to the end there were substituted “is likely to have been misled by the variance, the court shall treat the written charge as not being appropriate for trial in accordance with section 16A.””

59: Schedule 7, page 102, line 34, at end insert—
“5A The Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 is amended as follows.
5B (1) Section 7 (duty of accused to provide licence) is amended as follows.
(2) After subsection (1) insert—
“(1A) Subsection (1B) applies where—
(a) proceedings in relation to an offence involving obligatory or discretionary disqualification are instituted by a written charge and a single justice procedure notice,(b) the person prosecuted is the holder of a licence, and(c) after being convicted in proceedings conducted in accordance with section 16A of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, the person is given the opportunity to make representations or further representations under section 16C(2)(a) of that Act. “(1B) Where this subsection applies, the person must (instead of complying with subsection (1))—
(a) cause the licence to be delivered to the designated officer specified in the single justice procedure notice within such period as the person is allowed for indicating a wish to make such representations,(b) post it, at such time that in the ordinary course of post it would be delivered within that period, in a letter duly addressed to that officer and either registered or sent by the recorded delivery service, or(c) if the person indicates a wish to make such representations, have the licence with him at the hearing appointed to be held because of that indication.“(1C) Subsection (1B) does not apply (and subsection (1) applies instead) if, before the period mentioned in subsection (1B)(a) comes to an end, a summons is issued under section 16B(3)(b) or 16C(3)(b) of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980.”
(3) In subsection (2)—
(a) for “In subsection (1) above “proper officer” means—” substitute “In this section—“proper officer” means—”, and(b) at the end insert—““single justice procedure notice” and “written charge” have the same meaning as in section 29 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.””

60: Schedule 7, page 102, line 41, at end insert—
“6A (1) Section 27 (production of licence) is amended as follows.
(2) After subsection (4) insert—
“(4A) Subsection (3) does not apply where section 7(1B) applies in relation to the proceedings and the holder of the licence—
(a) has caused a current receipt for the licence issued under section 56 to be delivered to the designated officer specified in the single justice procedure notice within the period described in section 7(1B)(a),(b) has posted it to that officer within that period in such manner as is described in section 7(1B)(b), or(c) surrenders such a receipt to the court at the hearing described in section 7(1B)(c),and produces the licence to the court immediately on its return.”(3) In subsection (5)—
(a) for “In subsection (4) above “proper officer” means—” substitute “In this section—“proper officer” means—”, and(b) at the end insert—““single justice procedure notice” has the same meaning as in section 29 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.””

61: Schedule 7, page 102, line 41, at end insert—
“Pension Schemes Act 1993 (c. 48)6B (1) Section 68 of the Pension Schemes Act 1993 (unpaid premiums: supplementary) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1), after “1980” insert “or in proceedings conducted in accordance with section 16A of that Act”.
(3) After subsection (1) insert—
“(1A) Where subsection (1) applies in relation to a person being tried in accordance with section 16A of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, the reference in subsection (1)(b) to the designated officer for the court is to be treated as including a reference to the designated officer for a magistrates’ court specified in the single justice procedure notice in question.””

62: Schedule 7, page 102, line 41, at end insert—
“Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 (c. 22)6C (1) Section 55 of the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 (guilty plea by absent accused and amount payable under section 30 or 36) is amended as follows.
(2) After subsection (2) insert—
“(2A) This section also applies if—
(a) a person is convicted of an offence under section 29 or 35A while being tried in accordance with section 16A of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 (trial by single justice on the papers), and(b) it is proved to the satisfaction of the court, in the manner prescribed by Criminal Procedure Rules, that a relevant notice was served on the accused with the written charge.”(3) In subsection (3)—
(a) in paragraph (a), for “in a case within subsection (1)(a)” substitute “if the offence is an offence under section 29”, and(b) in paragraph (b), for “in a case within subsection (1)(b)” substitute “if the offence is an offence under section 35A”.(4) In subsection (5), for “The court shall not so proceed” substitute “Where this section applies by virtue of subsection (1), the court shall not proceed as described in subsection (4)”.
(5) After subsection (5) insert—
“(6) Where this section applies by virtue of subsection (2A), the court shall not proceed as described in subsection (4) if the written notification served by the accused or the legal representative of the accused in accordance with the single justice procedure notice includes a statement that the amount specified in the relevant notice is inappropriate.
(7) In subsection (6) “single justice procedure notice” has the meaning given by section 29 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.””

63: Schedule 7, page 104, line 37, at end insert—
“Criminal Justice Act 2003 (c. 44)16 In section 164 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (fixing of fines), after subsection (5)(a) (but before the “or”) insert—
“(aa) an offender has been convicted in the offender’s absence in proceedings conducted in accordance with section 16A of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 (trial by single justice on the papers),”.”

Amendments 56 to 63 agreed.

Schedule 7, as amended, agreed.

Amendment 63A

Moved by

[Lord Faulks]

63A: Before Clause 41, insert the following new Clause—
“Low-value shoplifting: mode of trial
(1) In section 22A of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 (low-value shoplifting), in subsection (2) (right to elect trial by Crown Court), for paragraph (b) substitute—
“(b) the court must proceed in relation to the offence in accordance with section 51(1) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.”(2) In section 51 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (sending cases to Crown Court: adults), in subsection (2)(b), after “21,” insert “22A(2)(b),”.”

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, Amendment 63A is designed to provide clarity about the operation of Section 22A of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, inserted by Section 176 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which made low-value shop theft a summary offence. Your Lordships may recall that although theft from a shop of property valued at £200 or less became a summary offence, the defendant’s right to elect to be tried by the Crown Court was retained. Where it is exercised, Section 22A provides that the case is to be sent to the Crown Court. The basis on which the magistrates’ court would now do so is that once the defendant has elected, as the court has no option but to send to the Crown Court, the offence becomes indictable only and falls to be sent there on that basis under Section 51 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

Amendment 63A provides absolute clarity about the basis on which such a sending takes place as it is not sufficiently clear in the legislation. It makes clear that a low-value shoplifting case in which the defendant elects is to be treated in the same manner as an either way offence in which the defendant has elected. The magistrates’ courts will still be obliged to send the case to the Crown Court where the defendant elects and will continue to do so under Section 51 of the Crime and Disorder Act. Amendments 84A and 84B provide for that change to come into effect two months after the Bill is passed. Amendment 63F is required to put beyond doubt the role of the court in relation to the imposition of the criminal courts charge.

The Serious Crime Bill includes a provision that amends Section 13 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to make clear that the imposition of the confiscation order should not be taken into account when the court makes a victim surcharge order. That is because the court has no discretion over whether to impose victim surcharge, or how much. In a similar way, the court’s charge will be imposed by the court in any case where an adult is convicted of a criminal offence and the charge levels will be specified in secondary legislation. Amendment 63F therefore makes a similar change to Section 13 of the Proceeds of Crime Act to include the criminal court’s charge as an order in relation to which the imposition of a confiscation order should not be taken into account. I beg to move.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for explaining the amendments. I am not quite sure what difficulties have been occasioned by the subject of the first amendment, in particular, or whether this proposal will make any difference in the real world. Could the noble Lord kindly explain it a little further? Unless he can show that it has, in fact, led to difficulties, I am somewhat puzzled.

In respect of the second matter, I suppose the question of consistency is relevant. I wonder whether there has been any review of the impact of the victim surcharge order in relation to outstanding fines. This, of course, deals with the confiscation order but, as we have established, there is a huge backlog of confiscation orders that have not been enforced and fines that have not been collected. While this is a tidying-up exercise, the practical effect may be negligible unless considerably greater efforts are made to enforce both fines and confiscation orders. Perhaps the noble Lord will enlighten us as to what the Government will do about the substantial backlog running into, as I recall, something like £2 billion under these heads. Otherwise, this will become a cosmetic change, with no real likelihood of the grave current situation being improved. In fact, unless additional resources are provided, matters will potentially get worse since efforts are presumably not now being made which would be brought into the scope of the provisions on confiscation. That might be an added case load which there seems little realistic prospect of achieving. Perhaps the noble Lord could clarify, in respect of both these matters, where the Government are and, more particularly, what they will do to make sense of the confiscation order procedure under whatever head it takes.

[Lord Faulks]

The noble Lord asked whether any problems have arisen. We are not aware of any, but the purpose of the amendment is simply to clarify the position for the purposes of a good law. The Government’s view on the existing drafting is that, after election for trial, this offence is sent up under Section 51(2) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. The noble Lord is no doubt anxious to know the answer to the question. This is not stated clearly in the 2013 Act and the interpretation has consequences which, although not significant in practice, make little sense. One example is low-level shoplifting cases where the defendant, as elected, would be brought within the ambit of the unduly lenient sentence scheme. The present amendment clarifies the position and avoids the consequences; it is the simplest way to deal with the issue.

Amendment 63F is simply a consequential amendment to remove any possible doubt as to whether the court has any discretion over imposing the criminal courts charge or the level of that charge. It would not be appropriate for courts to exercise discretion over a charge that directly contributes to the funding of the courts, but we will consider the role of charging in the next group of amendments. If I may, I will deal then with the questions of charging and victim surcharge and the appropriateness of those.

Amendment 63A agreed.

Clause 41, as amended, agreed.

House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 8.24 pm.

Euro Area Crisis Update (EUC Report)

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Lords Chamber

Question for Short Debate

19:25

Tabled by

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the Report of the European Union Committee on the Euro area crisis: an update (11th Report, Session 2013–14, HL Paper 163).

[Lord Harrison (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Boswell of Aynho, and at his request, I beg leave to ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the report of the European Union Committee on the Euro area crisis: an update. I thank my colleagues behind the scenes—namely, Stuart Stoner, our indefatigable clerk, Sarah Yusuf, Rose Crabtree and Katie Kochmann—who all helped and contributed over the years to these important deliberations.

I am delighted to speak to this short debate on the Euro area crisis: an update. This work was undertaken by the Economic and Financial Affairs Sub-Committee, which I chair. The report brings together four short update inquiries undertaken since the European Union Committee’s previous February 2012 report on the crisis. The most recent update was undertaken in February and March 2014. We heard from a stellar line-up of witnesses, including: Senator Mario Monti, former Prime Minister of Italy and a former Commissioner; likewise Erkki Liikanen, a former Commissioner, now the governor of the Bank of Finland and author, of course, of the Liikanen report on the European Union banking structural reform; Sir Jon Cunliffe, erstwhile UK ambassador to the European Union and now deputy governor for financial stability at the Bank of England; as well as a panel of economic experts, which included the Mayor of London’s chief economic adviser, Gerard Lyons.

We took as our starting point a very simple question: was the euro area crisis over? The answer we received was that the crisis had undoubtedly eased. In particular, the existential crisis afflicting the euro had diminished, in no small part thanks to the European Central Bank president Mario Draghi’s authoritative commitment in 2012 to “do whatever it takes” to save the euro. There were other encouraging signs: the reduction in sovereign bond spreads; Ireland’s exit from its adjustment programme; the entry of Latvia into the single currency; the hint from Poland—not only in terms of its financial line-up but even from so venerable a colleague as Lech Walesa—that it also had aspirations to join the euro; the return to growth in many member states; and even a growing confidence in Greece, the epicentre of the crisis. I thank also the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, who presides over the European Union Committee. He and I were in Athens recently at a COSAC meeting to hear of a very good report that was given by Prime Minister Samaras.

Having said that, we found that fundamental weaknesses remained, including: the extremely high levels of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment; immense economic imbalances between core and periphery member states of the eurozone; anaemic growth; inhibited bank lending, particularly to small businesses; and perhaps incomplete and uncompleted structural reforms in a number of the member states. There was also an overstrong euro on the exchange rates. Perhaps most of all, there were growing fears of a damaging deflationary spiral. All of this fed into wider political tensions about the effect of the austerity on the lives of European Union citizens—tensions that the May 2014 European parliamentary elections in part illustrate.

Our conclusion was that, while the crisis may have abated, it would be wholly unwise to conclude that the storm had entirely passed. In particular, the economic fragility of many member states meant that the euro area remained vulnerable to future shocks. Events since the publication of our report have borne this judgment out. The recent crisis of the Portuguese Banco Espírito Santo led to nervous jitters spreading across the euro area periphery. Industrial production remains low and overall growth is running at only 0.2% a quarter. The recovery remains as ill balanced as ever, as Germany leaves other members of the single currency in its wake—although even with Germany more recently there has been some holding back in its traditional economic growth. Inflation is currently running at only 0.5%, as growth continues to bump along. The threat of a prolonged period of low inflation or even a deflationary spiral looms ever larger. The European Central Bank was applauded for its action in June of this year, when it announced that the deposit rate for banks would be cut from zero to minus 0.1%, alongside targeted long-term refinancing operations, and yet the jury is out as to whether these measures will have any tangible effect.

The euro area crisis has also had a prolonged impact on the EU institutions. The European Central Bank has emerged with well deserved credit for its handling of the crisis. Nevertheless, it faces significant challenges, not only from the deflationary effect but also over the handling of its comprehensive assessment of the banking system, including of course the so-called stress tests, the result of which will be announced in October. Reports last week suggested that banks would have two weeks to plug any gaps in balance sheets that the ECB uncovered. This process will test the robustness of the euro area’s recovery and future health as never before. Overall, we found that the crisis had seriously altered the institutional and decision-making structures of the European Union. Those representing the euro area, such as the European Central Bank and the euro group, have grown in importance. By contrast, the Commission’s powers and influence in determining the crisis response have perhaps diminished. I should remind colleagues that the new Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, was a former chair of the euro group, with all the implications that that has.

This trend has significant implications for the United Kingdom. Closer integration is vital if the single currency is to prosper. We therefore agree with the Chancellor that the UK must do all in its powers to support its EU partners on this path. Nevertheless, such moves towards integration leave the United Kingdom in an increasingly isolated position. Noble Lords will be aware that the EU institutions are in a state of flux. As I mentioned, the newly elected European Parliament is finding its feet, the new President of the Commission has been chosen and the shape of the new college of Commissioners will emerge over the coming weeks. In this context, the Government and the Bank of England must maintain and develop constructive relationships with the increasingly powerful euro area authorities. All parties should redouble their efforts to convince euro area colleagues of the benefits of having the City of London as the leading global financial centre for the European Union as a whole. If they can be convinced of the mutual benefits of prosperity for the euro area and the single market, then the UK and the City of London will have much to contribute and much to gain.

I look forward to the Minister’s response on the steps that the Government are taking to ensure that the UK and the euro area enjoy such mutually beneficial relationships in the months and years to come.

19:36

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart (LD)]

My Lords, this report is helpful and I am glad to acknowledge that the committee proposes to continue reviewing these developments every six months. I think that will be exceedingly important.

There have been some positive developments, which have flowed largely from the European Central Bank. That is acknowledged by, among others who gave evidence to the committee, Sir Jon Cunliffe of the Bank of England, who noted that the redenomination of currencies was now very unlikely. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, said, we cannot take anything for granted, and we must watch very carefully. As the report suggests, and the Minister who replied to the report agreed, we must maintain and develop constructive relationships with the euro group and the ECB.

Will the Minister tell the House how that process is being maintained, particularly as we in this country appear to be the odd man out, seeking special deals for Britain without allies or even being particularly specific about what these deals are? It is quite clear that the United Kingdom must support our EU partners on the path towards greater integration of the euro area, but there is of course a risk, if that goes ahead, that we shall find ourselves increasingly isolated as a country and decreasingly influential in decision-making. I entirely endorse the view of the committee that we should be looking to strengthen the role of the City of London as the banking centre for Europe. However, if we remain completely at arm’s length from these developments, that will be an increasingly difficult project.

In their letter of reply to the committee, the Government suggested that we should,

“tackle unsustainable levels of debt, reform labour markets, and support business creation and innovation”.

It would be helpful if the Minister could indicate how these steps are to be taken. With banks currently withholding loans and, as Sir Jon Cunliffe said, with cross-country lending diminishing, that seems quite difficult. The Government should make it clear that they do not intend to limit cross-border immigration of skilled workers as part of the European Union’s so-called reforms. We need these developments if we are to have new business creation and innovation. Without them, there will be particular difficulties for small and medium-sized enterprises.

We look forward to hearing what the comprehensive assessment process of the European Central Bank will reveal. It is a difficult exercise for it because if it reveals too many banks being in difficulties, that could actually not strengthen the system, although we were very happy to hear from Mario Draghi as long ago as June 2012 that the bank would do anything to safeguard the future of the euro. It would be interesting to know what the Government are doing in the negotiations that they are participating in with the euro group to ensure that new arrangements work for those outside the euro area. I do not hear much about that specifically, but it would be helpful to know.

The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, spoke about the deflationary spiral. It seems that that is not an imminent threat but it is something that we have to watch. I would also be interested to know how the Government view that and what they are saying about the austerity programmes that could induce such a spiral.

This is a factually interesting report with interesting evidence from witnesses, but we need more particular replies from the Government. They are generally supportive of the report, but they have not given much indication of how they intend to proceed.

19:42

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, it was a pleasure once again to combine with colleagues in producing this report. It is fair to say that all possible perspectives on the issues were represented round the table in our committee and our debates were extremely stimulating and very instructive.

I want to use my time to address three illusions—or delusions, I should perhaps call them—that are extremely widespread, making it very difficult for people to appreciate the problems dealt with in this report. They are serious delusions and very erroneous, and I hope that in the very short time that I have to speak, I can go some way towards destroying them. The first delusion is the idea that the euro crisis is what it sounds like; that is to say that it is a crisis resulting from the existence of the euro and is the fault of the euro project. It is nothing of the kind. The so-called euro crisis is a debt crisis. There is no way in which the existence of the euro, or the existence of any particular currency, would necessarily have produced the outcomes in terms of excessive debt which we have been coping with in the last few years in the euro zone and indeed, elsewhere in the western world.

The reasons for the unbelievably irresponsible and often incompetent excessive lending practices go beyond the subject of this debate, but we are familiar with the general picture. Suffice it to say that we had banks in the European Union—in Ireland and Spain particularly— which lent on real estate projects with less than 10% equity. They were allowing more than 50% of their total assets to be exposed to the real estate sector.

Of course, as a result of the weakness of banks’ balance sheets, the government funds standing behind them produced a move from a banking crisis to a state funding crisis in countries such as Ireland and Spain. The position was made much worse in Greece by the falsification of the national accounts but elsewhere it was almost entirely a result of lender irresponsibility, or even worse than irresponsibility.

I have no doubt that incentives have an important effect on human behaviour, and some of the incentives in terms of short-term bonuses and so on were undoubtedly extremely perverse. They led to people lending to bad risks, taking a bonus on the basis of capitalising the profits to be generated from the loan and then walking off and getting a job somewhere else. We have had to deal with those matters decisively and thank heaven we have.

This was a debt crisis not a euro crisis. Irrespective of the currency these countries had, they would have faced the same magnitude of problems given the levels of debt that had been incurred, the bad debts that had been incurred and the central mispricing of risk that was going on. There was a quite disgraceful mispricing of risk. Again, serious professional incompetence was directed at the management of the enormous resources of the banking system in the European Union. It was a very serious matter indeed.

Some people say that one reason why it was the fault of the euro was because lenders thought that somehow a hidden or covert guarantee was being given by Germany or the other more solid economies to any other economy in the EU that got into trouble. Of course, such people were not only incompetent but they presumably could not read because the treaty precluded such a bail out or guarantee.

I am not suggesting that we had in place all the necessary measures to cope with the crisis and the shock which ensued from this bad lending—we did not. In three areas there was a deficiency of measures and institutions available to cope with this kind of scenario, one of which was that there was insufficient co-ordination of fiscal policy. We had under the euro until recently—until the stability and growth pact in fact—one monetary policy but 17 or 18 fiscal policies. That is not a good situation, but it has now been remedied. There was insufficient co-ordination and no centralisation of banking supervision which, in some areas, was plainly inadequate. The single supervisory mechanism, with the ECB taking charge, is taking place this year and will come into force next year. It is an encouraging measure.

There were, and still are, inadequate mechanisms of automatic stabilisation in the European Union. There is some measure of automatic stabilisation in the working of the cohesion and structural funds, but there should be much more. I am drawn to the idea—I have defended it in many contexts, including in this House—that we should have in the eurozone a single, integrated unemployment insurance system, which would certainly have a major automatic stabilisation effect in a crisis or an asymmetric shock affecting different members of the Union or different parts of the Union in different ways.

There are lessons to be drawn from the crisis. However, under no circumstances can it be called a euro crisis to the detriment of the reputation of the euro because that would not be consistent with the facts. It was a debt crisis.

I move now to the second great delusion, which is even more commonly held. In many places it is an assumption that people take for granted and, therefore, it is never challenged and never thought about. I hope that my mentioning it today might begin to remedy that. It is the assumption that we were quite right to stay out of the euro, that we are much better off out of it, and that it would have been a crazy, inconceivable thought that we would want to join the euro because the euro is in such a crisis. First, that is a misreading of the crisis, as I have already explained. Secondly, it is mathematically incorrect as a description of where the country would be if we had joined the euro. I remind the House of the figures, which I have noted down to make sure that I get them right. In the 15 years from 2000 to 2014—from the beginning of the euro project, if you like—sterling parity has fallen against the euro from 65p to 82p. That is a fall of 27%. So, all other things being equal, we would have been 27% richer—we would have had 27% higher net assets and net revenues—if we were in the system than if we were out of it.

One could say that we would not have had the same growth rate over the same period if we had been in the euro system. I have no idea whether that is the case. Our growth rate over that period has been an average 1.8% per annum. If you take the original EU 12 which were members of the eurozone—and the figures are more or less exactly the same if you take the larger number of countries that joined the EU subsequently—you will see that their growth rate over that period has been 1.2%. That is a difference of 0.6%, which, on the basis of compound interest over 15 years, works out at about 12%. If you make the assumption that our growth rate had been that of the average eurozone member over the period since the beginning of the euro, which is less than we have actually had—it may not be a realistic assumption; it certainly seems odd to make an assumption that our growth rate would have been less than the average eurozone growth rate because we pride ourselves on having a more efficient and more flexible supply side than most of the eurozone— the result would have been that we would have been some 15% better off today, so that is a significant difference.

I refer to a final delusion: the idea that we still face dire consequences from the crisis. The general indicators seem to be rather favourable. Unemployment is falling in the majority of EU countries, including all the four problematic ones—Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece. Growth has resumed in the eurozone. The best predictor of the future which I know is the stock market, which tells one really quite an encouraging story about both the future of the eurozone as a whole and about that of the problematic countries within it.

19:51

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for chairing our committee and for the production of this report, which, given the spread of views on the committee, is very fair and accurate. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, began to get slightly worried that he found himself agreeing with me on too many issues.

The report is, as the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, has suggested, slightly optimistic in that recovery in southern Europe is pretty weak, the public finances are still worsening, the threat of deflation remains and the unemployment position is terrible. The real problem is that the euro locked Europe into a gold standard. Italy, Portugal, Spain and so forth had happily devalued 2% or 3% every two or three years, but when they could no longer do that and Germany put great effort into becoming super-competitive by holding wage rates down, it ended up with about 30% uncompetitiveness among the countries of southern Europe as against Germanic Europe, and they are stuck with it. They have taken measures to address that. The only scope is internal devaluation, but that is extremely painful and, candidly, I am quite surprised that predominantly socialist politicians, in the cause of sustaining the euro, have been apparently happy to see the lives of a whole generation of young people in southern Europe wrecked with a massively high level of unemployment, so there is a slight problem there.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords—

[Lord Flight]

No, I shall not give way because I do not have long to speak.

The prospect of real political and economic union is for the time being not particularly promising. The big issue is that if you are going to share a currency, you have to have transfer payments. Britain has £70 billion or £80 billion of transfer payments from the prosperous south-east to other parts; in America, some 30% of federal spending goes on transfer payments. When we went to visit every element of Germany and asked them about transfer payments, the answer we got was “Not a pfennig”. Nobody in Germany was willing to face up to the fact that, if they wanted a united Europe and if they wanted to sustain the euro, they would have to be willing to make transfer payments to the less prosperous parts of Europe.

As the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, mentioned, we have yet to see how robust the banking system is with the stress test coming in October. I hope that the test will be genuine and robust, but if it reveals serious undercapitalisation of the banking system, that presents its own problem, because, in essence, it will have to be the relevant Governments who bail out the banking system. Thus the link between government debt and banking problems is not removed but, if anything, worsens.

I cannot help but comment that we have been here before in that in the 1860s, the French established a common European currency, the silver franc. We spent most of the 1870s debating whether to join it, and indeed in the British Museum there are notes and coins which were produced showing what they would be like if we did join. Walter Bagehot, the great economist, was wholly in favour of doing so. It lasted for 30 years until eventually the author, France, became so uncompetitive with something like 35% unemployment that it ditched the silver franc and ended the first attempt at a common European currency. I should add that everyone participated, including Switzerland, other than the German states because Germany had not yet united.

As the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, and others have pointed out, the report makes the point that the crisis has created the eurozone versus the peripherals. Although it is slow, I think that from now onwards there will be a gradual process towards political, economic and financial integration. Noble Lords will know the story of when Kohl and Mitterrand were discussing the euro. Kohl said, “We can’t start the euro because there isn’t much political integration”, and Mitterrand responded by saying, “We’ll never get political integration unless we put the euro into effect, which will force it”. I think that may be true. However, the UK is obviously not part of the eurozone and, as the report states, it is already a semi-detached member of the European project. In particular the loss of sovereignty over financial regulations has damaged the City of London. I describe it by saying that the City enjoyed a boom for around 40 years. It then plateaued and now it is on the way down in terms of earnings, activity and the number of people employed. The AIFMD has been particularly damaging and has moved a lot of business to New York and Singapore, and the biggest threat is the financial transaction tax. If noble Lords have not read it, I particularly recommend the report of EU Sub-Committee A on that.

The point is that although the report exhorts everyone to be friendly and co-operative—indeed the representative and lobbying bits of the City in Brussels never cease to grow, with around seven different institutions that are all there to be friendly and lush up their colleagues—there is a difference of interest. I am afraid that London is at the mercy of what suits Europe, along with its particular jealousies of London’s dominant position. The City has put up with that and got on with it, but beneath the surface there is mounting resentment. If the financial transaction tax were to go ahead, I think that it would be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

I end by making the point that there is the irony of the British Government being the first to recommend that Europe should get its act together and get a move on with financial, political and economic unification, and yet that is the very thing which has led to Britain being a semi-detached member. The view is becoming clearer and more widely held that the right relationship for the UK is as a member of the EU customs union and the single market, but not of the EU political union. I detect that, one way or another, this is now the direction in which we are heading.

19:59

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, my text is taken from the fourth chapter of the book of Harrison. I pay tribute to the prophet for his skill in achieving a consensus, but I shall now try to demonstrate that there is a wide range of views on the committee, as I shall not agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Flight, has just said.

I am not competent to follow the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, into the economics, so I shall stick with chapters 3 and 4 of our report, where we argue about the institutional effects and the impact on the United Kingdom. In particular, paragraph 71 states:

“The economic fortunes of the UK and the euro area are intrinsically linked … moves towards integration leave the UK in an increasingly isolated position. In order to ensure that the UK’s interests are effectively promoted, the Government and the Bank of England should therefore maintain and develop constructive relationships with the increasingly powerful euro area authorities, notably the Eurogroup and the ECB”.

The initial brief reply from Nicky Morgan, who was briefly Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said that we had correctly identified,

“that the changes in governance precipitated by the euro area crisis has seriously altered the EU’s decision making structure and that, in turn, impacts on the UK”.

However, she assured us that,

“going forward the Government will remain, as it has done so far, closely involved in negotiations … to ensure that proposals fully take into account the interests of all Member States”.

I thought that a little complacent. I was also struck by the passage in the balance of competences review that was published by the Treasury yesterday that states:

“Access to the single market in financial services and the Free Movement of Capital provides significant benefits for the UK financial services industry and for consumers … While the ultimate impact of the banking union is hard to predict at this stage, it is likely to pose a number of challenges to the UK’s interest in maintaining a central role of influence in an internationally competitive financial market in the EU”.

We got some advice, as has been mentioned, from Sir Jon Cunliffe, deputy governor of the Bank of England, who advised that the Government would do well to try to maintain,

“contacts with the Eurogroup, ensure its meetings took place in the context of other EU meetings, and being ready to offer technical advice without lecturing or providing unwanted counsel”.

I thought that rather good advice. Maybe Sir Jon could persuade the Governor of the Bank of England, or the Minister could persuade the Chancellor, that the euro group should be invited to hold one or two of its meetings in London, where it could be briefed about, and familiarise itself with, its key market—the City. Maybe the Minister could think about a suggestion made in evidence to the committee yesterday by Sharon Bowles, who until the European Parliament elections chaired the ECON committee of the European Parliament, that the eurozone should be encouraged to meet after, rather than before, meetings of ECOFIN so that it would be better able to take account of the interests of all 28 member states, as the treaty requires it to do.

The balance of competences is right to talk of challenges. I can think of five. First, the eurozone will have a qualified majority from November. Secondly, the UK, as a non-eurozone member, is in practice now ineligible for any of the top economic jobs in Brussels, including: the president of the ECB; the president of the euro group; the Economics Commissioner, who might be combined with the president of the euro group; and the President of the Commission and the President of the European Council, because such a large part of their agenda relates to the euro.

The third challenge is that the UK is in a different position from most other member states, including most other non-eurozone member states. Most non-eurozone member states purport to be, or see themselves as, pre-ins. They say that they want to join one day; we say very firmly that we have no intention of ever joining, which rather singularises us. We said the same about fiscal union—not that it was very stringent; it turned out to be a rather loose form of discipline to apply the austerity that we were at that time loudly preaching. But we chose, with our Czech friends, to flounce out. We alone have refused to contribute to any bailouts of member states in trouble during this crisis and we take great pride in that as one of our great achievements. We report that we have managed to avoid being involved in any bailout. On banking union, it is my impression that most of the pre-ins, such as the Poles and the Swedes, who are certainly not going to join the euro in a hurry, have managed to keep rather closer to banking union than we have done. That could be damaging to the City.

The fourth challenge is that we cannot have any key position on the economic side of the European Parliament as non-eurozone members—Sharon Bowles’s successor is an Italian. Regarding the institutions, the British Bankers Association brought out an interesting report the other day saying that the representation of UK public servants in the institutions is down to under 5%, proportionally lower than at any time since we joined. If that figure was based on our population share, it would be 12%. Only one in every 25 new recruits to the institutions is a British citizen, although one in every five comes from a British university. Why are the Brits not going? It reflects a wider problem: just as young people cannot be sure that a career in Brussels would not be brought to a sudden end, so other member states cannot be sure that it makes sense for them to do deals with us when, as the President of the European Council puts it, they can see that our hand is on the door-handle and when they hear the new Foreign Secretary saying—without defining what we want—that, if they do not give us what we want, he would be ready to recommend that we leave.

None of these problems is easily soluble. We are in a hole and, as the report says, we are “increasingly isolated”. We could remember the first law of holes, which I remember the noble Lord, Lord Healey, explaining: when you are in a hole, stop digging. It would be quite good, as Sir Jon Cunliffe said, to avoid lecturing people. We could also avoid hectoring or denouncing them, for example in articles in the weekend press. It would be good to try to avoid deliberate distancing. The French have a saying: “Les absents ont toujours tort”, or “Those not present are always in the wrong”. Alternatively, you could say, “We’ve got to be in to win”. Given that we are not in the eurozone, it behoves us, and the interests of the City, to stay as close to it as we possibly can.

20:07

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the committee on this latest stage of its continuous hard work on these issues. I very much appreciated the excellent introduction by my noble friend Lord Harrison, who covered all the significant points in the report and rendered nugatory any intention on our part to mention them in detail. However, of course, we need to look at the report as a pointer to what needs to be done and the situation that we are in as far as Europe is concerned. There is some cause for optimism: the euro appears to be out of crisis although, as I think my noble friend Lord Harrison said, the storm has not exactly and entirely passed by. That will do as an analogy, but the situation is a good deal better than the one we were facing only a short while ago. Clearly, several countries have significantly improved their economies on the way to some recovery. Ireland in particular has made progress in these terms, as have Spain and Portugal, although, as has been mentioned and is emphasised in the report, employment levels are very low. That leads to an important issue, which I will comment on later, about the level of demand in the European economy.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Davies for expanding on what the report makes clear, which is that the euro crisis is part of a global crisis. We are so used to the Conservative perspective on the crisis as being manufactured in the UK and being solely the responsibility of the Labour Government, who spent too much money. There is no comment of course about the collapse in receipts going to the Labour Government at that time because of the crisis that affected the banking and financial sector in particular, which is such a crucial part of our economy. This report puts the euro position into the broader perspective. It is important, therefore, that we recognise that a great deal still needs to be done.

As the report indicated, austerity has been costly. It is costly, of course, in terms of living standards. We have seen that in our own country but, because the margins for some in the euro area have been so low, austerity has had a very bleak impact on populations there. As has been indicated in this debate, we have seen a loss of confidence in and support for Europe because austerity brings discontent where people’s living standards fall as rapidly as they have been doing. The report indicates that it is essential that we see policies that return to growth, and we have to make sure that we pursue the necessary reforms to create that growth. None of us underestimates in a number of European countries how deep the problems are—referred to as requiring structural reforms. They are mighty challenges but it is clear that both Europe and particularly Britain, with its relationship to the European economy, want to see those reforms carried out because it is very much in our interests to have an effective single economy.

The single market is of great advantage to this country in our trading relations but it is also important to the City of London, which is a pivotal point of our economy as a major financial centre. I agreed very much with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr—that we had better take steps to ensure that there is a close relationship between the institutions in Europe. The Central Bank also clearly helped to avert the crisis in the eurozone and we now need to see the Bank of England establishing closer relationships for the good of all countries in the Community.

The problem with all this is that the challenges are big but we have a Government who seem to exacerbate the issue. The Prime Minister says that he is setting out to reform Europe in meeting these challenges. The task that he has set himself is to effect significant reforms in Europe in the next 24 months with the support of 27 states, when at the moment his support extends to none, except for the United Kingdom, of which he is Prime Minister. We saw a dimension of the failure of diplomacy in the rather ham-fisted attempt to prevent the appointment of Juncker as head of the Commission.

How can we make progress when the Prime Minister seems to be more concerned with negotiating with his party than with Europe? We saw an instance of this in this House this very day. On Monday, we all read in the press and on Sunday we had seen on “The Andrew Marr Show” the new Foreign Secretary making it absolutely clear that he had a terminal point when it came to membership of Europe, and that if there were not very significant changes in the structure of Europe and Britain’s relationship to it, he was voting for “out”. In this House today, the Government’s business spokesman said in answer to a question that there is no question of withdrawal. These are not just members of the same party; they are important figures in the Government of this country because of the role that they play in the party, yet, from what I can see, they have quite contrary positions. What does the Minister have to say about how he proposes to wrestle with those kinds of difficulties?

Finally, I want to make what might be regarded as a minor but quite clear point. We are also losing influence in Brussels because we no longer provide people who operate part of the civil service there. In 2004, more than 9% of civil servants in Brussels were British. That is down to 5.3%. Not a single Briton has gained entry to serve the Commission through the highest-level examination. That is loss of influence and it is a reflection of the fact that the Community’s confidence in Britain is being lost by the stance the Government are taking. It is being reflected in a grievous way, which will adversely affect this country.

20:15

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, and European Union Sub-Committee A for publishing the updated report. I also thank members of the sub-committee for organising the debate, and everybody who has spoken.

It is blindingly obvious that a stable euro area is in Britain’s interests. Some 40% of UK goods and services exports go to the euro area and the economic uncertainty emanating from the euro area at the height of the crisis had a chilling effect here. The Government welcome the return to growth in the euro area, but vulnerabilities obviously remain. We agree with the committee that the storm has not entirely passed. While growth has returned, it is weak and unemployment remains high. As the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, pointed out, growth across the euro area is ill balanced. The balance of payment surplus of Germany, for example, has reached record highs, while obviously other member states are still suffering very considerable economic problems.

The ECB’s announcement of its outright monetary transaction mechanism and its clear commitment to stand behind the euro have clearly helped relieve the pressure from the sovereign debt crisis. However, the euro area has to make some important steps to strengthen the single currency for the longer term. Countries in the euro area periphery are undergoing a painful but necessary adjustment. They need to carry on confronting head-on their problems of high deficits and low competitiveness. They are making very considerable progress. By the end of 2014, Spain is forecast to have reduced its deficit by almost five percentage points since 2012, while it, Italy and Portugal all registered current account surpluses in 2013.

My noble friend Lord Maclennan asked whether that adjustment was too quick. It is interesting to see that the rate and path of deficit reduction in Spain, for example, is much sharper than the one we have decided to follow here. It has had a number of consequences, one of which has been high unemployment and a fall in real wages. What is interesting about the Spanish economy is the extent to which it is rebalancing away from property and rebounding. The absolute pace at which some of these economies are adjusting and the extent to which that is optimal will not be clear for some time. However, they have made very significant steps and are to be congratulated, not least against a background, two or three years ago, in which many people in the UK said they would never be able to do it and that the euro would collapse as a result.

A well designed banking union comprising centralised decision-making on supervision and resolution supported by credible financing arrangements, can, in our view, support the long-term stability of the single currency. The ECB’s comprehensive assessment process is critical to restoring market confidence over the medium term and is an important step in implementing the single supervisory mechanism. We strongly support the announcements on stress tests and believe they provide for a robust process. However, all elements of banking union must protect the unity and integrity of the single market and the interests of non-participating member states and be legally sound.

Some progress has also been made on closer oversight of fiscal policy. Exit from the crisis will be easier the more the euro area does to support demand and share the burden of adjustment. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, and my noble friend Lord Flight referred to the challenges of greater fiscal co-ordination. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, suggested an integrated unemployment insurance system, but I think my noble friend Lord Flight answered the question of how plausible that is, certainly in the short to medium term, by pointing out that the country making the transfer payments in such a system would be, to a large extent, Germany. There is very little evidence that Germany feels that is an appropriate way forward.

The Chancellor has long made clear his view that there is a remorseless logic that the euro area, like any single currency, needs closer economic and fiscal integration. The euro area needs the right governance and structures to address its current challenges, but the change in governance precipitated by the crisis has altered the EU’s decision-making structure and affected us, as we have heard from a number of noble Lords. We must ensure that any new arrangements work for those outside the euro area as well as for those within it.

My noble friend Lord Maclennan asked how we would maintain our position given these new arrangements and, although the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, thought it was slightly thin, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury pointed out that we will be and are closely involved in negotiations on EMU and in ensuring that proposals fully take into account the interests of both the euro outs and the euro ins. In answer to my noble friend Lord Maclennan’s question about how we are doing this, we are in constant contact with euro area partners at European Council and ECOFIN meetings, and we are pursuing the informal interpersonal relationships that we discussed at some length when we last had a discussion on the issue. I completely agree with the suggestion that in these interactions, we need to avoid hectoring and denouncing—something that UK Ministers of all parties, over several decades, have found exceptionally difficult in dealing with our European partners.

My noble friend Lord Maclennan asked how we are supporting the leveraging labour market reform and innovation. The Government support the attempts to tackle these issues. We support the ECB’s comprehensive assessment—stress test—and the asset quality review as a means to improve confidence in the banking system. We support the ECB’s moves further to develop the European securitisation market as an alternative to bank lending. Labour market reforms need to be undertaken on a country-by-country basis, along with wider structural reforms to promote growth.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, referred to the balance of competencies review and the challenges that it identified. It is a helpful and formidable document and has the great advantage of having a large number of sensible and practical suggestions of how decision-making processes might move forward. He identified a number of key challenges, none of which I suspect anyone in your Lordships’ House would disagree with. The one I highlight, which the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, also mentioned, is the question of staffing, which we have discussed in your Lordships’ House on a number of occasions. We discussed it at our last debate on the subject, and following that debate I wrote to the noble Lord who raised the issue of staffing and I hope that other noble Lords who took part in that debate, most of whom are here today, will have seen a copy of that letter about the initiatives that the Government were taking.

It seems to me that the banking sector needs to be willing to encourage its staff to participate in the European institutions. The sector is quick to denounce the Government but slow to take action itself and, in private moments, will admit that if it has somebody really good who would do it really well, the last thing they are prepared to do is to give that person up to do it. As long as that remains the view of the sector, the current situation will continue.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made a couple of interesting and practical suggestions about the euro group and where and when its meetings might be held. I will draw those suggestions to the attention of the Chancellor.

The Government could not agree more with the points made in the report about the importance of the City of London as a leading international centre. We do not altogether share the gloomy prognosis of the noble Lord, Lord Flight, for the City. The City will evolve. Some areas of business will undoubtedly move elsewhere as global markets evolve. However recent developments, such as renminbi trading in the City and the Government’s decision to initiate a sovereign sukuk and therefore promote Islamic finance, offer very significant new areas of activity for the City which will help underpin its position as Europe’s leading international financial centre.

My noble friend Lord Maclennan asked about cross-border workers and pointed to the important role that they play in the UK economy. As I pointed out at Question Time recently, the growth in house building in the UK, that all parties now believe to be very important to the period ahead, will happen only if we continue to employ large numbers of skilled workers from the rest of the EU because it is physically impossible to train large numbers of skilled workers in the short term. For the future growth of the British economy, the continued involvement here of skilled workers from the rest of the EU is very important.

We have had an extremely interesting debate across some relatively familiar themes. I would like again to thank the committee for this contribution to the debate, and I look forward to its next update.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Lords Chamber

Committee (3rd Day) (Continued)

20:26

Clause 42: Criminal courts charge

Amendment 63AA

Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

63AA: Clause 42, page 41, line 26, leave out “must” and insert “may”

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group deal with the Government’s proposal to require a charge to be levied on those convicted of offences, in addition to any financial or other penalty which may be levied on them. Characteristically, this would be a mandatory provision, judicial discretion thereby being further eroded, and the proposition is unsupported by an impact assessment. Out of thin air, Ministers pluck a figure of some £65 million for the estimated yield of this new charge, which will be calculated not merely on the costs of the individual case but on the overall costs of the court system.

As I pointed out at Second Reading, this sum is but a fraction of the vast amount of money owed under court orders: some £2 billion as at March 2013, two-thirds of it represented by unenforced confiscation orders. At that point, £420 million was outstanding by more than 12 months and there were no fewer than 1.2 million individual accounts outstanding. That puts into perspective the amount which this proposal would, perhaps, realise. Not all the figures that I have referred to relate to criminal matters. However, Liberty, to which I am indebted for a most informative briefing, averred that in the first quarter of this year £549 million was outstanding. Collection rates are poor across a range of orders, with 48% of fines and 35% of costs unpaid after 18 months. The Ministry of Justice does not even bother to collect statistics in relation to older debt.

There are serious difficulties with the Government’s policy, quite apart from the likelihood that, on present form, they will be very unlikely to recover anything like the amount ordered. Several of the difficulties are identified in Amendment 63AF, which seeks to prohibit an order where the court thinks it might affect a decision on how the accused pleads. This is clearly a serious matter. Defendants should not be deterred from advancing a defence on the grounds that they may be liable for not only punishment for the offence but what might be a significant amount to be paid under the provisions for a court charge. The amendment would deal with the issue of where enforcement costs are likely to mount to more than the charge, as enforcement costs could well be significant, and where the charge relates to any part of the hearing for which the defendant is not responsible—for example, adjournments—or any appeal, as the charge would apply not just to the original trial but to any potential appeal. The deterrent effect could, again, come into play. Finally, the amendment would seek to preclude the operation of the charge if a written means assessment had not been carried out.

20:30

Amendments 63AA, 63AJ, 63AK and 63AL seek to restore judicial discretion. This would replace the obligation laid down in respect of the magistrates’ courts, Crown Court and the Court of Appeal which, under the terms of the Bill, must make an order to levy the charge. It is quite improper, in my submission, for this to be made a binding obligation on the courts irrespective of the circumstances. Amendment 63AD would therefore require the court, before making such an order, to find it just and reasonable to do so in all the circumstances. Amendment 63AG would require the court to give reasons for imposing or, to be fair and balanced, not imposing an order. Amendment 63AE would require a reasonable assessment of the defendant’s finances before a collection date is decided. Finally and, again, reasonably, Amendment 63AH would prescribe that, where there is more than one defendant, any charge as a result of the case should be divided equally between the defendants and not be imposed just on one or less than the total number convicted. In addition, Amendment 63AA would restrict orders to defendants over the age of 21. That relates to our earlier discussion about the position of younger defendants but, in this case, it is not just those under the age of 18.

It should be borne in mind that the court currently has the power to award prosecution costs where it considers it just and reasonable to do so. However, the Bill’s provision allows no consideration of the defendant’s means or other issues such as health or family considerations. Data on the background of prisoners cited by Liberty indicate that a substantial proportion of prisoners—especially women—earn less than half the national average, with 64% in receipt of benefits. The profile of prisoners may be somewhat different from those who do not receive custodial sentences but there is nevertheless likely to be an approximate equation of these factors between the two categories. Even allowing for the possibility that the average might be different for defendants receiving non-custodial sentences, it is clear that mandatory orders would inflict considerable difficulties on large numbers of offenders. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has pointed out the risk that the change envisaged by imposing this charge may infringe Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights if it is seen as restricting access to a court or tribunal—for example, by way of appeal. In addition, given the serious concerns about the measure, it would be inappropriate to wait three years for a review of the operation of the charge as predicated by Clause 43. Hence Amendments 63FA and 63FB call for a review after a year. Given the number of cases in the courts, particularly if the Bill passes unamended, there should be ample evidence on which to base a review after such a period.

Finally, Amendment 63FC requires any variation of an order to be made by an officer of the court directly employed by HM Courts and Tribunals Service rather than an employee of whichever private contractor that will no doubt be added to the lengthening list of private sector organisations taking over public services. In other words, if there is to be a variation, it should be done by an officer of the court for whom there is perhaps less incentive than for a private contractor to take a decision that might be prejudicial to the defendant.

I conclude by raising a point made by my honourable friend Andy Slaughter in the Public Bill Committee considering the Bill. He put an interesting question. If the Government are intent on proceeding with the charge, why will they not apply the proceeds—that £65 million or some other figure—to reducing the savage cuts in criminal legal aid which everyone, from criminal law practitioners to civil society organisations and the judiciary, is warning will have dire consequences for our criminal justice system? In the Opposition’s view, this is an unnecessary and unhealthy provision, but if it is going to be implemented, if a certain amount is to be collected, and if the Government are right in thinking that those sums will amount to around £65 million, that would be one-third of the entire cuts made in the legal aid budget. As this is a late and novel introduction, I cannot see why the Government should resist that conclusion if, against our advice and the advice of other organisations, they press ahead with this retrograde and ill-thought out change to our system. I beg to move.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, I rise to speak to the group of amendments to Clause 42. As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has made clear, Clause 42 proposes the imposition of the criminal courts charge to cover the costs of providing the judiciary and the rest of the court system. Such a charge is proposed, as he has also made clear, to be compulsory for offenders of 18 and over unless the offence is of a class listed in regulations as excluded.

I have put my name to a number of amendments, along with my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lady Linklater, and in some of those we are joining with those proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Kennedy of Southwark. Our principal purpose in those amendments is to ensure that the criminal courts charge is recoverable on a discretionary basis. I put that quite apart from the arguments about whether the sums sought to be recovered will in fact be recovered and I agree with the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, that the Government’s expectation in this regard is entirely optimistic.

Quite simply, we can see no point in setting out a requirement that the criminal courts charge be imposed in cases where it will not do any good and is unlikely ever to be recovered. It will no doubt be argued by my noble friend the Minister that the power to remit the criminal courts charge under new Section 21E at a later date, some time after it is imposed, will provide an answer to the point we make. However, I am bound to say that I doubt it will. Will the Minister clarify what the Government see as the point of imposing a mandatory requirement that a defendant pay a charge and coupling that with a power to let the defendant off the charge if he cannot pay it? In many cases, the reality is that the inability to pay the charge in the first place is obvious throughout.

That really is the problem. In a very large number of cases, there is absolutely no prospect that the criminal courts charge will prove to be recoverable. We entirely accept that in those cases where a defendant can afford to pay the charge because he or she is in work or has means, then the court should be able to impose one. The courts charge in those circumstances would make it clear to the defendant that the public insist that the cost of providing the services of the court should be met, at least in part, by the defendant. That would have two salutary effects in those cases. First, the public would recover some of the costs that have been defrayed in order to bring and prosecute the case. Secondly, the court would be making it absolutely clear to the defendant what trouble, inconvenience and expense he has caused, and that he should pay for at least some of the extra costs.

However, as we all know and as was made absolutely clear in Committee, many offenders come before the court without work and means, beset by complex problems of inadequate education, physical and mental health, harsh and criminal backgrounds, dysfunctional families and, above all, a lack of employment opportunities. What such offenders need, as has again been repeatedly stated, is rehabilitation and support. Generally, we are all agreed in this House that where a custodial sentence is not absolutely necessary, rehabilitation and support should take place in the community. One of the cardinal aims of any rehabilitation programme should be to enable offenders to secure employment. Until they do so, there is no prospect of their being able to afford to pay the criminal courts charge.

I suggest that saddling all offenders, regardless of circumstances, with outstanding debt is a thoroughly bad idea. I am concerned that the existence of an outstanding charge will make it much more difficult for an offender to secure credit. That, in turn, may make it that much more difficult for him to secure employment. Even if it is only that he needs to buy suitable clothes for interviews or perhaps a bicycle or other transport to get to work, he will not be able to fund them. Furthermore, the fact that such an offender has a charge hanging over his head is likely to be a disincentive to his securing employment because he will know that the repayment of the charge will come from any income he may earn. Now, that may be a less meritorious argument but it is none the less valid for that.

It is also important that the court should have the discretion to set the charge at an appropriate level. There is no such discretion in the proposal made in the Bill. Where the court decides to impose one, it should be for the court to set the level of the charge. It should not be a one-size-fits-all penalty, any more than a fine should be. Plainly, there must be a maximum. That is appropriately defined in new Section 21C as,

“the relevant court costs reasonably attributable to a case of that class”.

However, to say that a charge in that maximum amount is the only charge that may be imposed is unhelpful and unrealistic. It is not sensible to rely on a power—again, at a later date—to remit a proportion, because that involves effectively indicating to a defendant that some of the charge will not have to be paid. The advice will be: “If you cannot pay it all don’t worry, pay what you can and you will be let off the rest”. That is hardly an incentive to pay. It would be far better for the courts to set a sensible and achievable figure at the outset.

Turning to our amendments therefore, we would make the charge entirely discretionary. Our Amendment 63ABA would make it clear that the court would have to consider the justice of the case, having regard to the circumstance of the offender and of the offence and, where appropriate, to the circumstances of any failure to comply with the requirements of a court order. That last point is necessary to deal with the fact that the charge may be imposed for failure to comply with the requirements of a community order or a suspended sentence order or with a supervision requirement.

Amendment 63AFA would leave out subsection (4) at the end of page 41. That subsection rather strangely requires a court to leave out of account a defendant’s liability to the criminal courts charge when considering the penalty,

“for an offence or for a failure to comply with a requirement”.

I see no reason for that provision. If a court regards it as being important to bring home to a defendant the extent of the costs he has caused to the system, why should it not be free to impose a criminal courts charge and lower any other financial penalty accordingly? That salutary discretion is specifically removed by the subsection, and we suggest that it should therefore go. Amendment 63AM would enable a charge lower than the maximum to be imposed, while Amendment 63AN is a tidying-up amendment that would enable the court not just to remit some of the charge, but to remit any interest on the charge when remitting it.

In summary, our position is that a criminal courts charge will be a useful new tool in the court’s armoury when sentencing, but we do not see it as sensible simply to tie it to the overall cost of the justice system. We do not see any reason for tying the court’s hands in such a manner as inevitably to reduce its power to do justice in ways that are not tailored to the individual cases before it.

20:46

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 63B to 63E, tabled in my name. The effect of these amendments would be to remove the requirement to delay remitting the criminal courts charges; in other words, magistrates could remit in the same breath as imposing the charge, although only if they were satisfied that that was in the interests of justice. It is a different method of achieving the same aims as those of the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and my noble friend Lord Beecham. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, has said very clearly, what is the point of imposing court charges on people when it is plainly obvious that they will not be able to pay, and the court in any event has the power to remit the charges in the future?

I want to say a little more about the general principle of criminal courts charges. Magistrates’ courts, particularly those in London, very often deal with people who are poor and who have mental health problems and/or drug and alcohol problems. It is not that unusual to find defendants in front of one who have no national insurance number, no money, no benefits and no legal status within Britain. They come before the court for whatever reason has brought them there, and they are living off the kindness of friends with no recognisable status. It really is ridiculous for a court to be required to put a charge on these people in addition to the victim surcharge and other possible charges when there is absolutely no chance of them paying. It is already the case that one ranks the payments that are to be made. It is compensation which is discretionary so far as the courts are concerned. Compensation would be paid first, to be followed by prosecution costs, which are discretionary. Third in the rank would be the victim surcharge, which is non-discretionary, and then after that will come the courts charge, which is also non-discretionary. If defendants are made aware of the non-discretionary nature of the victim surcharge and the courts charge, poorer people could be more likely to plead guilty so that there are less extensive court charges, rather than going into a lengthy trial where there is an unpredictable but mandatory level of courts charge if they are found guilty.

I understand that there will be a three-year review period; I presume that one purpose of that review period is to look at whether there is any statistical basis for poor people being more likely to plead guilty. That is a very profound question, because it would be a consideration of some of the poorest people that we see in our courts today.

I will check one point with the noble Lord. I hope that I know the answer to it, but I wanted to check that it is open to the courts to deem the criminal courts charge served by time spent in custody—one day deemed served—in a similar way that that discretion exists regarding the victim surcharge. Therefore in that very specific way, with someone drunk and disorderly who has spent some time in the cells, you can deem both the victim surcharge and the criminal courts charge as served. I am not in favour of that in principle. My group of amendments try to restore finding a particular way to restore discretion to judges and magistrates so that they can deal with the reality of the situation they come across every day.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly from the Back Benches. I agree very much with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and my noble friend Lord Ponsonby. I was a magistrate many years ago. I do not sit any more, but when I lived in the Midlands I used to sit on the Coventry Bench. Again, like my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, there were times when people came in front of me who had absolutely nothing. In particular, I used to sit in the fines court, to which people were brought back because they had not paid their fines. When you looked at their circumstances, the only way they could pay those fines was to go out and commit more crime; it was impossible otherwise. Now we have an additional charge here. It is important that we take into account people’s circumstances: not to allow the court to have that discretion is a bad move. To have loads of fines when there is no possibility of their ever being paid back is a complete waste of time. It makes a mockery of justice, and we should not do it.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks) (Con)]

My Lords, the criminal courts charge scheme has been designed to be clear and transparent, with charge levels that reflect the costs reasonably attributable to a particular type of case, and offenders expected to pay at a rate they can afford. The changes proposed by these amendments make the scheme far more difficult to understand and apply.

Amendments 63AA, 63AD, 63AG, 63AJ to 63AL and 63ABA would provide the court with significant discretion over whether to impose the criminal courts charge. As the court is the main beneficiary of the charge, there is a risk that this would be perceived as providing the ability directly to influence the funding of the criminal courts. The judiciary is an integral part of the courts system, and it has a vested interest in its success. Furthermore, where there is no clear indication as to what the court should base its decision on, other than the broad definition of the imposition being “just and reasonable”, accepting these amendments risks offenders being treated unequally.

If what lies behind these amendments is to protect poorer offenders, this is unnecessary. The offender has the opportunity to provide means information that the court can take into account when setting the rate of repayment for the charge, as it does with court-ordered financial impositions. Offenders can manage their repayments so that they pay the charge at a rate they can afford. For instance, they can apply to pay by instalment, and if necessary request subsequently to vary the rate of repayment. Also, those offenders who make their best efforts to comply with payment terms and do not reoffend will be able to apply to have the charge cancelled after a specified period of time.

Amendment 63AB proposes to limit the charge imposed to no more than 50% of the total cost they have imposed on the courts.

Amendment 63AM enables the court to impose a charge up to the amount specified by the Lord Chancellor. If an offender has committed a crime and imposed a cost on our criminal justice system, the Government believe it is right that they should be liable to pay back up to the full amount of costs reasonably attributable to that particular class of case. I have already outlined the protections in place to avoid placing an offender in hardship as a result of the charge.

Amendments 63AC and 63AF seek to limit the circumstances in which the criminal courts charge would be imposed. Specifying that an order imposing the courts charge should not be made if doing so would, in the opinion of the court, affect a decision on plea is unnecessary. I can assure noble Lords that the courts charge will come into play only once a verdict has been reached—long after the defendant makes a decision about plea.

Amendment 63AF also provides that the courts charge must not be imposed where the enforcement costs are likely to amount to more than the value of the charge. The charge will be enforced in the same way as existing financial impositions, so it is unlikely that the costs would exceed the level of the charge. Furthermore, it would not be possible for the court to anticipate how much enforcement activity will be required in a particular case.

We believe that excluding from the charge any costs associated with part of the hearing for which the defendant was not responsible would be unworkable. Charge levels will be set up to the cost reasonably attributable to that type of case, not based on a costs calculation of each individual case. Attempting to cost each individual case and then determine whether or not the offender was responsible for each element would be extremely time-consuming and totally impracticable.

Amendment 63AF also seeks to prevent the courts charge being imposed in relation to any appeal. The principle behind our courts charging policy is that offenders should bear some of the costs that have been incurred by the criminal courts as a result of their actions. It is appropriate to charge offenders a contribution towards the cost of an unsuccessful appeal. Finally, the amendment inserts a condition that the courts charge cannot be imposed before a written means assessment has been carried out. Amendment 63AE also prevents it from being collected before an assessment of the defendant’s finances has been made. The criminal courts already impose a number of financial impositions and established systems are in place to ensure that the court is provided with an offender’s means information. For these reasons Amendments 63AF and 63AE are unnecessary.

Amendment 63AFA would allow the court to consider the court charge imposed when sentencing or dealing with breach of a community order, community requirement, suspended sentence order or supervision requirement. The scheme is designed so that the charge reflects the cost an offender imposes on the courts system. It is not a punishment that relates to the severity of the offence committed. It should not therefore be taken into account when deciding on the appropriate sentence.

Amendment 63AH would divide the payment of criminal court costs between defendants where two or more defendants are convicted during a single hearing. The Bill currently makes each offender liable to pay the criminal courts charge as prescribed in secondary legislation. We expect that each offender will pay the full amount, although the power will exist to charge multiple defendants less when they are convicted at the same time as others. The amendment creates unnecessary complexity and is likely to result in one offender, who has been tried with one or more co-defendants, paying less then an offender who has been tried on their own, despite the fact that they may have committed identical offences. This raises questions of fairness. Our approach is the fairest approach and should be both simpler to operate and simpler for offenders and the public to understand.

Amendments 63B, 63C, 63D and 63E seek to withdraw the conditions that must be met for the courts charge to be remitted and give the courts a wide discretion about doing so. As previously mentioned, the clause currently allows a court to remit the charge where the offender has taken all reasonable steps to pay and does not reoffend. This provides a powerful incentive for offenders to repay the charge and refrain from reoffending, while also ensuring that those who meet these conditions are not necessarily required to make payments over an excessively long period.

Amendment 63AN specifies that, where the charge can be remitted, it includes the remission of interest. The purpose of the provisions to remit the charge is to relieve the offender of the debt where they have paid accordingly and not reoffended. It is therefore logical that any remission of the charge should include the whole debt—both the principal amount and the interest. The amendment is therefore unnecessary.

Amendment 63EA has the effect that offenders aged 18 to 21 who are sentenced to detention or imprisonment would be eligible to have their charge remitted earlier. The current proposal is that a court may remit the charge after a specified period that begins either when an offender is convicted or, if they have received a custodial sentence, released from detention or imprisonment. In practice it is unrealistic to expect many offenders to pay the charge while they are being detained. By setting the period after which the charge may be remitted to run from conviction rather than release for 18 to 21 year-olds, the amendment would mean that more serious offenders are likely to end up paying less than offenders who are not sentenced to custody. That would not be fair.

21:00

As to reviewing after three years, Amendments 63FA and 63FB would make changes to the provisions for the review of the criminal courts charge. At present, Clause 43 requires the Lord Chancellor to carry out a review of the operation of the criminal courts charge three years after the provisions come into force. Amendment 63FA would reduce this from three years to 12 months. It is intended that the review will consider various aspects of how the policy is operating in practice, including an assessment of enforcement costs and direct income arising from the policy. However, in order to be able to consider these issues in a robust way, the review must be after a period that will allow the criminal courts charging provisions to bed in and produce reliable results. We would simply not be able to do so after 12 months.

Amendment 63 FB relates to the mechanism for the repeal of the criminal courts charge in response to the review of the charge. Should the Lord Chancellor consider it appropriate to repeal the criminal courts charge, there is a related power to deal with consequential and transitional matters. This amendment would oblige the Lord Chancellor to make such consequential and transitional provision. The duty to create such provision is not needed. It is important that we consider, in any repeal process, the consequential and transitional issues of doing so. This is a complex exercise and I can assure noble Lords that any Government exercising the repeal power would consider these matters carefully.

Amendment 63FC would prevent the power to vary an offender’s rate of repayment being exercised by anyone other than an officer of court directly employed by HMCTS. Fines officers already have powers to vary repayment rates for existing financial impositions prior to default. Clause 44 extends these powers to enable repayment rates to be varied after default and to vary on less favourable terms to the offender, with the offender’s consent. HMCTS is in the process of procuring an external provider for the future delivery of compliance and enforcement activity for criminal financial impositions. This would improve efficiency and the collection of financial impositions as well as reduce the cost of current service. A court will impose the obligation to make payments. Fines officers will simply apply collection measures to satisfy that obligation. It is not inappropriate for an external provider to use powers to vary the collection.

The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked various questions. He asked what proportion of the financial impositions is currently collected. Of the financial impositions imposed in quarter 2 of 2012, 58% were paid within 18 months of the imposition month and, of the fines imposed in quarter 2 of 2012, 54% were paid within 18 months of the imposition month. The noble Lord complained that there was no impact assessment. There is, in fact, an impact assessment, which has been published on the Bill’s website.

He asked a question about confiscation orders in relation to an earlier amendment, when I said that perhaps it was better to consider the matter when we were considering criminal charges. Confiscation is a key tool in depriving criminals of their access. The Government are committed to improving confiscation and taking steps to improve the confiscation regime in the Serious Crime Bill, as he may well be aware. That is the right place, we respectfully suggest, for a debate on these matters. There are, indeed, provisions in the Bill that strengthen the default system. We are planning, in due course, to allow confiscation orders to be made in the magistrates’ court for the first time. These matters are part of an overall serious and organised crime strategy.

The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked about Article 6 of the ECHR on access to the courts. We are satisfied that the criminal courts charge provisions are, in fact, compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 6 of which contains an implicit right of access to the courts. The charge would not interfere with that right in any way.

Preventing the use of the powers that these provisions contain would mean that offenders would have to face the consequences of defaulting on payment, which might include the use of bailiffs or a return to court to seek a variation, including additional costs for the court. We suggest that, notwithstanding the difficulties that are presented by those who do not have substantial means, as the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy, Lord Ponsonby and Lord Beecham, and my noble friend Lord Marks, mentioned, they are met by the various provisions that I have outlined to mitigate the harshness, and that the transparency and consistency of this provision is an advantage and should result in financial benefit accruing to the whole criminal justice system. I therefore ask the noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

I have a point that is slightly tangential to the group of amendments we have just been debating. When magistrates are fining somebody, for a huge proportion of the time they do not know the existing level of outstanding fines; so they are fining somebody when they do not know what debts to fines they already have. I understand that this is a practical problem and a difficult issue that the court service is reluctant to address. Surely, however, if one is serious about reducing the level of outstanding fines, one should try to address it so that when a court sets fines it knows the level of the outstanding fines when it puts in place the sentence.

[Lord Faulks]

It is certainly the case that the court should know, as far as possible, the level of outstanding fines. I understand the practical difficulties that can be encountered by courts but, with great respect to the noble Lord, we are concerned here with a definite, fixed cost in relation to the particular nature of the offence, which will not depend on fines outstanding. That is not a question—reasonable though it is—that arises on consideration of these amendments.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I am struck by the direct relationship between the speed with which the Minister is racing through his brief and the embarrassment he no doubt feels at the material he is giving to the Committee. I cannot believe that the good and noble Lord is really convinced of the case he has been asked to put. That would not surprise me, because much of what we have heard is simply beyond credence. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, in a very powerful speech, made the essential point that—among other things—the court should have discretion on the amount. None of us is any the wiser about what kind of sums we are talking about. The Minister certainly has given no examples, except to say that it will be related somehow to the cost of the individual case. How is that to be calculated? On what basis will that be apportioned? Are we just talking about the cost of prosecution? That can be covered anyway, under the existing framework. Are we talking about a contribution to the cost of maintaining the court building or the cost of the judicial salaries in a higher court? There is no indication of how this cost is to be calculated and then passed on.

Equally, although the noble Lord rightly pointed out the provision in the Bill that the Lord Chancellor will prescribe the class of case to which the charge will apply, he has given no indication tonight—and I do not think that it was done in the other place either—of what kind of cases are envisaged. Why do we not know which cases are likely to be included? What will be the process, if any, for parliamentary approval of the classes as prescribed by the Lord Chancellor? Will Parliament be permitted any consideration in this, or will it simply be a matter of the Lord Chancellor’s fiat?

The Minister’s suggestion that it would be improper for the court to determine the amount because that would somehow reflect a vested interest on its part is simply risible. It is an absurd suggestion. The notion that magistrates or High Court judges will be influenced to make rather larger requirements of prisoners because that will somehow affect them, or the court system, is an insult to both the judiciary and the magistracy. It cannot be something that the noble Lord seriously believes. His scriptwriters need to go back to wherever they were taught their craft.

In addition, and worryingly, the Minister suggested that there is no deterrent effect because the charge will be imposed only long after a plea was entered. That is absurd. The fact that the court is in a position to impose a charge is known to the defendant before he appears there; it certainly ought to be. Of course, it may influence a defendant as to the nature of a plea, particularly in the case of an appeal.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

Is not the noble Lord slightly mistaken? It is the fact that the court is bound to impose the charge that is known to every defendant before they go into court.

[Lord Beecham]

I am not known for being mistaken, but I am happy to concur with the noble Lord’s judgment of me. However, I am not happy to concur with the Minister’s judgment of the situation because it is simply fallacious, particularly in relation to an appeal, when the costs will necessarily be significantly more than they would be at first hearing. Of course, appeals are not just confined to going from the magistrates’ courts to the Crown Court. There is also the question of an appeal from the Crown Court to the Court of Appeal and, I suppose, ultimately to the Supreme Court, the costs of which would presumably be unimaginable to an ordinary defendant.

In my view the Minister’s case is in tatters, but let me put a further point. If we are talking about the cost of the case and the cost to the courts, where is the logic in not extending that to the costs—I am now looking at the noble Lord, Lord Paddick—of the police force or the probation service, which might also be involved with a particular client? Why are we confining this charge to the court process? There is no logic to this at all.

We still do not know how the £65 million figure is computed. No doubt the Minister, in fairness to him, does not know either. I cannot imagine he has been supplied with the information. Even if that figure were right, it is something like 3% of the total amount outstanding. The noble Lord gave figures for the uncollected sums for two quarters of 2012. I think my figures were slightly more up to date, if they were correct. However, he did not answer the point—I do not blame him, because presumably nobody has told him—as to why the Ministry of Justice does not know how much has been outstanding for longer than 18 months. Is there an implication that, if money is outstanding for more than 18 months, it would be written off? That would be curious, in the circumstances. There is also the point that the charge will apply to those who are sentenced to a period of imprisonment, presumably to be met after they come out, no doubt as part of their rehabilitation. Does this make any kind of sense, I ask rhetorically? The Minister may think it does; there will be few in this House or outside who would agree.

Of all the misconceived and less than half-baked ideas we have seen in the Bill, this proposal must surely rank in the front line. It is simply appalling and I hope the Minister will use his long experience of these matters, as both an advocate and as a recorder, to persuade his ministerial colleagues, in particular the Lord Chancellor, that he is bringing the whole system into a serious collision with reality, one that will do no good to the defendants, to the court system, or, frankly, to the reputation of those who are putting forward these proposals. However, as we are in Committee, I will not press the matter tonight. It is very probably one to which I and others will wish to return on Report. I hope the Minister will use his influence with the Lord Chancellor to see that some significant changes, at the very least, are made to these appalling, deeply flawed proposals. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 63AA withdrawn.

21:14

Amendments 63AB to 63EA not moved.

Clause 42 agreed.

Schedule 8: Further provision about criminal courts charge

Amendment 63F

Moved by

[Lord Faulks]

63F: Schedule 8, page 106, line 18, at end insert—
“Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (c. 29)10A In section 13(3)(a) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (effect of order on court’s other powers), after “other than” insert “an order under section 21A of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 (criminal courts charge) or”.”

Amendment 63F agreed.

Schedule 8, as amended, agreed.

Clause 43: Duty to review criminal courts charge

Amendments 63FA and 63FB not moved.

Clause 43 agreed.

Clause 44: Variation of collection orders etc

Amendment 63FC not moved.

Clause 44 agreed.

Clause 45: Personal injury claims: cases of fundamental dishonesty

Amendment 63FD

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

63FD: Clause 45, page 46, line 17, leave out “fundamentally”

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a practising solicitor and partner in the international law firm DAC Beachcroft and as chairman of the British Insurance Brokers’ Association, and I have other interests recorded in the register.

The “have a go” culture has infected our civil compensation system for far too long. Claimants—and it is always claimants—see that there is no real penalty for trying on either that they have been injured at all or a deliberate exaggeration of the symptoms that they have suffered. The advertising by claims farmers and solicitors has undoubtedly played a part in this. The adverts for personal injury and for financial mis-selling continue to give the impression of free money. The starkest example that I can immediately recall was a full-page advert last November showing simply a bundle of £50 notes done up in Christmas ribbon. We all recall those original adverts saying, “Where there’s blame, there’s a claim, and it won’t cost you a penny”.

That is why I welcome Clause 45 as part of the Government’s initiative to tackle this. I certainly support its introduction. Measures are, of course, already available to tackle the completely fabricated claim, but I fully support the idea that a claimant with a genuine claim who then dishonestly exaggerates it should put their whole case at risk. That, after all, is what would happen if one was unwise enough to put in a consciously exaggerated claim to one’s own insurance company. Why should it be any different if one proceeds with the same intent against another person’s insurance company?

I would like to hear more from the Minister on the choice of the phrase, “fundamentally dishonest”. I recognise that my noble friend has great experience of the English language, and I should declare an interest as having been for six years chairman of the English-Speaking Union, but, with due respect for his grasp of the English language, it seems to me that dishonesty is one of those absolute concepts: either you are dishonest or you are not, in the same way that you cannot refer to something as “very unique” or to someone as “slightly pregnant”. I know that a similar phrase was used in the Civil Procedure Rules following the seminal—perhaps I should now call it the “fundamentally seminal”—review by Lord Justice Jackson of civil legal costs, but I am not aware that it has been tested or scrutinised by the Appeal Courts as yet. I would welcome clarification from the Minister about the thinking behind the choice of this phrase.

I have received, no doubt like other noble Lords, material from those representing claimant personal injury lawyers who have expressed concern that this measure might go too far. I cannot agree with that. If a claim is brought which contains a dishonest element—and dishonest always means that there is proof of a deliberate intent to deceive—then that behaviour should rightly put the whole claim at risk. The effect of this clause is clearly a deterrent one which, as I have already explained, I strongly welcome.

It might be helpful to point out to noble Lords that Clause 45 is not unique—not even slightly unique—because an analogous provision can be found in Ireland, in Section 26 of its Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004. There, any plaintiff, as they are still called in Ireland, who knowingly gives false or misleading evidence will find their claim dismissed in total. The test is simply one of dishonesty rather than fundamental dishonesty. If there is a fear that the power in Clause 45 would be abused by overzealous defendants, the experience of more than 10 years in Ireland proves otherwise: the courts are alert to any attempts to abuse a provision that is expected to apply in only a small number of cases, and of course if the clause truly has a deterrent effect, it should mean fewer cases coming to court in the first place.

Let me finish by illustrating the concern over “fundamentally dishonest” with a stark example that was recently brought to my attention. It was a case tried in Stoke-on-Trent County Court earlier this year. Mr Steven Cotton is a 31 year-old heating engineer who now lives in Swadlincote, Derbyshire. In December 2008, he sustained an injury to his neck and shoulder while at work. It was frankly a modest injury and he was able to go back to work the following month, in January 2009, before a disciplinary matter at work intervened. At that point, he decided to bring a claim against his employers and to include in that claim an allegation of a lower-back injury. Matters progressed and, just a few months before trial, he put in a claim schedule for in excess of £1 million, despite his solicitors, Woolliscrofts in Stoke, being aware of video surveillance evidence showing Mr Cotton as being much less disabled than he was making out. I understand that the insurers facing this claim, AXA Insurance, were not impressed. They rightly defended the case to trial and the judge agreed that Mr Cotton had invented the lower-back injury as a deliberate exaggeration of his genuine neck and shoulder injury. The judge awarded Mr Cotton just over £18,000 for the genuine injury, which was less than 2% of the amount that he had falsely claimed, plus some of his solicitor’s costs. One might think that this degree of exaggeration would be enough to knock out the entire claim but, sadly, it was not so. On the one hand, Mr Cotton’s case is a classic example of why the clause is badly needed. On the other hand, it raises a question in my mind as to whether the addition of a second injury to an already genuine injury would be seen by the courts as fundamentally dishonest. The court in Stoke stopped short of declaring that Mr Cotton’s lower back injury was not a genuine medical condition, despite the surveillance evidence. I have a real fear that Mr Cotton might still be awarded damages after the new clause comes in when all right-thinking people would agree that someone whose claim had already been knocked out to the extent of 98% not being allowed should not receive a penny.

I turn to the second amendment in my name: Amendment 63FE. To me, the meaning of subsection (5) of Clause 45 is unclear. Subsections (2) and (4), for example, impose obligations on the court to follow a particular line of conduct by use of the word “must”. In contrast, subsection (5) is different in tone and appears to offer more leeway. I hate once again to split linguistic hairs with the Minister, but I would like some clarification on whether subsection (5) is really intended to be a discretionary “may”. I reassure noble Lords that there is some substance behind the point I seek to make. Subsection (5) appears to limit the legal costs consequences of a claim being dismissed in its entirety under the clause by restricting the costs award that could be made to the defendant to a sum net of the damages that would have been awarded to the claimant if he had pursued an honest claim. I wonder whether there is even a risk that subsection (5) simply undoes the good work of the rest of the clause. The dishonest claimant who is found out ends up paying his opponent’s cost but is able to offset the money he has forfeited by his dishonesty. To return to the example of Mr Cotton, he would still, in effect, get credit for the £18,000 awarded for his genuine injury. Does that not encourage the likes of Mr Cotton to have a go at the expense of insurers, which is where I was when I started? I beg to move.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 63FDA to 63FFA. I do so with some diffidence because, in part, I disagree with my noble friend Lord Hunt. After the humorous and intelligent way in which he introduced his amendment, and given that I agree with a great deal of the sentiment he expresses, I am concerned about the extent to which I disagree with him.

I agree with my noble friend that there has been a culture of “going for it”. There has been an outbreak of “compensation-itis” that we no doubt acquired, in part, from the United States and which has bitten particularly deep into the culture of people who have had motoring accidents. I greatly agree that something needs to be done. The question is whether the clause does what needs to be done in the way it needs to be done.

As my noble friend explained, Clause 45 deals with claims for damages in personal injury cases where the claimant is guilty of fundamental dishonesty in the prosecution of his claim. Clause 45(2) provides that,

“The court must dismiss the primary claim”—

that is, the claim for damages—

“unless it is satisfied that the claimant would suffer substantial injustice if the claim were dismissed”.

The question I seek to pose is how far subsection (2) would leave judges free to do justice.

In my view, the subsection works against the interests of justice, or certainly risks doing so, in two ways. The first is by imposing a presumption in favour of dismissal, subject to a modest saving provision that, frankly, is difficult to understand. I am not sure I agree with my noble friend Lord Hunt that the word “fundamentally” adds nothing, but I certainly am of the view that the saving subsection,

“unless it is satisfied that the claimant would suffer substantial injustice if the claim were dismissed”,

is very difficult to understand. On one view of justice, and the view of justice which appears to be intended by the proponents of the clause, if there is dishonesty, it is not unjust for the whole claim to go. If that is the meaning, how does the saving provision come in at all? If, on the other hand, it means that the interests of justice seem broadly to require the claimant still to get some of his damages, does that amount to a duty to dismiss or is it merely a power to dismiss, which is what my amendments are directed to?

21:30

The second area where I believe there is a risk that justice will not be done is that the clause as it stands allows for no middle course—no way of allowing a judge to reduce the damages rather than dismiss the claim, where a reduction in damages is really what is required to do justice between the parties.

I am not sure whether my next point constitutes a declarable interest, but it is in the register. Over the years, I have conducted many personal injury claims on both sides—for claimants and for defendants. In more recent years, some of those have been very substantial indeed. Regrettably, many of those claims are marked by dishonesty. Such dishonesty can arise from relatively minor exaggeration, such as happens in any number of insurance claims in the experience of all of us. However, it can range to entirely fraudulent claims, where whole elements of the claim are simply made up or fabricated by the claimant.

I suspect that the word “fundamentally” is intended by the drafters of the clause to limit the provision to those cases where the dishonesty goes to the heart of the whole claim, or certainly to a very important element of it. I agree with my noble friend Lord Hunt that it is difficult to see exactly what it means, although it cannot refer to aspects of dishonesty that are on the margins and refer only to exaggeration. He is right technically to say that being dishonest is dishonesty; it is attempting to obtain money to which the claimant is not entitled. However, if that refers to making out a claim for five bus fares when one bus fare was, in fact, incurred, is that enough to tell the judge he should allow for not just no bus fares but no damages at all to a seriously injured claimant?

I have long believed that judges are presently far too limited in what they can do to reflect dishonesty in disallowing dishonest claims. It is right to consider what they can do. They can reflect the dishonesty, of course, by cutting out the dishonest part of the claim. They can also reflect the dishonesty in their award of costs by disallowing costs to the claimant on certain issues and allowing costs to the defendant—indeed, in a serious case, allowing all the costs to the defendant. Occasionally, a judge might send the papers to the Crown Prosecution Service or the Director of Public Prosecutions for him to consider prosecution for perjury, but in practice, as anyone who practises in this field well knows, prosecutions for perjury arising out of this sort of case are very unusual indeed.

I believe that judges should have the power to disallow claims, just as the clause proposes. However, I believe that should be a discretionary power of the courts and that there should be no presumption one way or another. The exercise of the power should be governed by the overriding objective of dealing with cases justly, which was introduced into the Civil Procedure Rules proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. I submit that that is a proper and sensible way of approaching this. I also believe that the courts ought to have the power to reduce an award of damages not merely relative to the area where there has been dishonesty but, if necessary, relative to the whole case, so that they can disallow a dishonest claim and parts of the rest of the claim if they wish.

There may be many cases where dishonesty in presentation is so significant in relation to the whole claim as to make it just to dismiss the lot, but there should be no general rule to that effect. I put before the Committee the hypothetical example of a middle-aged middle manager who is severely injured in a road accident which renders him tetraplegic. He has 10 years left or thereabouts of his working life. He therefore has a claim for loss of earnings of about £500,000. However, he has a whole life claim for full-time residential care of, say, £4 million. He has a claim for medical help, for adjusted housing and for incidentals of about another £1 million. He has a claim for general damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity of about £200,000 to £250,000. All in all, his claim is worth about £6 million. This claimant, in a way that is fundamentally dishonest, suppresses the fact that a week before the accident he had received notice that he was to be made redundant. He is unlikely, because of his age and limited skills, to get any further work. His loss of earnings claim, far from being worth £500,000, is worth a residual £20,000 to £30,000 at most. Is that fundamental dishonesty? Of course it is.

What would the outcome be under Clause 45? It may well be that somebody could say that that is so dishonest that it would not offend against justice for the claim to be dismissed. Furthermore, the saving provision requires the claimant to suffer “substantial injustice”. However, in the example that I have given, the National Health Service would be given the task of caring for the claimant, while social services would be meeting a lot of his social service needs, such as his adjusted housing and so forth and the care needs that he may have at home. The people who would be let off the claim if Clause 45 was applied would be the defendant’s insurers, and the public purse would bear the cost of that. It is not the claimant who suffers the substantial injustice in that case, so Clause 45 would be applied and the whole claim dismissed. However, I suggest that most judges and most lawyers would think that the right result would be that his general damages should be removed and that his loss of earnings claim should of course fall. The defendant’s insurers would nevertheless be left with the cost of his care claim and his medical claim—he is, after all, a tetraplegic.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Hunt on his other amendment, Amendment 63FE, that subsection (5) lacks sense. I would be tougher and suggest that the Committee invite the Government to be tougher than the proposers of the clause. As my noble friend Lord Hunt rightly pointed out, subsection (5) would give a dishonest claimant credit for the damages he had forfeited against the costs that he would otherwise have to pay the defendant. I simply do not agree that there is any reason for that. To take an example of a small claim, where he would have got £10,000 for an injury that has been exaggerated, under subsection (4) that sum of £10,000 would be recorded but his claim would be dismissed. The costs he ought to pay to the defendant come to, say, £30,000. Under subsection (5), he would only have to pay £20,000. Why, in a case where a dishonest claim is dismissed, he should get credit for the damages that he has forfeited, I cannot tell. The only answer I can think of is that the defendant would not have to pay the £10,000, but the claimant might not have brought that claim for £10,000 anyway so the defendant would not have to pay it.

Finally, Amendment 63FG, which is the amendment in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, effectively reverses the point so that if a defendant is dishonest, the defence will be struck out and judgment will be entered. There is a difficulty about that. It is superficially attractive because it proceeds on the basis that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. However, unless the amendment goes only to the defence on liability, it is bound to be wrong because the judgment that should follow is a judgment only for damages to be assessed. It cannot be right that the defendant cannot put forward a counterschedule of damages, and that the claimant will get a windfall in damages of an amount to which he cannot possibly be entitled, because of the fact that the defendant is precluded from defending the claim. While I see the attraction of the way that the noble Lords have put it, I would not support that amendment.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I find myself not for the first time playing Spencer to the noble Lord, Lord Marks. We are almost ad idem on most of this evening’s discussions.

Clause 45 contains yet another mandatory instruction to the courts. On this occasion, as we have heard, it relates to findings of “fundamental dishonesty”. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, raised some semantic issues about the terminology. I am personally rather anti-semantic but there is a possible interpretation of the phrase so that it is the effect of the dishonesty being fundamental to the claim, I think, rather than the nature of the dishonesty. As the noble Lord pointed out, the phrase is used in the Civil Procedure Rules. However, we need not worry particularly about the precise terminology. The problem is that if,

“on the balance of probabilities”,

such a finding is made, the court has to strike out the claim unless, as we have heard,

“the claimant would suffer substantial injustice”,

whatever that purports to mean.

Amendment 63FG seeks, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, pointed out, to even up the balance by putting the defendants in the same position as a dishonest claimant, such that the defence would be struck out. It would certainly be legitimate to apply that to the issue of liability. Frankly, if the Government were to insist upon the full operation of their proposals in terms of the quantum issues, it would not be unjust to apply the same principle to the defendants. That is perhaps a debatable point.

However, I want to explore generally the issues a bit more widely as they have been discussed before this evening by the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Marks. Certainly there are in my mind a number of questions about Clause 45, which is clearly another example of the Government’s Pavlovian reaction to pressure from their friends in the insurance industry, this time including the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I am not criticising the noble Lord, who perfectly properly declares an interest, but I am saying that the Government—particularly the Conservative Party—do rather seem to be beholden to the interests of the insurance industry, which is one of their more prominent supporters. I am not suggesting for a moment that the noble Lord is in any way to be criticised personally for that. However, it is a matter of fact that—

21:44

[Lord Faulks]

Is the noble Lord suggesting that in order to bring in a provision saying that one cannot recover damages if one is fundamentally dishonest, that is simply serving the interests of the insurance industry?

[Lord Beecham]

Of course it is not simply serving the interests of the insurance industry, but it is serving its interests and there is no reason why the insurance industry should not lobby to that effect. But let us not be unrealistic. I repeat that it is perfectly proper for the noble Lord to make his case, and I have no criticism of him whatever. My criticism is of the Government. In any event, there are a number of questions about the situation, as created by the Bill.

First, why single out personal injury claims? There are many damages claims to which such a provision might apply. There are claims, for example, of breach of contract over the supply of goods or services, damages to property or professional negligence. Indeed, paradoxically or ironically, the driver of a car might be caught by this provision in respect of a personal injury claim arising out of an accident but not if he claims only for damages to the vehicle. Where is the logic in that? In fairness to the noble Lord, he quoted an example of a potential for a claim other than a personal injury claim. But that is not what the Bill says; it concentrates purely on the aspect of personal injuries.

The second question is why, particularly given the drastic consequences, should the balance of probabilities test apply only to something that after all amounts to fraud, and is capable, as pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, of being prosecuted? In that event, it should be prosecuted if it is committed, but a different standard of proof would apply to the treatment of the conduct, deplorable as it is, in a civil claim as opposed to a criminal claim. As we have also heard, claimants, in addition to the possibility of prosecution, which would be amply justified, could face contempt of court proceedings in which again the applicant for the contempt case must prove fraud beyond reasonable doubt. I do not think that different standards of proof should apply to the same conduct in this context.

The third question is on why the entire claim should be struck out instead of judicial discretion being exercised to reduce damages or penalise the claimant in costs. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, has dealt very effectively with an example in which that situation might occur. The fourth question is whether the Government have considered the impact on third parties, notably the National Health Service, which in personal injury claims can recover treatment costs from the person causing the injury. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Marks, was ahead of me, not for the first time, and was quite right to say that if the defendant escapes scot-free because of some misconduct on the part of the claimant in relation to part of his claim, it is the health service—and the taxpayer generally—that will suffer.

The fifth question is: what is meant by fundamental dishonesty? The CPR, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, pointed out, coined the phrase in relation to qualified one-way cost shifting when a party loses the protection of QOCS if he has been found to have behaved in this way. However, as far as I am aware, there has been only one unreported case. It may be the case to which the noble Lord referred; it rings a bell. I think it was the case of Cotton. That is the only one that has so far come to light since the provision came in. I assume that the Minister will confirm that the Bill’s provisions have the same meaning, as far as that is ascertainable, as the Civil Procedure Rules.

The sixth question is: yet again, why are the Government seeking to fetter judicial discretion? This is one of the most fundamental points. In Fairclough Homes Ltd v Summers in 2012, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke, said:

“It is for the court, not parliament to protect the court’s process. The power to strike out is not a power to punish but to protect the court’s process”

The Supreme Court said that its already existing power to strike out,

“should be exercised where it is just and proportionate to do so which is likely to be only in very exceptional circumstances”.

The court referred to other ways of punishing fraudulent claimants in costs, criminal or contempt proceedings.

Let me be clear: the Opposition are not in favour of tolerating, let alone encouraging, fraudulent claims whether or not the fundamental dishonesty applies to the whole claim or any part of it. To that extent, all of us who have spoken tonight—the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Marks, myself and no doubt the Minister are absolutely agreed. But the Opposition are content to allow the courts to deal with any abuse, both in determining the issues of damages and costs and in pursuing criminal proceedings when they are appropriate, and would regard that as applicable to all kinds of claims, not just personal injury claims. That would be illogical, in my submission. The Minister may wish to take that back as a matter to consider. I do not see why personal injury claims should be singled out for this particular treatment.

There is certainly a need to deal with people who abuse the system, but in my submission what is proposed here goes too far and leaves too little discretion to the courts, which are really capable of dealing with it. I beg to move.

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions of all noble Lords to this useful discussion of Clause 45. Until the conclusion of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, I was beginning to wonder whether he thought that there should be any problem with people grossly exaggerating or being fundamentally dishonest in pursuing their personal injury claims. However, by the end I realised that the party opposite is not in favour of that, although he asked why we singled out personal injury claims.

The answer to the noble Lord’s question was provided very elegantly by my noble friend Lord Hunt. There has been—and the Government seek to address this by this clause—an epidemic of people claiming in circumstances that most right-thinking people would find deeply unattractive. The Supreme Court recently in the case of Fairclough had to deal with this particular issue, which the Government seek to address in Clause 45. So it is a particular problem that is troubling most people in society generally, with the so-called compensation culture, but also with a specific problem that has come before the courts. We suggest that it is entirely appropriate for the Government to endeavour to address this difficult problem; indeed, the Supreme Court found it difficult to find a satisfactory answer.

I am grateful for some of the constructive suggestions that have been made about how the clause ought best to have been drafted. At the moment, it requires the court to dismiss in its entirety any personal injury claim when it is satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the claimant has been fundamentally dishonest, unless it would cause substantial injustice to the claimant to do so. That is of particular relevance when the claimant has grossly exaggerated his claim, and in cases where the claimant has colluded with another person in a fraudulent claim relating to the same incident—also, sadly, a far too common feature of the whole claims industry at the moment.

This is part of a series of measures taken by the Government to discourage fraudulent and exaggerated claims, which arise often in motor accident cases and so-called “trips and slips” claims. Such claims cause substantial harm to society as a whole, not least in increasing the insurance premiums that motorists have to pay. I notice that the noble Lord criticised the Government; I think that the inference was that they were in some way in league with the insurance industry. We are talking here about insurance premiums paid by members of the public. These cases also eat up valuable resources of local and public authorities and employers, which could otherwise be used for the benefit of business and in providing services to the public.

Under the current law, the courts have discretion to dismiss a claim in cases of dishonesty, but will do so only in very exceptional circumstances, and will generally still award the claimant compensation in relation to the “genuine” element of the claim. The Government simply do not believe that people who behave in a fundamentally dishonest way—and I will come to address the adverb in a moment—by grossly exaggerating their own claim or colluding should be allowed to benefit by getting compensation in spite of their deceit. Clause 45 seeks to strengthen the law so that dismissal of the entire claim should become the norm in such cases. However, at the same time, it recognises that the dismissal of the claim will not always be appropriate and gives the court the discretion not to do so where it would cause substantial injustice to the claimant. To that extent, some of the remarks of my noble friend Lord Marks were entirely apposite. The clause gives the court some flexibility to ensure that the provision is applied fairly and proportionately.

The amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Marks and others would considerably weaken the effect of the clause by simply giving the court a wide discretion were it satisfied that the claimant had been fundamentally dishonest, which would enable it to either dismiss the claim, reduce the amount of damages or to do neither. That would make it much less likely that those provisions would be used, even in cases where the claimant has clearly been fundamentally dishonest. I do not believe that that would be appropriate. We do not believe that people who behave in a fundamentally dishonest way should be able to benefit by getting compensation regardless.

I assure the Committee that the way that the clause is drafted should not result in the courts using the measures lightly. Civil courts do not make findings of dishonesty lightly in any event; clear evidence is required. The sanction imposed by the clause—the denial of compensation to which the claimant would otherwise be entitled—is a serious one and will be imposed only where the dishonesty is fundamental; that is, where it goes to the heart of the claim. That was very much what my noble friend said about what it was aimed at.

Of course, “fundamental” has an echo in the Civil Procedure Rules and the qualified, one-way costs shifting. An adverb to qualify a concept such as dishonesty is not linguistically attractive, but if we ask a jury to decide a question such as dishonesty, or ask a judge to decide whether someone has been fundamentally dishonest, it is well within the capacity of any judge. They will know exactly what the clause is aimed at—not the minor inaccuracy about bus fares or the like, but something that goes to the heart. I do not suggest that it wins many prizes for elegance, but it sends the right message to the judge.

The amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Hunt, who has enormous experience in this area, reflect the fact that in his view, any degree of dishonesty, unless the court is satisfied that dismissal would cause substantial injustice to the claimant, would be sufficient. It is a difficult balancing act, but we do not believe that that would be proportionate or practical. The sanction imposed by the clause is a serious one—denial of compensation to which prima facie somebody is entitled—and we believe that it should be imposed only where it goes to the heart of a claim. It would be disproportionate to require a claim to be dismissed in its entirety. It would also not be practical as it would be likely to lead to a large number of disputes between the parties over whether the claimant had or had not dishonestly exaggerated the claim. There is potential for it to impede settlements, leading to an increase in contested litigation.

My noble friend is quite right; the Government hope it will act significantly to deter people from bringing claims or exaggerating in any way at all. The fact that there may not be many reported cases about fundamental dishonesty and the QOCS scenario may be an indication that the concept does not engender great difficulties for judges applying it in practice, and therefore, there is no need for reported cases.

It should not be forgotten that the courts still have powers available—for example, the awards of costs to penalise claimants whose behaviour falls short of financial dishonesty—if it considers the sanction is merited. We consider that the courts will be able to apply the test. In addition, supplementary provisions are included to ensure that the sanctions imposed on the claimant are proportionate. Subsections (6) and (7) ensure that in the event of subsequent proceedings against the claimant for contempt or criminal prosecution, the court has a full picture of the consequences of the dishonest conduct for the claimant when deciding what punishment to impose.

Subsection (5) ensures that when a court dismisses a claim under this clause, it can award costs against the claimant only to the extent that these exceed the damages that would otherwise have been awarded. I thought that I understood what that meant, but I hear what my noble friend says about it, and what my noble friend Lord Marks says about it, and if it is not as clear as it might be I will take that back to consider the drafting before Report. The intention is to limit the extent. We think that that is what it says, but I will definitely take that back and consider it.

22:00

As to Amendment 63FE, this would delete it. We do not for the moment think that that is appropriate, subject to amendment.

Amendment 63FG, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Kennedy, seeks to apply a similar provision to defendants who are fundamentally dishonest. Unfortunately, we believe that this amendment is fundamentally misconceived. The clause focuses on the denial of damages to claimants who behave in a fundamentally dishonest way. Where a defendant brings a counterclaim for damages, the clause will apply to that counterclaim. However, damages are not otherwise awarded to defendants. They are not in an equivalent position. A defence which has no merit can be struck out, and there are a number of ways in which a defendant who behaves dishonestly can be penalised—for example, through an adverse costs order or through action for contempt or fraud. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, who has had considerable historic exposure to personal injury claims, indicated at Second Reading that there is,

“no possible logic in suggesting that this provision should … be mirrored in regard to the defendant’s conduct of their defence”.—[Official Report, 30/6/14; col. 1589.]

Therefore I am afraid that we are unable to accept the amendment.

Subject to the possible improvement of the drafting in relation to subsection (5), we believe that this clause adopts a fair, measured and proportionate approach to a difficult problem. We believe that it will send a strong message to deter dishonest behaviour and give a greater incentive to defendants and insurers to investigate and challenge dubious claims. One of the problems is that defendants are often not incentivised to investigate claims properly and pay them out far too easily. I therefore hope that the noble Lords will be prepared not to press their amendments, and I beg to move that Clause 45 stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister, in particular for his generous tribute to the way in which I introduced the amendment. However, I am gravely disappointed by the reaction of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, whom I have always felt to be my noble friend, in seeking to categorise me in some way. Perhaps I should have declared an interest as a solicitor for many years for the Transport and General Workers’ Union, acting in many claims. Perhaps I should have declared an interest as acting for the child most seriously damaged by the thalidomide drug, in a lengthy court action against Distillers. Perhaps it is all my fault that he should have categorised me in the way that he did—but I regret it.

As to my noble friend Lord Marks, I think that we are more or less in agreement, and I thank him for what he said. All I would say is that I do not think that we should have just a discretionary power because, as my noble friend the Minister just said, we all surely want to combine to send a strong message from this House that dishonesty must never pay. That is the purpose behind this.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, whom I still regard as my noble friend, that he ought to have a word with Mr Jack Straw, who has been fighting hard on behalf of genuine claimants and seeking to eradicate this tendency to exaggerate claims and to make us the whiplash capital of Europe.

I think that the Government are taking a step in the right direction. I am very grateful to the Minister for agreeing to look at certain aspects again. In the light of that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I have clearly upset the noble Lord. It certainly was not my intention to do so. We have a very long association, going back to the time when we were involved in the inner city partnership in Newcastle. We have always got on very well. I intended no imputation whatever upon the noble Lord. I do think that the insurance industry, as an industry, has been overpersuasive with the present Administration, in particular with the Conservative Party.

However, that is no reflection on the noble Lord. I made it clear that he has behaved with complete propriety, as he always has. I am sorry if I have upset him; I can say no more than that. I apologise if that has been the effect—it was certainly not intended. I look forward to engaging in civilised conflict with him from time to time over this and other measures in the spirit that we have enjoyed hitherto. I certainly would not like him to leave the Chamber tonight feeling that I have cast any slur or imputation upon him. He is widely recognised as extremely able and a man who has devoted a great part of his life to public service. I would not wish in any way to detract from his record or his sincerity.

[Lord Faulks]

I want to ask the noble Lord about that comment. He redirected his fire at the Government and said they had been improperly influenced by the insurance industry. Perhaps he can assist the Committee as to the basis of that allegation and how it is relevant to the amendment that the Committee has before it tonight.

[Lord Beecham]

I was trying to say that the Government have frequently changed the law in relation to claims, not just with regard to tonight’s amendment but on a range of issues in a way that adversely affects claimants and generally favours insurers. Whenever the Labour Party makes a proposition that affects working people and trade unions, it is accused of being in the pockets of trade union leaders, dancing to Len McCluskey’s tune. If that is a legitimate comment for the Conservative Party to make about the Labour Party, it is quite legitimate for us to point to some of those industries—not just the insurance industry; there are others—that seem to be willing to fund the Conservative Party, whether or not that involve tennis matches with the Prime Minister.

Amendment A63FD withdrawn.

Amendments 63FDA to 63FG not moved.

Clause 45 agreed.

Amendment 64

Moved by

[Lord Faulks]

64: After Clause 45, insert the following new Clause—
“Rules against inducements to make personal injury claims
(1) A regulated person is in breach of this section if—
(a) the regulated person offers another person a benefit,(b) the offer of the benefit is an inducement to make a claim in civil proceedings for—(i) damages for personal injury or death, or(ii) damages arising out of circumstances involving personal injury or death, and(c) the benefit is not related to the provision of legal services in connection with the claim.(2) An offer of a benefit by a regulated person to another person is an inducement to make a claim if the offer of the benefit—
(a) is intended to encourage the person to make a claim or to seek advice from a regulated person with a view to making a claim, or (b) is likely to have the effect of encouraging the person to do so.(3) A benefit offered by a regulated person may be an inducement to make a claim regardless of—
(a) when or by what means the offer is made,(b) whether the receipt of the benefit pursuant to the offer is subject to conditions,(c) when the benefit may be received pursuant to the offer, or(d) whether the benefit may be received by the person to whom the offer is made or by a third party.(4) The Lord Chancellor may by regulations make provision as to the circumstances in which a benefit offered by a regulated person is related to the provision of legal services in connection with a claim, including provision about benefits relating to—
(a) fees to be charged in respect of the legal services,(b) expenses which are or would be necessarily incurred in connection with the claim, or(c) insurance to cover legal costs and expenses in connection with the claim.”

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, this measure complements significant reforms that the Government have already introduced to control the costs of civil litigation. In particular, it is part of our focus on discouraging fraudulent and grossly exaggerated personal injury claims, as is Clause 45 on fundamentally dishonest claims. In all this work, our intention has been to allow appropriate personal injury claims to proceed at proportionate cost. However, we are determined to root out the disproportionately high costs and frankly unacceptable behaviour that has tainted the personal injury world in recent years.

These clauses address the practice of offering inducements to bring personal injury claims. There are many examples of lawyers offering potential clients money or items such as tablet computers for pursuing a personal injury claim. One recent advertisement read:

“If you bring a successful claim”—

to X Solicitors—

“you will be eligible for a free iPad. We believe in thanking those who entrust us with their claim, and as well as providing clients with a professional legal service, we hope a complimentary iPad can make things easier for you after your accident”.

Another stated:

“On acceptance of your case we will pay you £250 as an upfront ‘welcome’ payment. This payment is on top of your eventual compensation payment”.

Such incentives contribute to the so-called compensation culture by offering rewards for bringing a claim, regardless of its merits. Expenditure on these inducements might also have a detrimental effect on the quality of service provided to the client. Furthermore, in a significant number of cases, the client is then denied the money or benefit initially offered because of terms and conditions. This practice has no doubt developed because of the excessive legal costs in personal injury cases which have already been addressed by our reforms in Part 2 of the LASPO Act 2012, but it is a practice that we need to stop to protect consumers and, indeed, the reputation of the legal profession more widely. We are grateful for the cross-industry support for introducing a ban on the offer of such inducements; reputable lawyers recognise the harm that this does to their profession. The House of Commons Transport Committee has also recently endorsed a ban.

Consequently, these clauses prohibit legal services providers from offering monetary and non-monetary benefits to potential clients as an incentive to make a personal injury claim. They define what is considered to be an inducement and require regulators to monitor and enforce the ban, as breaches of the ban will not be considered as a criminal offence.

Amendment 87 amends the extent provisions in the Bill to make clear that those provisions apply only to England and Wales.

As to Amendment 64A, I thank my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral for bringing this issue to my attention. I know that he has a long-standing constructive interest in making sure that the Government get the drafting right on this kind of issue. I am extremely grateful for that. I will ask officials to consider the matter carefully during the Recess with a view to returning to it at a later stage.

Subject to that point, we believe that the new government clauses are a proportionate response to what has been a thoroughly bad practice. I beg to move.

Amendment 64A (to Amendment 64)

Tabled by

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

64A: After Clause 45, line 24, after “party” insert “, or
(e) whether the benefit is offered by the regulated person or by a third party”

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

In view of my noble friend’s comments, I do not wish to speak to this amendment but will return to the matter on Report.

Amendment 64A (to Amendment 64) not moved.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I am perfectly satisfied that the Minister makes a very good case. We support it and would also support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. He and I between us have nearly 100 years—God help us—as practising solicitors and we have seen our profession change from a profession to a more conventional, perhaps even less than conventional, business. Professional standards seem to me—and, I dare say, to the noble Lord—to have suffered considerably from the commercialisation of the profession in a way that I find distasteful. I dare say he does as well. So we welcome this.

The problem does not stop with the inducements offered by solicitors or other people. All of us, I suspect, are constantly beset by unsolicited telephone calls raising the possibility of claims where there is no foundation to them, and all kinds of other calls selling services and the like. Quite apart from this legislation, the Government generally need to look at what can be done to make it much more difficult for this cold-calling industry across a range of issues—and certainly in the areas of promoting claims for PIP or accidents that have never occurred and so on. They should consider whether there cannot be a framework that makes it much more difficult.

Many of us have signed up to a system that is supposed to screen such calls but it simply does not work. Although it is impossible, I suppose, to stop e-mails, telephone calls which constantly occur—whether they are about this specific issue or more generally—are a nuisance. They are expensive and they are extremely irritating. It is not a matter for the Bill but perhaps the noble Lord could take back to his colleagues in BIS, and possibly other departments, that this issue generally needs addressing in addition to the specifics referred to in the government amendments and the noble Lord’s amendment, which we support.

Amendment 64 agreed.

Amendments 65 to 67

Moved by

[Lord Faulks]

65: After Clause 45, insert the following new Clause—
“Effect of rules against inducements
(1) The relevant regulator must ensure that it has appropriate arrangements for monitoring and enforcing the restriction imposed on regulated persons by section (Rules against inducements to make personal injury claims).
(2) A regulator may make rules for the purposes of subsection (1).
(3) The rules may in particular provide that, in relation to anything done in breach of that section, the relevant regulator may exercise any powers that the regulator would have in relation to anything done by the regulated person in breach of another restriction (subject to subsection (4)).
(4) A breach of section (Rules against inducements to make personal injury claims)—
(a) does not make a person guilty of an offence, and (b) does not give rise to a right of action for breach of statutory duty.(5) Subsection (6) applies in a case where—
(a) a regulated person has offered a benefit to a person, and(b) it appears to the regulator that the offer of the benefit is an inducement to make a claim as mentioned in section (Rules against inducements to make personal injury claims)(1)(b).(6) Rules under subsection (2) may provide for the offer of the benefit to the person to be treated as an inducement to make a claim as mentioned in section (Rules against inducements to make personal injury claims)(1)(b) unless the regulated person shows—
(a) that the benefit was offered for a reason other than encouraging the person to make a claim or to seek advice from a regulated person with a view to making a claim, or(b) that the benefit is related to the provision of legal services in connection with the claim (see regulations under section (Rules against inducements to make personal injury claims)(4)).”

66: After Clause 45, insert the following new Clause—
“Inducements: interpretation
(1) In relation to an offer of a benefit which is an inducement to make a claim in civil proceedings for damages for personal injury or death or arising out of circumstances involving personal injury or death—
(a) a regulator is any person listed in column 1 below;(b) a regulated person is any person listed in column 2;(c) a regulator in column 1 is the relevant regulator in relation to the corresponding person in column 2.

Regulator	Regulated person
The General Council of the Bar	A person authorised by the Council to carry on a reserved legal activity within the meaning of the Legal Services Act 2007
The Institute of Legal Executives	A person authorised by the Institute to carry on a reserved legal activity within the meaning of the Legal Services Act 2007
The Law Society	A person authorised by the Society to carry on a reserved legal activity within the meaning of the Legal Services Act 2007
A licensing authority for the purposes of Part 5 of the Legal Services Act 2007 (alternative business structures)	A person who is licensed by the authority to carry on a reserved legal activity
A regulatory body specified for the purposes of this section in regulations made by the Lord Chancellor	A person of a description specified for the purposes of this section in regulations made by the Lord Chancellor in relation to the body specified under column 1

(2) For the purposes of this section and sections (Rules against inducements to make personal injury claims) and (Effect of rules against inducements)—
“benefit” means—
(a) any benefit, whether or not in money or other property and whether temporary or permanent, and(b) any opportunity to obtain a benefit;“claim” includes a counter-claim;
“legal services” means services provided by a person which consist of or include legal activities (within the meaning of the Legal Services Act 2007) carried on by or on behalf of that person;
“personal injury” includes any disease and any other impairment of a person’s physical or mental condition.
(3) For the purposes of this section and section (Effect of rules against inducements) whether an offer of a benefit is an inducement to make a claim is to be determined in accordance with section (Rules against inducements to make personal injury claims).”

67: After Clause 45, insert the following new Clause—
“Inducements: regulations
(1) This section applies to any regulations under section (Rules against inducements to make personal injury claims) or (Inducements: interpretation).
(2) The regulations are to be made by statutory instrument.
(3) The regulations may include consequential, supplementary, incidental, transitional, transitory or saving provision.
(4) Regulations under section (Rules against inducements to make personal injury claims) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument containing the regulations has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.
(5) A statutory instrument containing regulations under section (Inducements: interpretation) is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”

Amendments 65 to 67 agreed.

22:15

Clause 46: Appeals from the High Court to the Supreme Court

Amendments 67A to 67E not moved.

Clause 46 agreed.

Clause 47: Appeals from the Upper Tribunal to the Supreme Court

Amendment 67F not moved.

Clause 47 agreed.

Clause 48: Appeals from the Employment Appeal Tribunal to the Supreme Court

Amendment 67G not moved.

Clause 48 agreed.

Clause 49 agreed.

Amendment 68

Moved by

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

68: After Clause 49, insert the following new Clause—
“President of the Supreme Court
(1) Section 5 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 (representations by senior judges) is amended as follows.
(2) After subsection (5) insert—
“(6) The President of the Supreme Court may lay before Parliament written representations on matters that appear to him to be matters of importance relating to the Supreme Court or the jurisdiction it exercises.””

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I am very conscious of the lateness of the hour and I shall be as brief as I possibly can.

This amendment, together with Amendment 69 which follows it, seeks to deal with matters which may have been overlooked when the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 was passing through Parliament. They both relate to the Supreme Court, provision for which was made in Part 3 of the Act. I tabled both amendments at the request of the President of the Supreme Court, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger.

Amendment 68 would extend to the President of the Supreme Court the same opportunity to lay representations to Parliament on matters that appear to him to be of importance that Section 5 gives to the heads of the judiciary in each of the three separate jurisdictions within the UK: England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

So far as I can recall, no thought was given to the position of the President of the Supreme Court when the Bill that became the 2005 Act was passing through Parliament. There may be various reasons for that. I do not recall the matter being discussed at all. I do not think that there was any policy decision on the matter either one way or the other. There may have been a drafting explanation, because Part 2, which contains Section 5, appears in the Act before Part 3, which created the Supreme Court. The separation of those two parts may have led to the matter being overlooked. Whatever the matter, the fact was that the point was concealed from us by the events that were going on at the time. If we had been thinking of the matter now, we would certainly have asked for the president to be included.

I should say that there are no issues of current concern to the president. However, unless the statute is amended, he would be unable to make representations should something of concern arise. He has been looking for quite some time for a suitable vehicle to introduce an amendment to that effect and it seemed to him that this Bill contains that kind of vehicle, which is why this has been brought forward now.

I will say just a brief word about the wording of the provision that is being proposed. The heads of the judiciary in each of the three jurisdictions have no objection in principle to what is being proposed. However, some thought has been given—especially by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, and myself—to the precise wording. The words,

“that appear to him to be matters of importance relating to the Supreme Court”,

which is the first part of the formula, are simply a translation of the first part of the formula in Section 5(1) to accommodate the new court. It has been a little more difficult to find a formula that is appropriate to the situation of the new court in place of the words,

“or otherwise to the administration of justice”,

in Section 5(1). The wording in my amendment uses the phrase “or the jurisdiction it exercises”—that is, the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. The intention of that formula is quite simple: to ensure that the responsibilities of the heads of the judiciary in their respective jurisdictions are respected by the president, which of course he would seek to do.

Finally, I will address two very short points on this amendment. The first is that it would be highly desirable for this formula—or at least one that the Minister can be assured has the agreement of all concerned—to be adhered to in any revised version of this amendment. The second is that between now and when we come back on Report the president and the heads of the three jurisdictions will be seeking to agree a mutually acceptable form of words that will ensure that their respective areas of jurisdiction are respected. They may come up with the same form but, if there is any difference, we will of course let the Minister know.

The second amendment is quite short. It relates to the composition of the supplementary panel, provided for in Section 39 of the Constitutional Reform Act, from which the president may invite someone to sit as an acting judge of the court under Section 38, as is necessary from time to time when places need to be filled. The section contains a number of different sources from which that supplementary panel may be drawn, but time has marched on and subsections (2) and (3), which extended membership of the panel to Members of the House of Lords under conditions which are set out, are no longer relevant as there is now no one who can possibly satisfy those conditions. That is a feature of time marching on. Subsection (6) is of no help for the present either, for the same reason.

Therefore, the only subsection that can now be relied on is subsection (4), which is very tightly drawn, but it requires a decision to be made as to membership of the panel before the individual retires. The president, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, has found that embarrassing in at least one case. He wanted to appoint somebody who was eminently suitable and who had retired very recently, but it was too late to catch him to put him on to the panel. The amendment seeks to retain the principle of tightness to avoid individuals becoming too, perhaps, stale after retirement but nevertheless to make it a little easier to draw in people who are suitable for appointment to the panel. That is the purpose behind the amendment. I do not think there is any dispute between any of the heads of jurisdictions about this amendment; it is just a simple matter of facilitating the sensible provision in the Act. I beg to move.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I am very happy to support the noble and learned Lord’s amendment and I take it that the Government will accede to it. It is a very sensible change.

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, Amendment 68 would have the effect of allowing the President of the United Kingdom Supreme Court to make written representations to Parliament about the Supreme Court and its jurisdiction in the same way as the Lord Chief Justice of any part of the United Kingdom is able to do under Section 5 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales has used the provision under Section 5 of the 2005 Act to lay before Parliament his annual report, which highlights his accountability for oversight of the judiciary in England and Wales.

Amendment 69 would have the effect of allowing the United Kingdom Supreme Court the flexibility to appoint judges to the supplementary panel within two years of their retirement, providing they are under the age of 75.

First, I should very much like to thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for all his work on these issues and for being so patient in waiting for this amendment to be reached at such a late stage. Given his background, he is of course well placed to speak with authority on these matters. I know that he has been working closely with the judiciary on these amendments and he has also recently written to me regarding them.

The Government understand the rationale behind the amendments. However, before we can agree to make such changes, we will need to consider the matter and the impacts of the proposed changes further and discuss them in more detail with the President of the Supreme Court, the Lord Chief Justice, the Lord President of the Court of Session and the Lord Chief Justice for Northern Ireland. I will also be happy to have further discussions with the noble and learned Lord about the amendments and will respond fully to his letter shortly. On that basis, I hope that he will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his very helpful reply. It is indeed the reply that I expected. It is sensible to take time to consider the matter a little more fully. In view of the undertakings that he has given, I am happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 68 withdrawn.

Amendment 69

Moved by

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

69: After Clause 49, insert the following new Clause—
“Supplementary panel
(1) The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 39(4) (supplementary panel)—
(a) after “but only if,” insert “either”,(b) after “while he holds such office” insert “or within two years of ceasing to hold such office”.”

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

My Lords, perhaps I may be quite clear about where the Minister stands on Amendment 69. I do not think that he indicated where he stood on it. It is a very simple matter. Perhaps he could come back to it on Report, but I should be grateful if he would say where he stands. I beg to move.

[Lord Faulks]

It is also a matter where we would like to consider the full implications of the changes. The reply that I gave was supposed to embrace both amendments.

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

I am most grateful. In view of that indication, I am happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 69 withdrawn.

House resumed.

House adjourned at 10.25 pm.