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Oral Answers to Questions
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
The latest labour market statistics show that more British people are in work than ever before, the unemployment rate is at its lowest level for over a decade and nine in 10 people in jobs are UK nationals. However, the Prime Minister has been clear that as we conduct negotiations to leave the European Union, it must be a priority to regain more control of the numbers of people who come here from Europe.
Ian Austin
There is no point in national London politicians lecturing people in places such as the black country with national statistics, because this has different impacts in different communities. Why are low-skilled migrants still coming here when we have hundreds of thousands of unemployed people in Britain? Why have the Government not stopped companies from just advertising jobs abroad or using workers from overseas to undercut wages here? And why do the Government not require large firms to train up local apprentices if they do have to hire someone from abroad?
Amber Rudd
It is a little rich getting that sort of lecture from a Labour Member, because the Labour party failed to put controls on in the 2004 enlargement and most of its Members who were in charge then have admitted what a mistake that was. There are no lectures coming from my party—only hard answers. The answer is that we will be restricting immigration when we move to leaving the EU.
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
Does the Home Secretary agree that students should be removed from the “tens of thousands” target? Does she also agree that as the data are extremely poor, we should strain every sinew to try to get better quality data so that we can form a judgment about whether—and if so, how—we can ensure that exports, which is what foreign students are, are maximised in this country?
Mr Speaker
Absolutely hopelessly long. Sorry, but that was really hopeless and we have to do a lot better.
Amber Rudd
I share my right hon. Friend’s view that students play an important role in contributing to the economy and are most welcome in the UK. The internationally recognised definition of a “migrant” is someone coming here for more than 12 months, so they are likely to stay within that definition, although I am aware that there are different views on this matter.
Mr Speaker
Perhaps the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee can be the author of the textbook.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker—the pressure is on. The Home Secretary refers to the measure of net migration, but she was asked about the target. Does she agree that international students should be taken out of the Government’s target, as the Foreign Secretary has said over the weekend and as the Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to hint some weeks ago? Does she think that foreign students should be included in the target?
Amber Rudd
As I told the House, and as the right hon. Lady is aware, there are different views on this. The definition that I referred to was the one for international students, which is held by the Office for National Statistics; more than 12 months and they represent an immigrant, and therefore are part of the numbers.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
I am not sure that students are unskilled in any case. Nevertheless, is it not the fact that there are people in this country who will not do the jobs that unskilled migrants do? Is not the point, therefore, that in the black country and elsewhere it should be not Brussels after Brexit but the United Kingdom that will decide which migrants are needed to do the jobs that UK people will not do?
Amber Rudd
My hon. Friend raises an important point. One in 10 18 to 24-year-olds is still unemployed, and we want them to have the opportunity to take up these jobs. That is one reason why, alongside other initiatives such as the apprenticeship levy, we are encouraging businesses to participate more in local employment and work more with local young people to make sure that they can take those jobs.
Michelle Thomson (Edinburgh West) (Ind)
The UK relies on more than 80,000 seasonal workers to pick its fruit and veg every year, with the Financial Times recently suggesting that 98% of those workers come from within the EU. Will the Government commit to protecting access for seasonal workers from the EU to safeguard our agricultural sector going forward?
Amber Rudd
The hon. Lady has raised an important question, and I know that the National Farmers Union met my colleague the Minister for Immigration recently to discuss exactly that point. We are aware how necessary it will be to ensure that we have some sort of seasonal scheme in place, and we are looking carefully at it.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
Has the Home Secretary had any discussions with her Cabinet colleagues about the pull factor of the increase in the living wage and the impact it may have on immigration?
Amber Rudd
My hon. Friend rightly says that the national living wage could be a pull factor, but other factors are also at play, such as currency fluctuations, which can have the opposite effect, and I urge him to consider those.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
Assuming that a deal is reached under which EU citizens who were here before a certain cut-off date can remain after we leave the European Union, can the Home Secretary tell the House how the Home Office will document them—we are talking about an estimated 3 million people—so that employers and landlords will know thereafter to whom legally they can offer a job or accommodation and therefore distinguish them from those EU citizens who arrived after that?
Amber Rudd
The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point. We are aware that there is a certain expectation and concern about the European Union citizens here. As the Prime Minister has said, she hopes to be able to reassure them, but it is right that we do that while looking also at the over 1 million UK citizens in the rest of the European Union. There will be a need to have some sort of documentation—he is entirely right on that—but we will not set it out yet. We will do it in a phased approach to ensure that we use all the technological advantages that we are increasingly able to harness to ensure that all immigration is carefully handled.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Is the Secretary of State aware that the London School of Economics Centre for Economic Performance looked at the issue of immigration employment regionally? It found that the areas with the largest increase in EU immigration had not seen the sharpest falls in employment or wages since 2008. One author of the report said that there was still no evidence of an overall negative impact of immigration on jobs or wages. On the question of students, there is an increasing consensus in all parts of the House that students should be taken out of the immigration target. Technically, anyone who stays more than 12 months may be an immigrant, but in practice, they should not be in the target.
Amber Rudd
The hon. Lady might want to take up her interesting views with the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) who seems to take a slightly different view. One thing that is for certain is that when we do leave the European Union, we will have more control over immigration from the European Union and we will be making sure that the immigration that we do get from the European Union achieves the right balance of attracting the type of people who can really boost the UK businesses that need it.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)
Immigration remains a reserved matter and we will consider the needs of the UK as a whole. Applying different immigration rules to different parts of the United Kingdom will complicate the immigration system, harming its integrity and causing difficulties for employers who need the flexibility to deploy their staff to other parts of the UK.
Stephen Gethins
I know that the Home Secretary agrees with me when we say that Vote Leave was irresponsibly short of detail during its campaign, but one of the details that it did give us was when the former Justice Secretary promised that Scotland would be responsible for its immigration policy. Is that still the case, or is that planned?
Mr Goodwill
If the hon. Gentleman had been paying attention to what I just said, he would know that it remains a UK competency. Given that the Scottish people voted in 2014 to maintain Scotland’s position as part of the United Kingdom, may I suggest that he looks at the powers in the Scotland Act 2016 to make Scotland a more attractive place in which people will want to come to live and work?
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Notwithstanding all the attractions of living in Scotland, is not the balance of population movement still to the south?
Mr Goodwill
We do have a specific Scotland shortage occupation list, which recognises the need to attract certain types of occupation to Scotland and which takes account of Scotland’s needs.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
One group of families that a distinct immigration system for Scotland would help are the “skype” families. There are 15,000 kids across the United Kingdom who are separated from a parent abroad because this Government have the least family-friendly immigration rules in the whole of the developed world. Almost half of Scotland’s people do not earn enough to meet the crazy financial threshold to bring the partner whom they love from abroad to live here. Will the Minister for Immigration allow the Scottish Government to set their own threshold, or how will he explain to those children why they have to live apart from one parent?
Mr Goodwill
At least the Scottish National party is honest about the fact that it wants to increase immigration, unlike the Labour party, which repeatedly refuses to say that that is its policy.
Mr Speaker
I am sure there is no suggestion that anybody would be anything other than honest in this Chamber.
Stuart C. McDonald
What is so difficult about some state variations in immigration rules? Many visas tie people to a specific job and employer. We have Tech City visas, which have special rules for certain UK cities, and we do operate a common travel area and an open border with Ireland, which is a completely distinct immigration system. Does the Secretary of State accept that there is no practical reason why we cannot see significantly different rules applying in Scotland for those significantly different needs?
Mr Goodwill
If the hon. Gentleman were to examine the evidence of the Fresh Talent scheme, which the Scottish Government reviewed in 2008, he would see that only 44% of those applicants remained in Scotland, and more than half of those jobs were not appropriate for the level of education of those who took them.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a good reason why immigration is a reserved power, and that the slippery slope that the Scottish nationalists are trying to take us down would, if taken to its logical conclusion, end up with a border?
Mr Goodwill
I am always very careful not to get on to slippery slopes, as one ends up at the bottom of the hill in a bad place.
Mr Speaker
Well, one can always come to the Chamber to be illuminated by the hon. Gentleman.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The Minister cannot get away from the fact, though, that different parts of the country have different labour and immigration needs. In the northern isles at present our fishing industry is being crippled because white fish boats in particular cannot get the visas for the crews that they need to go to sea. Will the Minister meet me and representatives of the fishing industry to find a way around that?
Mr Goodwill
I recognise the problem and have had meetings with a number of right hon. and hon. Members on the issue. I do not recall, however, that during the referendum campaign the fishermen around the coast of our country were campaigning to repatriate powers so that they could attract more Filipinos to work in the industry. I understand the problem and will continue to meet right hon. and hon. Members to see what we can do to help.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Brandon Lewis)
We have reformed policing to ensure that there is a sector-led approach to improving representation. We established the College of Policing as the professional body which is delivering a major programme of work called BME Progression 2018. Alongside this, innovative schemes such as Direct Entry, Fast Track and Police Now are making the police workforce more diverse than ever before.
David Morris
Does my hon. Friend agree that even though a lot of work has been done, some forces have a long, long way to go to make that quota better?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a good point. The police have done a great deal of work on diversity generally, particularly seeing more women coming in, but there is more to do in relation to black and minority ethnic communities and women generally across the force. I hope that forces right across the country will be very focused on this as they go through their recruitment exercises now.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
Brandon Lewis
Police forces across the country are currently recruiting. The police funding formula has always been protected. We are doing a formula review. I will be meeting the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable of Northumberland shortly to discuss that and feed it into the review. The force there has benefited over the past couple of years from the ability to increase precepts above most others due to de minimis.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
All police officers deserve our praise, but volunteer special constables who serve on foot in the local areas in which they live represent their local communities particularly well. Will the Minister congratulate Northamptonshire on the efforts that it is making to recruit more volunteer special constables?
Brandon Lewis
I am happy to endorse my hon. Friend’s comments. The volunteers in the police force, who we are looking to empower even further through the Policing and Crime Bill, do a fantastic job and deserve our great thanks.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
How long, how long? I do not normally believe in quotas, but really diverse police forces have been a long time coming in this country, so let us see some action. Let us see some action, too, on recruiting more officers to police the roads in our country, where people drive like lunatics because they know that there is no one there to catch them.
Brandon Lewis
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has joined our cause after so many years of seeing diversity going nowhere under the Labour Government. It is this Government who have driven diversity by trusting local police forces to make sure that when they recruit, they recruit to represent their communities. That is why we are seeing BME representation going up and representation of women going up. We need to do more and I hope the hon. Gentleman will join us in encouraging forces to do that in their current recruitment.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Is the Minister aware that a more diverse police force has been an aim of forces such as the Metropolitan police since the 1970s? Is he aware that the underlying reason why there has been limited success is, sadly, continuing poor police-community relations? And is he aware that funding cuts are restricting the recruitment of officers, whatever their colour or gender?
Brandon Lewis
The hon. Lady may like to note that this year, as I said earlier, the Government put protection in for police funding in the settlement, so police are benefiting from that protection. Police forces across the country are recruiting. In fact, the Met is one of the exemplars for how to get a diverse workforce; Police Now was literally the first visit I made in this role. The latest recruitment has seen increases to 25% in respect of women. That is good, but we need to go further and I am glad that the hon. Lady wants to join us in seeing that develop.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)
The Prime Minister has made it clear that article 50 will be triggered before the end of March 2017. We are still working hard on our negotiating position, but we do not want to show our hand of cards before we get into the poker game. However, I assure the hon. Lady that we are determined to get the right deal for Britain.
Heidi Alexander
The Government’s approach to Brexit seems to hinge on their ability to persuade other European member states to allow Britain to opt out of current freedom of movement rules while retaining tariff-free access to the single market. Can the Minister name me one European Minister who has told him that that might be possible?
Mr Goodwill
There are certainly 3.2 million EU nationals in the UK, and it is in their interests to be able to satisfy their Governments about their status here. As the Prime Minister has said, the only circumstance in which we would not want to guarantee their status would be if the status of UK nationals living elsewhere were not similarly guaranteed.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that free movement of workers, together with the operation of the laws of supply and demand, inevitably depresses wage levels in this country?
Mr Goodwill
I do not have a degree in economics, but it is true that supply and demand would operate in this area. That is why we are determined to be able to control the numbers of those coming from the EU, just as we already control numbers coming from outside the EU.
Dame Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)
In any discussions, will the Minister raise the issue referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin): recruitment agencies, for example, that exploit workers from the EU and undercut UK workers by advertising for unskilled workers outside the UK, but not in the UK?
Mr Goodwill
All these matters will need to be discussed, but I add the point already made by the Home Secretary. When the eastern European countries joined the European Union, transitional arrangements that would have protected jobs to some extent were not put in place.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)
Tackling knife crime is a priority and we are taking firm action, including warning young people about the dangers of carrying knives, working with retailers both online and on the high street, and legislating for tougher sentences. During October, 21 police forces took part in a week of action against knife crime. In Essex, test purchases were conducted, habitual knife carriers were stopped and searched, and 12 individuals were arrested.
James Duddridge
I thank the Minister for reminding us of the action that Essex police are already taking. Over a four-month period, the knife amnesty got 311 knives off the streets. Will the Minister commit to continuing a knife amnesty and will she come to Southend to see the complexities and interaction between knife crime and drugs crime in Southend?
Sarah Newton
I am very grateful to my colleague for raising that point and I will be delighted to visit him in Southend. He will be pleased to know that the Home Office is working with the Essex police and crime commissioner, along with the Institute of Community Safety, to see what more we can do to help the situation in Essex. I understand that they will agree a plan of local action during a meeting this week.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
Last week, a memorial service was held in Leicester for Tyler Thompson, who was killed with a knife aged only 16. The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) said that 311 knives had been given in during the amnesty in Essex. Does the Minister have the figures for the whole country?
Sarah Newton
I do not have the answer to hand at the moment, but this was the first week, with 21 forces engaged in Operation Sceptre. That had a hugely beneficial effect, in terms of not only the surrendering of weapons across the country but arrests across the country. It sent out an incredibly clear, firm message: we will not tolerate people carrying knives as they will use them harmfully on innocent citizens.
David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
Since 2010, £1.2 billion of criminal assets have been recovered, and a further £3 billion have been frozen. The Serious Crime Act 2015 provided new powers, and the Criminal Finances Bill will further improve our capability, but there is more to be done. Next year we will publish a new asset recovery action plan, and the Cabinet Office will look at the UK’s response to economic crime more broadly. This will include looking at the effectiveness of our organisational framework and the capabilities, resources and powers available to the organisations that tackle economic crime.
David Warburton
I thank the Home Secretary for that. The Criminal Finances Bill contains many measures to combat illegal and immoral financial activity, but can my right hon. Friend confirm that the new law enforcement measures in relation to unexplained wealth orders will ensure not only that we can better combat illegal activity but that the principles of transparency will be upheld?
Amber Rudd
My hon. Friend raises a really important point. Unexplained wealth orders will send a powerful statement to those who wish to launder the proceeds of their crimes in the UK. They are an investigative power and so will be subject to the same court rules that apply to the existing civil recovery investigative powers.
Andrew Bingham
What my right hon. Friend says is welcome, but can she assure me that the asset recovery regime will extend to all forms of crime, and particularly tax evasion? The potential financial gains from tax evasion are large, and whatever people think about it being a victimless crime, it is wrong, and the regime should apply to it as well.
Amber Rudd
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is an important part of the new proceeds of crime legislation, and, yes, it will be included in it.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
What discussions is the Home Secretary having with her European counterparts to ensure that once we leave the European Union, we will have access to all the data we can currently access in relation to assets held abroad?
Amber Rudd
I can reassure the hon. Lady that I am having extensive discussions with European counterparts and with European bodies that help to keep us safe, so that when we do leave the European Union, we will, as far as possible, be able to have access to that information. When people voted to leave the European Union, they did not vote to be less safe.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Further to that, the simple question is: will we be a member of Europol post exit from the European Union?
Amber Rudd
The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that we recently opted into the new elements of Europol. In terms of looking forward, we are in discussions on that matter. I can tell him that we are one of the largest contributors to Europol. We play an important part in it. It will be part of the ongoing negotiations. [Official Report, 12 December 2016, Vol. 618, c. 3-4MC.]
Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
What practical measures have been put in place to combat money laundering and terrorist financing?
Amber Rudd
I refer my hon. Friend to the new legislation. She is absolutely right that the trouble is that criminals will always try to get ahead of us in finding ways to launder their money and the proceeds of their activities. We are determined to make sure that we get ahead of them, which is why we are having the new legislation put in place.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Is the Secretary of State aware that the cross-border flow of proceeds from criminal activity, corruption and tax evasion is estimated at over $1 trillion a year, and that half that money was looted from poor and developing countries? What steps is she taking to make it easier for these poor countries to recover stolen assets from UK, Crown dependency and overseas territory financial institutions?
Amber Rudd
We take dealing with the proceeds of crime incredibly seriously, and the idea that there are people who commit criminal acts and then come to the UK is very unwelcome. One of the elements we have to deal with that is the new unexplained wealth orders. They do apply to foreign persons also in the UK, and they will go part of the way to addressing exactly what the hon. Lady describes in terms of the transfer of illegal funds.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
In July the Government launched the national transfer scheme to ensure a more equitable distribution of unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children across the country. The scheme is designed to support local authorities like Peterborough City Council. In support of the national transfer scheme we also increased central Government funding to local authorities caring for unaccompanied children by up to 33%.
Mr Jackson
Will my right hon. Friend reassure me that in areas such as Peterborough, which has already borne a major burden in both EU and non-EU migration, we will not be expected to pay once again for the huge ongoing costs of children and young people who are unaccompanied minors—we have 40 such cases in Peterborough—and that we will receive bespoke central Government funding?
Amber Rudd
I can reassure my hon. Friend that each child that his council looks after does attract additional funding, so I hope that that will address his particular financial concerns about the council’s obligations. I would like to put on record our grateful thanks to Peterborough Council, which does a fantastic and generous job in looking after some of these most needy children.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
Unlike almost every other EU country, the UK does not allow unaccompanied child refugees to sponsor their parents to join them—a situation that the Home Affairs Committee has described as “perverse”. Does the Home Secretary agree that it is in the best interests of the refugee children, as well as in the interests of our society, to allow them to be with their parents?
Amber Rudd
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s motive in making this point. However, I would respectfully say to him that that could have a very detrimental effect in terms of a pull factor, with children coming to this country—potentially being sent or indeed trafficked to this country—in order to have their parents brought over; so no, we will not be looking at it again.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Amber Rudd
On the burden put on local authorities, one of the elements to which I refer them is the controlling migration fund—a new source of funds that I hope they will be able to access to support unaccompanied minors. On the Modern Slavery Act, I will have to get back to my hon. Friend.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
Child protection organisations such as ECPAT UK fear that a lack of support and resources is preventing some authorities from offering the required level of professional services to adequately protect vulnerable children from traffickers. Why are over a quarter of local authorities unable to participate in the national transfer scheme for unaccompanied children? Will the Home Secretary agree to look at this as a matter of urgency?
Amber Rudd
The funds that we put in place to support unaccompanied children represent a sum that we agreed after consultation with local authorities to work out the costs. It is the average cost. We acknowledge that some children will have different needs and will therefore end up being more expensive, and some less so. We hope that this is the right amount to be able to support them. We believe that it is the right amount. We are always willing to try to listen to local authorities if they have other suggestions. I particularly refer them to the controlling migration fund, which we hope will be able to give additional support.
Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)
The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Brandon Lewis)
For the year ending June 2016, 16% of violence against the person offences recorded by the police resulted in a charge or summons. There were almost 30,000 convictions for violence against the person offences in the year ending June 2016. That represents over 75% of the people prosecuted and shows a rise of more than 1,500 convictions on the previous year.
Joan Ryan
According to the Home Office data on crime in England and Wales, violence against the person and sexual offences have risen under this Government and their predecessor, while charges have fallen or broadly stayed the same, as in the case of sexual offences. In Enfield, we have seen an 11% increase in violent crime over the past year. Why should people trust the Government when public safety is being put at risk via these statistics and falling police numbers?
Brandon Lewis
The right hon. Lady may be confusing recorded crime with actual crime. The crime survey shows that violence is down by over 25% since 2010. We are seeing an increase in recorded crime. We should welcome that, because it shows a better recording of crime, and also, importantly, a willingness of victims to come forward.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
In 2014, the current Prime Minister said that there were
“utterly unacceptable failings in the way police forces have recorded crime”
and that this has let down victims. yet all three forces inspected this August are not recording crimes properly. In Manchester, 17,000 violent crimes were simply ignored. Will the Minister tell this House why his Prime Minister failed to make any progress in two years?
Brandon Lewis
The Prime Minister—the previous Home Secretary—and the current Home Secretary are seeing a reduction in crime. The police should be proud of that while running things efficiently for the benefit of the taxpayer. There is also an increase in recorded crime, which, as the Office for National Statistics itself has outlined, is because of the willingness of victims to come forward as a result of their increased confidence in the police to deal with the issues. That is to be welcomed.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
Freedom of speech and religion are core values that make our country great. They are, indeed, protected in law. What is or is not a joke, or what constitutes satire, is, I believe, in the eye or ear of the beholder and is not, perhaps, for Government to opine on.
Amber Rudd
One of the first actions that I took when I came to office in July was to publish a hate crime action plan, to which I refer my hon. Friend. It enables anybody who is the victim of any sort of hate crime, which I think is what he is referring to, to have the confidence to report what is going on and to make sure that the police take action so that they do not feel singled out and abused.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)
The intention of the adults at risk policy, developed as a result of the review by Stephen Shaw, is part of a wider programme of work that aims to improve the way in which vulnerable people in detention are managed. That should enable the delivery of the issue raised by the hon. Lady. The policy came into effect on 12 September, and the intention is to ask Stephen Shaw to carry out a short review in 2017 to assess progress.
Jess Phillips
The Government’s commitment to reduce the number of survivors of sexual violence in detention is welcome, but how will observers know whether that is happening? Is information now being collected on the numbers of women in detention who disclose that they are victims of sexual violence, and will that information be made available?
Sarah Newton
The hon. Lady is right to point out that we are taking a significant package of measures to make sure that people are detained for the minimum time possible, that their vulnerabilities are properly recognised and understood, and that access to mental health and other health services is made available. As I have said, we will ask for an independent review in the course of the year, to make sure that that is working.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
The Istanbul convention, which the Government have yet to ratify, requires countries to develop gender-sensitive reception procedures, such as women-only accommodation. What steps are the Government taking to guarantee the safety of women in initial accommodation, including women and children-only corridors?
Sarah Newton
The hon. Lady is right to point out the importance of making sure that women are safe. It is the absolute priority of this Government to keep women and girls safe, including in our detention system. The Government have signed and will ratify the Istanbul convention and, as the hon. Lady knows, we are well exceeding all its targets.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
The Minister for Security (Mr Ben Wallace)
We have established a joint fraud taskforce, bringing together Government, law enforcement and the financial sector to tackle the crime of fraud. The recent arrest of 14 individuals involved in laundering the proceeds of international cybercrime also demonstrates how a multi-agency approach, including international partners, is crucial in tackling cybercrime and cyber-enabled fraud.
Mrs Murray
Fraud, both in person and online, is of great concern to my constituents in South East Cornwall, particularly among the elderly and vulnerable. Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating voluntary organisations such as citizens advice bureau and Victim Support on their work in supporting fraud prevention through education and in supporting victims of crime?
Mr Wallace
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out the very important work that many voluntary bodies do in raising awareness. Citizens Advice, Age Concern and Victim Support make sure, including in the lead-up to Christmas, that people are aware of the pitfalls that await them online and of the scandalous fraudsters who pick on some of the most vulnerable people in society.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
I certainly welcome any voluntary work that can be done, but as the level of fraud now stands at £193 billion a year and as local police forces are clearly completely unable to cope, we really need a far more serious strategy from Government to tackle the spectre of online crime. Will the Minister tell us what more can be done to support local police forces and provide some protection for our constituents?
Mr Wallace
First, that is why we established the joint fraud taskforce, which includes police and crime commissioners, police forces and victims groups, to make sure that we co-ordinate better our response. It is also why the Government have sponsored and supported the Cyber Aware campaign and Cyber Essentials, to help to make businesses aware of the fraud that awaits them, and banks have sponsored the Take Five campaign. In addition, the national cyber-security strategy sets out a programme in which the Government have invested billions of pounds to make sure that our law enforcement agencies have the capacity to tackle that crime when it is presented to them.
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
Police have described so-called binary options betting websites that masquerade as investment vehicles as the biggest scam and fraud being perpetrated in the UK. What do the Government intend doing about them?
Mr Wallace
When one of those websites is reported through Action Fraud, our law and order agencies set about trying to make sure we either dismantle it or signpost people away from such areas. In Scotland that is devolved, and it is up to Police Scotland. The broader picture is to make sure that the public and the consumer are aware of what awaits them online, and that they take some very basic steps to protect themselves when they are, for example, Christmas shopping to ensure that fraudsters do not take their money away.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)
In July this year we implemented new powers in the Immigration Act 2016 to prevent migrants from profiting from working illegally, by making that a criminal offence. That ensures that the profits of working illegally can be seized as the proceeds of crime, and assets may be confiscated on conviction.
Nigel Mills
I thank the Minister for that answer and ask him to set out to the House what other measures the Government are taking to ensure that those who are here illegally cannot access UK benefits, such as housing or welfare payments.
Mr Goodwill
I reassure my hon. Friend that adults with no legal status here are not eligible to receive public funds in that way.
Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
Victims of people trafficking tell me that they are often prevented from assisting in criminal prosecutions against individuals from abroad who commit criminal offences because they do not have any access to public funds. What discussions has the Home Office had with the Ministry of Justice concerning providing support to victims of people trafficking?
Mr Goodwill
I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman that if people who are here illegally have been exploited through modern slavery because they have been trafficked, it is important that we treat them with a degree of compassion and respect, and that we treat them differently from people who are not in that situation.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)
The Home Office constantly reviews its capabilities in order to deliver the Government’s agenda. Work is under way to understand and respond to the immediate capability impacts as a result of the decision to leave the European Union.
Tom Brake
The Secretary of State has just confirmed that the 3 million EU citizens in the UK will have to be documented. If that processing adds roughly 10% to the Home Office workload, does the Minister accept that it will cost at least £100 million a year and require 3,000 extra staff? If he does not, what is his estimate?
Mr Goodwill
Let me make it clear that people who are here from elsewhere in the EU working legally do not need to receive additional documentation at this time. I reassure them that their status is assured. What happens in the future is a matter for the negotiations, but I make it absolutely clear that no additional documentation is needed at this stage.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
May I make the case to the Minister for updating the systems and the use of computers and information technology in border control—particularly as, with Brexit, we will need to count people in and count people out more effectively—and for investment in our ports, such as the port of Dover?
Mr Goodwill
Certainly, exit checks introduced in 2015 have given us an additional tool to track people as they enter and, in particular, leave the country. New technology, such as e-gates, has helped very much in that regard.
Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
The Minister for Security (Mr Ben Wallace)
The internet presents new opportunities for terrorists, and we must ensure we have the capabilities to confront this challenge. The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 ensures that law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies have the powers they need in the digital age to disrupt terrorist attacks, subject to strict safeguards and world-leading oversight. The Criminal Finances Bill will add to the ability of UK law enforcement to identify, investigate and disrupt terrorist finance activity.
Sir Simon Burns
Does my hon. Friend agree that the passing of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 is important for ensuring that our security services and law enforcement agencies are able to combat those who wish to do us harm?
Mr Wallace
Yes, it is. It is also important to recognise that it is all very well the agencies having the capability, but they must also have the capacity. That is why, over the next five years, the Government are making an extra £2.5 billion available to the security agencies. We will use that to strengthen our counter-terrorism network abroad and at home.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
Mr Wallace
Overall counter-terrorism and police spending has been protected in real terms against the 2015-16 baseline over the spending review period. Following the recent European attacks, we revised our risk assessments and are delivering an uplift in our specialist response capability, which includes a £144 million programme over the next five years to uplift our armed policing so that we can respond more quickly and effectively to a firearms attack.
Mr Speaker
We are past 3.15, but that has never bothered me, and it would be unkind to the point of cruelty to exclude the hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), from whom the House will wish to hear.
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)
In March, we published the new violence against women and girls strategy, which sets out an ambitious programme of reform, supported by increased funding of £80 million, to make tackling these crimes everybody’s business, to ensure that victims get the support they need and to bring more perpetrators to justice. We have also introduced a new domestic abuse offence to capture coercive control, and consulted on new measures to protect victims of stalking.
Michelle Donelan
As a trustee of Helping Victims of Domestic Violence, a local domestic abuse charity in my constituency, I have seen at first hand just how worrying domestic abuse and sexual offences can be. Will the Minister meet me and the police and crime commissioner in my constituency to see what more we can do together?
Sarah Newton
My hon. Friend is right to pay tribute to the voluntary sector organisations that do so much to support victims. I would be delighted to meet her and the police and crime commissioner for her constituency to see what more we can do to support those victims.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Does the Minister share my concern that Survivors Hull and East Riding, which has supported local victims of sexual trauma for more than two decades, is about to close because of a lack of funding? Would she be willing to meet me to discuss what more resources can go into providing a service locally for those victims?
Sarah Newton
The hon. Lady is right to raise that case. I am horrified to hear of such a valued service facing that situation. I would be very pleased to meet her to see what we can do to access funding.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
There were 18,000 domestic violence offences against women in the last year in Leeds alone, so there are still far too many. Does the Minister agree that we need to do more to educate boys and men about this crime so that that figure comes down considerably?
Sarah Newton
The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point about the important role that men can play and the importance of educating young people about appropriate sexual relationships. He will be pleased to know that world-class resources are available to do that not only from the Home Office, but from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. More such work is going on in schools than ever before.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
To mark the UN’s 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, it is vital that we work together across Government and across political parties to do all that we can to end violence against women and girls. As I made clear at the College of Policing conference last week, protecting vulnerable people is one of my top priorities. As the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) said, we must include men in that as well. Last week, I hosted an event with ministerial colleagues, campaign groups and survivors to raise awareness of and demonstrate my commitment to ending female genital mutilation within a generation. This Conservative Government will continue to take steps to achieve our ambition that no woman should live in fear of abuse, and that every girl should grow up feeling safe and protected.
Fiona Mactaggart
Despite those good intentions, twice as many women report rape now than four years ago, and the proportion of reports that lead to successful prosecutions has gone down. In my constituency, I speak to women who have been raped and had to wait up to 20 months for specialist counselling. When will the Home Secretary improve the care for victims of violence?
Amber Rudd
The right hon. Lady will be aware that we encourage the reporting of crime, particularly rape. We want people to have the confidence to do that and to know they will be treated well. We absolutely recognise the need for funding to support people, which is why the new violence against women and girls strategy has been launched, and we have pledged an increase of £80 million to 2020 to make sure we do just that.
Peter Aldous (Waveney)(Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)
My hon. Friend raises an important point, and I appreciate the concerns of the Waveney domestic violence forum. I can assure him that I am working closely with the Secretary of State for Justice to improve the family justice response to domestic abuse, and with the judiciary to consider what additional protections might be necessary. We are also supporting innovative pilots, working with perpetrators of domestic abuse, which include disruption as well as support.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The worrying rise in post-referendum hate crime, which we all condemn, has disproportionately affected women—we have seen hijabs ripped off girls, death threats to Gina Miller and family, and the tweet at the weekend about wanting to “Jo Cox” the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). Thankfully the instigator of the tweet has now been charged. Are the Government, after years of inactivity towards social media platforms, embarrassed by this burgeoning abuse of women on and offline? Is it not another aspect of Brexit for which they clearly had no plan?
Sarah Newton
The hon. Lady is right to raise these horrendous crimes, which have no place in our society, but she is wrong to say that we have been sitting on our hands. We have introduced not only the hate crime strategy but a whole series of offences, for which I am pleased to see the police successfully prosecuting people. We have also done groundbreaking work with the internet industry, which is taking seriously its responsibility to take down dreadful incidents of online hate crime.
Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)
Sarah Newton
My hon. Friend is right to raise this serious situation. I commend him and the Metropolitan police which, along with other police forces, has been working on Operation Sceptre, which includes knife sweeps. I recommend that he speaks to the head of Sutton Borough Council to see if they are interested in working with the Institute of Community Safety to undertake an area review and make sure that everything is being done to stop this dreadful crime.
Mr Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)
Amber Rudd
The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise this issue. It is a local matter, of course, but it sounds like that important balance we tread between peaceful protest and responding to the law might have been handled in a rather tricky way in his constituency. I would always urge that peaceful protest is allowed, but I wonder sometimes whether police forces strike the right balance, as in the example he has given.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)
As was made clear during the Prime Minister’s recent and very successful visit to India, it is one of our largest visa markets, and we continue to make improvements to the visa service by expanding our priority services, including new products, and expanding our reach of visa application centres across India. There continue to be large numbers of visa applications from India. Indeed, the latest figures we have, for last year, show that 385,000 Indian nationals visited the UK—an increase of 6% year on year.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Brandon Lewis)
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it is not appropriate for us to outline our negotiations as they are ongoing. I will say, however, that, as both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have clearly outlined, we put security first, and the security and safety of our citizens is paramount for this Government.
Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)
A fire at an illegal waste site in Slitting Mill caused weeks of distress for local residents, and significant cost to Staffordshire fire and rescue. Will my right hon. Friend meet me to discuss what additional changes to the law can be made to prevent such instances, as well as how the costs incurred by the fire service can be recovered from the site operators?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend has previously raised this issue with me on behalf of her area’s fire service. I appreciate that what the fire service had to deal with was really challenging. Balancing out the best way to deal with the problem itself incurs costs, so I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss it.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
Amber Rudd
I thank the hon. Lady for raising this issue; we are pressing to do exactly that. I have spoken to Kevin Hyland, the independent commissioner, about this subject, and I have had a roundtable on working with commissioners and the police force to ensure that the police not only press charges, but collect the information from the victims of modern slavery, so that we can make sure that investigations can lead to convictions. I share the hon. Lady’s views.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
Why has the Home Office blocked three Iraqi Syrian bishops from coming to the UK to consecrate the first Syriac Orthodox church? Is it not at least disrespectful and probably shameful that they have been given the reason that they do not have enough money or that they might not leave the UK at a time when we should be showing solidarity with Church leaders at the frontline of persecution?
Mr Goodwill
It would not be appropriate for me to comment on individual cases, but let me say that all these applications are considered on their individual merits, in line with UK immigration rules and guidance. There is no policy of denying entry clearance for visas from Syrian nationals.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
In the first nine months of this year, there were almost 600 assaults on police officers in the West Midlands police force alone. Will the Minister meet me, representatives of the Police Federation and my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) to discuss the growing problem of assaults on emergency service workers?
Brandon Lewis
The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the debates we have had in the Chamber and elsewhere about this issue. It is completely unacceptable to see any kind of assault on a police officer, and that is an aggravating factor. We are working with the Ministry of Justice and are in contact with the Sentencing Council, which is independent, on this issue. I shall meet the Police Federation in the next few days.
Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)
I welcome the recently announced Home Office measures on police competence to investigate sexual offences. Will the Home Secretary accept from me that it is time for the police service, and particularly the Met police, to take a serious look at their respective detective training regimes, which I suggest are at the core of the unfortunate publicity?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Home Secretary outlined last week the importance we place on this issue. It is important, as we saw with the Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary inspection, that the Met police takes the opportunity to get to grips with training to ensure that its teams are properly trained to deal with these delicate issues.
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)
If the refugee family reunion section of UK immigration rules was widened, many refugee children could arrive directly from the conflict region rather than via Calais. Will the Home Secretary commit to look again at these rules so that children do not have to risk their lives to be with their families?
Amber Rudd
We are constantly looking at our immigration rules to ensure that we have the right balance to support vulnerable children on the continent—most of them coming from Calais—whom we are trying to help, but we have other programmes that enable us to give direct help to vulnerable children who are out in the conflict regions.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
As the Home Secretary knows, those of us with coastal constituencies in the south of England are feeling particularly vulnerable to the activities of people traffickers who are bringing illegal immigrants across in private boats. What measures have been taken since the review of small ports and airports that was promised by the previous intelligence Minister?
Amber Rudd
I share my hon. Friend’s view that we need to be constantly vigilant in case people traffickers are trying to get ahead of us, and if they fall between the cracks of our security and ply their evil trade. We have launched a number of initiatives, including Operation Kraken, which enables us to work closely with voluntary and private sector groups along the coast to ensure that any incidents are reported.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
The Government seem determined to place restrictions on freedom of movement at the heart of Brexit, but the horticultural sector is heavily dependent on 80,000 workers a year coming from the European Union to work. Will the Government commit themselves to ensuring that Brexit, whatever form it takes, will not leave the industry in the lurch, and that it will continue to get the workers it needs?
Mr Goodwill
The result of the referendum made it clear that we need to control the number of people coming from the European Union, and the negotiations will take that and other matters into account.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Past waves of immigration have proved successful because of the integration of new communities into existing ones. The report by Louise Casey has not yet been published, but it has been said that it suggests a form of cultural separatism in the Islamic community. Is that true and, if so, will we be responding to the report in an appropriately thoughtful way?
Amber Rudd
My right hon. Friend’s question gives me an opportunity to thank Louise Casey for her report, and to say to him and the House that we will of course study it carefully to learn better how to improve integration in our communities.
Mr Speaker
I trust that we shall be hearing about it in the House before very long. In fact, I think I can say that with complete certainty.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
What steps are the Government taking to identify and address criminal activity associated with Scottish limited partnerships?
The Minister for Security (Mr Ben Wallace)
That question has been raised by other SNP Members during the passage of the Criminal Finances Bill. I shall be meeting them shortly to discuss it, and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has agreed to conduct a review.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. These chaps have already spoken. I think I will call Alison Thewliss.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Speaker; that is very generous of you.
I am currently dealing with two ongoing constituency cases that have been caused entirely by incompetence on the part of VFS Global. One of them involves a granny who is stuck in Iran and cannot go to Scotland to see her daughter and newly born granddaughter in Glasgow because of the ludicrous booking system for visa appointments. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me to discuss the issue?
Mr Goodwill
As the Immigration Minister, I should be delighted to meet the hon. Lady to discuss that specific issue.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Will the Home Secretary indulge my obsession? Will she tell me what plans she has after Brexit to redesign our passports after Brexit—and will they be blue-black?
Amber Rudd
I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution to this vital debate, and I look forward to further discussions with him about the best way to handle it.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
A person has been convicted and will spend the rest of his life in prison for the murder of four young men. Is the Home Secretary aware of that murder, and is she aware that if the police in London had acted differently, two of those lives might well have been saved? It is unfortunate, to say the least, that the Met, when investigating murder, seems on occasions to model itself on Inspector Clouseau.
Brandon Lewis
I shall be happy to look into the specifics of the case but, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, I cannot comment on them here. Obviously the Metropolitan police are out there every day investigating and preventing crime for the benefit of London.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
Will the Policing Minister assure me that, when the review of the formula for policing allocations is conducted, the needs of rural constabularies such as Wiltshire will be properly considered?
Brandon Lewis
I can say to my hon. Friend that, in the funding formula review, we are looking at all aspects. Rural forces are feeding directly into that. I am aware of the issues that they are raising. We will look at that and feed back on it as we go through the review.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Many Russian nationals who were involved in the murder of Sergei Magnitsky and the corruption that he unveiled have harboured their assets in the UK. An opportunity to deal with that issue has been provided by the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and 27 other Members in the form of an amendment to the Criminal Finances Bill. Will the Government now support that so that we can keep Russian corruption out of London?
Mr Wallace
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I met his colleagues and my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) to discuss that matter. The Department is looking at the amendment as tabled. We already have a number of powers to deal with people who have been accused in this area. However, we will look at the amendment and reflect on it. We will get back to Members on Report.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I am sure that Ministers will want to join me in welcoming the first Syrian family to arrive in my constituency under the community sponsorship scheme and to congratulate St Monica’s parishioners, who are providing support to the family, but will Ministers also look at the wider funding and commissioning arrangements across all Greater Manchester local authorities for the support of asylum seekers and refugees to ensure that we can look after all these people properly?
Amber Rudd
I join the hon. Lady in congratulating her constituents on welcoming the family. I also congratulate all the community groups who have generously stepped forward to welcome families. Often those families need a lot of assistance—for example, help with their children, with translation and with learning the English language. Having community support around them is so helpful. Of course, I will keep the support under review.
New Member
The following Member took and subscribed the Oath required by law:
Sarah Jane Olney, for Richmond Park.
Southern Rail
(7 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on Southern rail.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)
Performance on the Southern network has been affected by a combination of factors over the previous months. Those have included trade union action, infrastructure reliability and operator issues. The unions have stepped up their industrial action in the run-up to Christmas, additionally co-ordinating it with action on the underground network.
Let me be clear: this strike action is politically motivated and has affected passengers for far too long. Union leaders have even described the action as “carrying on Fidel’s work.” That will be of no comfort to passengers who just want to get to work.
I have a letter in my folder to my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) from the director of railway safety at the Office of Rail and Road. Responding to the safety concern from the unions, Ian Prosser says “DOO is safe.” The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers and ASLEF should not be misleading the public about their dispute with Govia Thameslink Railway. Once again I can assure the hard-working staff of the GTR franchise that no train staff are losing pay and no one is losing their job.
Passengers want and deserve improvements, which is why in September the Secretary of State appointed Chris Gibb, a leading railway professional, to work with the operator and with Network Rail to identify areas in which performance on the network can be improved quickly. Some of these £20 million interventions are under way and would be making a significant difference by now, were it not for the fact that owing to continued industrial action by the RMT and now planned action by ASLEF, Southern rail services are to be subject to further delays and alterations now and over the coming weeks.
In recognition of the disruption to services this year, the Secretary of State announced on 2 December a refund package that will compensate season ticket holders with a package equivalent to one free month in acknowledgment of the exceptional issues experienced this year. He also announced that GTR will be the first franchise to introduce Delay Repay 15, starting on 11 December. Compensation alone is not enough, however. We have to restore a timely, reliable and predictable train service. That is why the work of Mr Gibb is focusing on reducing the network rail faults, and why we have new safe driver-only operation trains that can cope with the volume of people wanting to use them. It is why I will continue to ensure that the management of the train operating company is doing everything in its power to run improved services. But we also need the union leaders to stop their needless, unreasonable, disproportionate and politically motivated strikes.
Caroline Lucas
I thank the Minister for his reply. I am putting this question today with the support of Members from right across the House. On Friday, we heard that Southern rail services were to be severely disrupted every day from tomorrow until further notice. However, that grim warning of imminent service collapse comes after more than two years of rail chaos, which started long before any strike action began. Back in May 2015, the then rail Minister said that our services were “flashing red” in her Department. Eighteen months on, my constituents are regularly in tears of anger and frustration, jobs are being lost, relationships are being broken up and the economy is being seriously damaged. This situation is intolerable, and the Government cannot simply wash their hands of any involvement. Will the Minister roll up his sleeves and get stuck into resolving the crisis? The Transport Select Committee has called for all parties involved to sit down together and resolve the dispute, so will he convene a meeting with the unions and GTR to work this out and restore reliability to this vital public service? In so doing, he would be showing that he is not prepared to allow this crucial piece of infrastructure simply to collapse.
To end the stalemate, will the Department take charge of this contract in the open and strip GTR of the franchise and bring it back in house? That would at least increase the transparency around what is going on. When, for example, will a concrete timetable for GTR to publicly report its performance be revealed? Will performance data be published daily or weekly, and where will they be published? This contract and information about it are shrouded in secrecy, and it is time to make it accountable. Will the Minister answer the outstanding questions on the force majeure application from GTR? Will he provide urgent clarity about whether GTR is in default? The Transport Committee called for a decision on whether GTR was in default by early November 2016. It is now December. Why has the Minister not answered on time?
I do not think the Minister has any idea of the pain that passengers and businesses in Brighton and beyond are suffering. If he did, he would be doing more about it. We have a catastrophic stalemate. What exactly is he going to do about it? My constituents in Brighton want to hear that he is going to get involved. Anything else is not enough.
Paul Maynard
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s urgent question. The best thing she can do on behalf of her constituents is to go and speak to her close friends in the RMT and tell them to call off their disproportionate and unreasonable industrial action. That is the best contribution she can make.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
Thank you for calling me during this urgent question, Mr Speaker, which is important because it is about not only the Brighton main line, but communities in my area. Students trying to get to school from Edenbridge on the Redhill to Tonbridge line and people trying to get to work on the Uckfield line have endured misery. This is about the unions, but the nationalised Network Rail has also failed us again and again. Will the Minister please get on with sorting out that organisation, too?
Paul Maynard
My hon. Friend is entirely right to point out the impact on his constituents in Kent. I travelled to Sevenoaks today through London Bridge and saw some delays. The only long-term solution for this overburdened part of the network is for both Network Rail and the train operating companies to align the incentives and work together to fix the underlying problems that plague the network.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
That this House is still having to address the abysmal service provided by Southern after a year and a half of sub-standard service is testimony to both Southern’s incompetence and the extent to which the Government are committed to privatised rail, even when franchises have become so deeply dysfunctional that they are unable to provide a decent public service. GTR should have been stripped of its franchise long ago for failing to plan properly to take on the franchise, as it has admitted, and for providing what is by far the country’s worst rail service. Hon. Members whose constituents rely on Southern will be well aware of stories of passengers fainting on overcrowded trains, jobs being jeopardised by repeated lateness and parents having to say goodnight to their children from a delayed train.
The Government have defended Southern to the hilt, excusing all its failings as the consequences of an easily avoidable, resolvable industrial dispute, allowing the cancellation of hundreds of services a week and repeatedly throwing taxpayers’ money at the problem as a sticking plaster on an irredeemably dysfunctional concession franchise. The Minister mentioned Mr Gibb, but why did we not hear about Mr Wilkinson, who stood up in Croydon and said that he wants dust-ups with the RMT and to starve staff back to work and to get them out of his railway industry? He is the sort of person the Minister ought to be talking about.
On Friday, it was announced that Southern season ticket holders would be eligible to receive compensation equivalent to one month’s travel. Yet more taxpayers’ money is being spent on the service following the £20 million committed to Southern just a few months ago. The compensation will apply to some 84,000 passengers, but Southern is responsible for 620,000 passenger journeys a day. While any amount of compensation for passengers is welcome, will the Minister take this opportunity to acknowledge that the measures announced on Friday will not come close to compensating the majority of passengers who have suffered from Southern’s abysmal services for the past year and a half? Considering the 1.8% fare rise scheduled for the start of next year, the few commuters who receive compensation will see it wiped out by inflation-busting fares. Sadly, a decent rail service—
Mr Speaker
Order. I know how to deal with such matters. Members are taking too long. The Minister finished just in time, but I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman exceeded his time. We must establish a discipline that if it is two minutes, that means two minutes or under, not two minutes, two and half minutes or three minutes. I am sorry, but we have to stick to those procedures.
Paul Maynard
I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman is so opposed to the idea of compensating Southern’s passengers, but he is right about one thing: the dispute is entirely resolvable. It is resolvable because the RMT should recognise that the current mode of operation is safe and call off the strikes. ASLEF can also call off the strikes. We could then get on with improving the network.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
I am pleased to hear the Minister say that no GTR staff will lose their jobs, but that is not the case for my constituents, some of whom have been sacked for being late. The balance of rights and responsibilities in our society is somewhat off if some people trying to improve their terms and conditions is costing other citizens their jobs.
Paul Maynard
My hon. Friend is entirely right to point out the grossly disproportionate nature of this industrial action and that communities across the GTR network are experiencing a poorer quality of life because of this unwarranted industrial action.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
The overall situation for passengers—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The shadow Secretary of State must take some sort of soothing medicament, which will have the effect of calming him. He will be aware that I suggested to one of his north-east colleagues some time ago that it might be advisable to take up yoga, because it would have a therapeutic effect.
Mrs Ellman
The overall situation for passengers, caused by a variety of reasons, is intolerable, yet GTR is receiving £1 billion a year in fees and the Department is exposed to £38 million of lost revenue. What can the Department do to resolve this situation?
Paul Maynard
Some months ago, as the hon. Lady will be aware, we asked Chris Gibb to look into the operation of the network, the infrastructure and the train operating company. We look forward to receiving his report by the end of the year, which will guide us in the decisions we take in the new year as to how to make rapid, noticeable, identifiable improvements in this network.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
The RMT members who are adding to the disruption for all our constituents are also the employees. May we be told how much they earn, how many of them have signed up to the new operating arrangements and quite what issue is preventing the RMT and the operators from reaching agreement and allowing other workers to get to work reliably? I am talking about how students and teachers can get to work, and how old people can visit their friends.
Paul Maynard
My hon. Friend is right to point out why this is such a grossly disproportionate action the RMT is taking. More than 220 of the 223 staff involved have signed up to the new contracts to carry out the role of on-board supervisors, so they are striking against a role that they have already agreed to take up. That is both unreasonable and disproportionate.
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
Part of the problem is that every promise made from that Dispatch Box has not improved the service one iota in the past 18 months, including today, a non-strike day, when the service from Brighton to London was a complete shambles. Will the Minister get to his feet to say he will do whatever it takes to improve this service?
Paul Maynard
I entirely recognise that the service today has been disappointing, because of a broken rail between East Croydon and Gatwick, but, as the hon. Gentleman points out, this is happening far too often on non-strike days. I expect both GTR and Network Rail to address these underlying performance issues, but they can do that only if they are not also faced with unwarranted, unjustifiable industrial action.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
My constituents who commute regularly look at the Southern rail situation with horror. What assurances can the Minister give them that such action by the unions could not spread to other areas, particularly given that we are renegotiating the South West Trains contract?
Paul Maynard
I recognise my right hon. Friend’s concern. All I can say to her is that I expect all train operating companies across the country to do their utmost to ensure that they run a timely, efficient, reliable and punctual service. I hope that will be the case with whoever emerges from the franchise competition for South West Trains.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I have here analysis of the feedback from the 1,000 constituents who have been in touch with me about the performance of Southern rail, and it is a catalogue of misery. The failure of Southern rail is affecting my constituents’ work, family life, health and wellbeing, and they have had enough. When will the Minister confirm rail devolution for London, so that Transport for London, which has a proven track record and high levels of customer satisfaction, can run these services? When will my constituents’ Southern rail misery end?
Paul Maynard
I recognise the picture that the hon. Lady paints of the problems her constituents are facing. I hope she will join me in urging all sides in this dispute to return to the negotiating table and reach an agreement that puts the needs of passengers first, not the interests of the rail unions.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
I apologise for my interjection earlier, Mr Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) was absolutely right to say that the price for the RMT’s self-indulgent, politically motivated strike action is being paid in jobs by people, particularly young people, who are trying to get to work. This action is neanderthal, its day has well gone and that strike must end. Will the Minister confirm that the train operating companies will be able to take greater control of the works of Network Rail in the future, so that we can solve some of the structural problems?
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) for his great courtesy. May I gently tell him that I now realise why, 20 years ago, he was affectionately described to me by a very near constituency neighbour of his as “peppery”.
Paul Maynard
My hon. Friend has clearly been paying attention to the weekend press. I should perhaps observe that the Secretary of State will make a speech on this issue tomorrow evening. He may therefore wish to pay close attention to the following day’s papers as well to learn more about what might be announced.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
I know that it suits some to blame all the current problems with this line on the rail unions, but let us be clear: my constituents have been putting up with a disgraceful and shabby service for the best part of two years now. My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) asked about TfL, which has better satisfaction rates and provides better services. We want this company, GTR, to be stripped of the franchise and the franchise to be transferred to TfL as soon as possible. Will the Minister confirm whether the Government still intend to facilitate that? We do not want to wait until 2021: get on and do it now.
Paul Maynard
The hon. Gentleman is certainly right to identify the problems on the network, but they can be solved only if we are not facing industrial action on the network, day in, day out, which makes it impossible for those who wish to deal with Network Rail, GTR and other train operating companies to address the problems.
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
Can the Minister clarify whether, in his view, the intolerable conditions for commuters in my constituency are caused more by a firm that has not been well run for some time, or by the unacceptable union practices, which have been rendered all the more disgraceful at Christmas time?
Paul Maynard
That is an important point. It was noticeable that the RMT adjusted its strike days because of the public outrage over the strikes that were occurring in the immediate run-up to Christmas. I urge it to go one step further and call off its strike altogether and get back round the negotiating table.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Coincidentally, I delivered a petition to No. 10 Downing Street this morning, calling for Southern to be sacked. Will the Minister acknowledge that it is not just the unacceptable and pointless union action that is causing chaos on the network, but repeated Network Rail equipment failure, repeated train failures, which are Southern’s fault, and a shortage of drivers, which is Southern’s fault. When will the Minister step in and take control away from the failing company, pass responsibility to Transport for London, which the Liberal Democrats called for as far back as 1999, and ensure that passengers are provided with much more generous compensation?
Paul Maynard
The right hon. Gentleman’s analysis of the multiple causes is correct, but what he does not fully appreciate is that the need to focus on Network Rail as a source of many of the delays means that we must have full, rapid and ready access to the track day in, day out. We cannot do that against a backdrop of continual industrial action, which makes it harder to maintain the railways.
Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
I have long campaigned for compensation, so may I thank the Minister for the welcome step towards it today? On the Horsham line, we have a huge number of trains being cancelled or delayed as a result of failures with onboard cameras—cameras that seem to work well elsewhere. May I urge him to get GTR to get a grip on this? Either there is a technical fault, or some other issue is causing interference.
Paul Maynard
My hon. Friend deserves particular credit for the assiduous nature of his campaign for improved compensation for Southern passengers. I am glad to hear that he welcomed last Friday’s announcement. I understand that the level of faults on the driver-only operation trains to Horsham are running at almost double what is usually expected on the route. GTR is looking into the matter further. I am hoping to hear more from it in due course, and I will write to him with the outcome of that investigation.
Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
I started commuting—both regularly and frequently—from Forest Hill to London Bridge and Waterloo East in 1963. In all those 53 years, the service has never been as unreliable and as chaotic as it is today. I now no longer use Southern to go to London Bridge, as I use the overground service. Unfortunately, large parts of my constituency, and just about every other constituency of Members concerned about this matter, do not have that option. Many of my constituents blame the management for what is going on, and an equal number blame the unions. Another set blames Network Rail and the infrastructure. We have heard from the Minister today about track failures causing chaos on the Brighton line. When will he and the Government do something to reassure my constituents, and those of everybody in this Chamber, that the Government are actually trying to do the best they can for commuters, rather than leaving commuters to the fate of the most incompetent organisation in the entire UK rail industry?
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman has given new meaning to the description “delayed journey” and we are deeply grateful to him.
Paul Maynard
As Members will be aware, Chris Gibb is an experienced railwayman with a deep understanding of the industry and of that network. His report will look at all the issues that the hon. Gentleman has just raised. We look forward to receiving it and deciding the most appropriate action we can take to deliver the improvements that not only he but all of us in the Chamber are impatient to see.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
Given that from tomorrow two of my towns, Seaford and Newhaven, will see their rail service cease to exist once again and instead have bus replacement services, and that from next week 14 of the stations in my constituency will see no rail service at all for nine days out of 14, the Government response is just not good enough. They need to intervene between the unions and Southern rail and get this sorted.
Paul Maynard
My hon. Friend has never been anything less than assiduous in campaigning on behalf of Lewes, Seaford and Newhaven and their rail services, but the diminution in service to her constituency is due to an ASLEF threat of strike action against something that its members have been doing for many, many months—30% of our commuter network is driver-controlled operation. ASLEF has been operating this system for many, many months on the new class 700s, yet its members are now striking against precisely what they have been doing. That, also, is disproportionate and unreasonable.
Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)
Commuters in Croydon and elsewhere have suffered enough, and after two years of rail chaos they certainly should not be expected to pay any more for the services they use, so will the Minister now show that he recognises the extent of the failure and rule out any fare rises on Southern rail services next year?
Paul Maynard
We have been very clear that we are going to cap rail fare increases on regulated fares at retail prices index plus zero, but to recognise the impact on Southern passengers we announced last Friday a compensation package that equates to one month’s free travel for annual season ticket holders. In addition, as I said earlier, we will be introducing Delay Repay 15 early on the GTR network from 11 December.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
Our constituents in Sussex are at their wits’ end. We are at our wits’ end. Notwithstanding the chaos being caused by these completely unjustified strikes, last week’s announcement on compensation was a good start, but only a start, and it was taken away with the other hand by the price rises that went with it. When can we have a proper, transparent penalty system where GTR pays penalties every time its trains are late, cancelled or delayed, and that is set against the price rises without the commuters having to go through a bureaucratic claim process? GTR needs to sort this out urgently.
Paul Maynard
I recognise my hon. Friend’s concern to make sure that automatic compensation for Delay Repay is broadened as fast as it can be. We need to ensure that the system works, and works well. We need to ensure that passengers are on the trains that they say they were on that were delayed, so we need a technological solution. I am keen to improve the operation of Delay Repay 15 and GTR will be the first rail company that we try it out on.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
Residents in Croydon have been suffering from the terrible service for many months now. Does the Minister agree that this is partly due to track and infrastructure failings, partly due to GTR’s incompetence, and partly due to the intransigence of the RMT? Will he commit to spending money on fixing the points and signals and, if the RMT cannot be prevailed upon to call off this needless strike, will he consider legislating to ban such strike action on critical public infrastructure?
Paul Maynard
My hon. Friend is right to identify the fact that the line will need investment, not just the £20 million that we have already put in, which will support the work of Chris Gibb, but the money to ensure that one of the most overburdened parts of our network is able to properly meet the needs of those who rely on it to get to work, to school and to all the other activities that life depends on in the south-east.
Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)
I, too, thank the Minister for the start in terms of compensation for all those who suffer this intolerable situation across the network every day, including all those using the route across to Southampton airport, often travelling to Gatwick airport from Swanwick. Will the Minister confirm that he is looking at the broad-ranging harm caused by these disproportionate, political strikes, which are affecting regional airports as well as local businesses?
Paul Maynard
I always recognise the importance of Southampton Airport Parkway in the overall network, both for South West Trains and on the Southern network too. I am always happy to meet individual colleagues with particular concerns, and I will be more than happy to discuss Southampton airport’s needs with my hon. Friend further.
Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
I have the misfortune of having the misery line run through my constituency of Wealden. I welcome the Government’s move to one-month compensation. It is now time for the unions to show similar boldness and call off the strikes. However, the timetable is not worth the paper it is written on. What more can the Minister do to get GTR management to get a grip and start running a service that does not require compensation from the Government because it is so appalling?
Paul Maynard
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s involvement over recent weeks; she has been a staunch advocate for the people of Uckfield, who indeed suffer from an inadequate railway line. The most important thing at this stage is for the unions to call off their industrial action and for both GTR and Network Rail to be allowed to focus on what really matters: ensuring that we have a reliable, timely and punctual railway network.
Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)
Residents in Sutton want to get rid of this horrendous performance, which has been exacerbated by the unions, so that they can get back to merely poor performance and so that the underlying issues of rail, rolling stock and more drivers can start to be tackled. I welcome the compensation, but what about the passengers who pay-as-you-go using the Oyster card? What can they expect in return?
Paul Maynard
My hon. Friend is right to point out that even in inner suburban London, people are equally reliant on Southern rail. They will also be eligible for season ticket reductions, should they have annual, quarterly or weekly tickets, as well as Delay Repay 15 compensation from 11 December. That, to me, underlines the importance of ensuring that the network functions well for everybody, wherever they live on the Southern network.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
The Minister has rightly referred to a letter that I received from the director of rail safety, specifying that this form of technology is not only safe but has been properly tested by Southern as safe. Given that the unions continue to use safety as the cloak for this dispute, will the Minister consider using legislation to stop unions striking on grounds of safety when the industry regulator has deemed the relevant issue to be safe?
Paul Maynard
My hon. Friend has done the country a great service during his time on the Transport Committee in trying to nail the myth that DOO is in some way an unsafe means of driving trains. The language from the director of rail safety at the Office of Rail and Road was abundantly clear and it was examined closely at the most recent Transport Committee meeting. He could not have been clearer. It is now for ASLEF and the RMT to pay heed to his words and call off their unreasonable and disproportionate strikes.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
State-owned Network Rail is clearly not fit for purpose; the private sector train operating companies have weak and ineffectual management; and the rail unions are organising politically motivated strikes. If that were happening in local government, the Government would have sent in their own commissioners to sort out the organisation. Why do they not do so in this case?
Paul Maynard
My hon. Friend is right to point out the importance of getting track and train operators to align their incentives and work together to ensure that they deliver a better service for passengers. The Secretary of State has made no secret of the fact that he regards joint working and alliance working as being at the root of what will bring a better level of service on the Southern network.
We look forward to making further announcements on that in due course and to delivering the improved service that all passengers want, whatever political party they support and whatever their views on how the railways should be structured. They want a timely, reliable and punctual rail service. The RMT and ASLEF are in the way of that, with their disproportionate and unreasonable industrial action.
Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]
Monday 5th December 2016
(7 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Children and Social Work Act 2017 View all Children and Social Work Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 69-I Marshalled list for Third Reading (PDF, 80KB) - (22 Nov 2016)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am delighted to be able to open the debate in the absence of the Secretary of State, who is in Shanghai at the education summit. I know she regrets not being here, and she sends her apologies.
As the Secretary of State made clear when she spoke at the national children and adult services conference a few weeks ago, nothing is more important than making sure that children get the best start in life, feel safe, are well looked after and are able to fulfil their dreams. Nowhere is that more important than for those children who do not have the benefit of a loving family to help them on their way and to support them as they grow up, or who face other significant challenges, which make it harder for them to flourish and thrive.
Children’s social care professionals perform some of society’s most vital, most important work, and we entrust them with nothing less than keeping our children safe and making life-changing decisions about what is best for their futures. These are highly challenging, highly complex tasks, performed by deeply dedicated and committed individuals.
However, as we all know, the system in which these individuals work is far from perfect, meaning the help and support being offered to vulnerable children in different parts of the country is a long way from being consistently excellent. Evidence from Ofsted shows that most local authorities struggle in some way to provide consistently effective core social work practice. That is why this Government are determined to bring about the widest-reaching reforms to children’s social care and social work for a generation.
Reviews by Professor Eileen Munro, Sir Martin Narey and Professor David Croisdale-Appleby, among others, have given us a deep understanding of the challenges faced by children’s social care. They have described a system in which initial social worker training is not consistently preparing students for the challenges of the job, and those already doing it too often lack the time, specialist skill and supervision needed to achieve real change for children and families; a system that focuses too much on management and is governed by prescribed approaches rather than excellent practice; and a system where services have not always been designed around vulnerable children, and innovation has not been given enough space to thrive.
Over the last six years, the Government have taken important steps towards addressing these challenges. For example, we have raised standards in children’s homes and enabled young people in foster care to remain with their carer up to the age of 21. We have invested £100 million through our innovation programme to allow radical new approaches to children’s social care to be developed and tested. In April, we announced a £200 million extension to the programme to take this further still. We have taken a variety of steps to enhance the status, skills and capacity of the social work profession—both for children and for adults. Those include appointing chief social workers; publishing definitive statements of the knowledge and skills required by adults’ and children’s social workers; and investing over £750 million since 2010 in traditional and fast-track routes into the profession.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister give way?
Mr Gibb
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I would just like to explain some of the tenets of the Bill, and then I will take his intervention.
We are starting to see things change. This year, we have seen the first “outstanding” judgments under the most recent—and most challenging—Ofsted framework. Local authorities are testing innovative ways of supporting families through the children’s social care innovation programme. Examples of excellent leadership across the country are being celebrated by Ofsted and others.
However, we are under no illusion that there is still much more to be done. That is why, in July of this year, the Department for Education published a clear and ambitious vision and plan for the changes that need to be made to drive sustainable improvement across the whole country. This is our plan for putting children first. It sets out fundamental reforms across each of the three pillars on which the social care system stands: people and leadership, practice and systems, and governance and accountability. This Bill is a crucial part of delivering reforms across those three pillars.
Part 1 concerns children who are in care or supported by the state. Clause 1 sets out, for the first time, a set of corporate parenting principles designed to establish consistently high standards in the support of looked-after children and care leavers, and drive a culture of excellent corporate parenting. The principles are intended to help a local authority to think and act in the interests of the children in their care in the same way as any good parent would. This is not about putting a new set of duties on local authorities; it is about changing behaviour and practice. The aim is to ensure that all parts and every tier of local government have the needs and circumstances of looked-after children and care leavers in their minds in their planning and decisions. This responsibility goes beyond just children’s social care, reaching across the whole of the local authority.
Clause 2 will ensure that the corporate parenting ethos extends into adulthood and that all care leavers are clear about the support on offer to them and how to access it. Care leavers will have access to information about the services available to them through a local offer from their local authority, with each local offer based on consultation with care leavers themselves.
Clause 3 will give all care leavers access to support from a personal adviser at any point up to the age of 25. We amended the Bill in another place to make sure that the service is offered at least annually so that care leavers can take advantage of it whenever they need to.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr Gibb
If my hon. Friend will forgive me, may I make a little more progress, and then I will come back to him?
The next section of the Bill recognises that children who are adopted or who leave care under another permanence order often have ongoing difficulties resulting from their early life experiences. Clauses 4 to 7 will therefore give them access to the same support that looked-after children receive from virtual school heads at local authority level, and that designated teachers provide in schools to help with their education. Following an undertaking given in the other place, we are bringing forward amendments that will extend these provisions to children who have been adopted from overseas.
Clauses 8 and 9 expand the factors that courts and local authorities must take into account when deciding on the most appropriate place for a child. They do not give priority to one type of placement over another, but they do place more emphasis on stability and what would be in a child’s best long-term interests, taking account of the impact of any harm that the child may have suffered.
Jonathan Reynolds
I am extremely grateful to the Minister. I was trying to tell him that I have to speak in a Delegated Legislation Committee at half-past 4, so the clock was ticking down for me. I want to ask him about a specific point relating to some casework that I have done in my constituency. It is about the lack of safeguarding checks for 16 and 17-year-olds in private fostering arrangements. I had a situation where a young person within that age group in my constituency went into a private fostering arrangement, and the parents were unable to get the assurances they would have had in a public setting. That is not addressed in the Bill, and I wonder whether the Minister would be willing to look at it if I tabled an amendment at a later stage.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
In Oxfordshire we have had a situation where children in care have been abused, and that has led to Operation Bullfinch. How will what the Minister has set out make that situation better?
Mr Gibb
The local safeguarding arrangements set out in the Bill will provide a strong statutory framework that puts responsibility on the police, the NHS—through the clinical commissioning group—and the local authority to ensure that a robust safeguarding system is in place, but with greater local flexibility than we have at the moment, so that the arrangements are as effective as possible in meeting local needs. I also believe that the combination of improved national arrangements for analysing serious cases, which I will come on to, including child sexual abuse and exploitation, and for learning from them in a more systematic way, including higher standards for social workers, as set out in the Bill, will enable Oxfordshire and other counties across the country to keep children safer than is currently the case.
Chapter 2 of part 1 of the Bill focuses largely on arrangements for the safeguarding and protection of children. Earlier this year, Alan Wood, the former director of children’s services in Hackney who is president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, carried out a review for the Government on the role and functions of local safeguarding children boards. His report, which was published in May, found that local arrangements were patchy. Less than half of LSCBs were judged by Ofsted to be good or better, and he reported that there was a clear consensus in favour of reform. Strong partnership is, as we know from serious case reviews, key to keeping children safe.
Clauses 12 to 15 will establish a new child safeguarding practice review panel to review serious child safeguarding cases that are complex or of national importance. The purpose of the panel will be to improve the way in which we learn from cases where a child has died or been seriously harmed and neglect or abuse of the child was known or suspected.
Clauses 16 to 30 will introduce a stronger statutory framework for child safeguarding and protection at local level. The focus will shift away from wide-ranging local partnerships and will place a duty on the three key agencies involved in safeguarding children—namely local authorities, the police and the health service—to work together, and with any relevant agencies, to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
Tim Loughton
The Minister will be aware that this is not the original Bill, thanks to the good work of the House of Lords in removing clauses 29 to 33 on the duty to innovate. At the recent national children and adult services conference in Manchester, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said of that duty:
“It’s about how we can put you in the best position to protect those children properly.”
The trouble is that the “you”—meaning 150 organisations, including Coram, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the British Association of Social Workers and 90% of all social workers—said that they did not want it and that they were opposed to it. Will the Minister confirm that he will not try to reintroduce those clauses in this House?
Mr Gibb
I listened carefully to my hon. Friend, who will be aware, of course, that Eileen Munro, whom he appointed to look into this whole area when he was the Minister, supported the power to innovate. The Local Government Association, ADCS and Catch22 also support it. The power is not to do with taking rights away from children or with saving money; it is about giving councils the opportunity to develop new ways of working that they believe will improve outcomes for children.
Tim Loughton
My hon. Friend says that it is not about taking rights away from children, but one of the scenarios is the abolition of independent reviewing officers, who absolutely can be the only voice independently standing up for vulnerable looked-after children in local authorities. If they go under the proposals, how is that not taking away the rights of children, particularly vulnerable children?
Mr Gibb
This is not about abolishing any statutory responsibilities. My hon. Friend should wait to see the amendments tabled in Committee. I am sure that he will want to talk about his concerns in more detail with the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families, who will take them very seriously indeed, particularly given my hon. Friend’s background and experience.
Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
Chapter 2 covers other provisions relating to children, so we are talking about the rights of the child. Will the Minister consider amending the law so that a child has the right to have the names of both parents on their marriage registration certificate?
Mr Gibb
I know that that issue has been discussed and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families will listen very carefully to my right hon. Friend if she tables such an amendment.
We are not introducing change for the sake of change. If existing LSCB arrangements are working, there will be nothing to prevent them from continuing in a similar vein within the new legal framework set out in the Bill. Importantly, the local safeguarding partners will have a clear responsibility for the arrangements and the flexibility to change and improve them if they are not working.
I should briefly mention two other provisions in chapter 2 of the Bill. Clause 11 is largely technical and allows the Government to use their powers to intervene in combined authorities where their services are failing vulnerable children and young people, in the same way as the Government can intervene in individual authorities. Clause 31 was an amendment to the Bill, and it will enable the Secretary of State to extend whistleblower protection to people applying for jobs in children’s social care, as well as to existing employees.
Part 2 sets the legal framework for the establishment of a bespoke regulator for all social workers in England. High-quality social work can transform lives, and social workers play a critical role in our society. Every day, social workers deal with complex and fraught situations that require a great depth of skill, knowledge, understanding and empathy. However, when social workers are not able to fulfil their role competently, the consequences can be grave. In order to protect the public from these risks, social workers have to meet high standards of acceptable practice and competence, which are overseen by a regulator.
The need for an improved system of regulation for the social work profession was highlighted in recent independent reviews by Sir Martin Narey and Professor David Croisdale-Appleby. Our ambition, through the establishment of a new bespoke regulator for social work, is to continue to improve the practice of social work and raise the status of the profession. For too long, the bar on standards has been too low. Some graduates are leaving courses and being registered as social workers without the knowledge and skills required to do the job, and that cannot be right. The new regulator will ensure, following consultation with the profession, that minimum standards are set at the right level. The new regulator will be a separate legal entity, operating independently of Ministers in its day-to-day work. The Government have always been clear that we have no intention of making decisions about the performance of individual social workers. As with other independent health and social care regulators, the Professional Standards Authority will oversee the operations of Social Work England. The PSA has welcomed the revised clauses.
We are planning to table a further amendment regarding the national assessment and accreditation system. That will introduce a nationally recognised post-qualification specialism in child and family social work, which will reinforce the focus on quality of practice.
There are two other crucial measures that are not in the Bill, but about which amendments will be tabled shortly. First, amendments will be tabled to ensure that looked-after children in England and Wales can legally be accommodated in secure children’s homes in Scotland. Recent case law has cast some doubt on the present arrangements. Secondly, amendments will be tabled regarding the power to innovate. That power is a direct response to the issues raised by Eileen Munro in her independent review of child protection. She has said:
“Trusting professionals to use their judgement rather than be forced to follow unnecessary legal rules will help ensure children get the help they need, when they need it. Testing innovation in a controlled way to establish the consequences of the change, before any national roll out, is a sensible and proportionate way forward.”
The purpose of the power is to allow individual local authorities to test new ways of working by changing or disapplying specific legislative provisions within a controlled environment, with a view to achieving better outcomes for children. As hon. Members know, the other place was unhappy about the clauses that were included in the Bill at introduction. We appreciate that this is a new way of working in Government and we understand why some noble Lords were wary, but the provisions are too important just to let them drop. I emphasise that this is a grassroots power, empowering local authorities to test new and better ways of working in the best interests of children.
Mr Gibb
If the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I am coming to the concluding elements of my comments.
Local government overwhelmingly supports these measures, and the national associations and individual authorities have made it clear that they do not want us to lose this opportunity to allow them to test new ways of working. We have, therefore, reviewed and substantially revised the clauses to make sure that they avoid the issues raised in the other place, and there are several notable new features. We have removed the provision that allowed a body carrying local authority functions under an intervention arrangement to apply to use the power. Only local authorities can apply to use the power and if they do not wish to, that is the end of the matter. The power was never intended to be used to alter or remove children’s fundamental rights or entitlements. Its sole purpose is to allow local authorities to trial better and more practical alternatives to the sometimes very specific and overly prescriptive requirements set out in legislation in order to provide better outcomes for children. The new amendments will put that beyond doubt.
We will set out further provision for the process surrounding the power to ensure that it is based on sound consultation, transparency and robust safeguards. All applications to use the power will be subject to local consultation, scrutiny by an independent panel and parliamentary approval. Pilots will be closely monitored. Those changes will be in addition to amendments the Government tabled in the other place about the scrutiny process that accompanies the power—
Mr Gibb
I will not give way to the right hon. Gentleman because he was not here at the beginning of my speech, when I set out a lot of the basic principles surrounding the Bill.
As I said, those changes will be in addition to amendments the Government tabled in the other place about the scrutiny process that accompanies the power and ruling out the use of the provision for profit. The Government are committed to working with the sector. The changes we have made are the result of significant consultation and we believe that these clauses are the safest possible way to test new approaches. My hon. Friend the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families is very keen to meet any colleagues who have concerns to discuss these provisions further.
This is a Bill for the welfare and prospects of vulnerable children and young people. All its measures are designed to improve the services that so many of them rely on, and I commend it to the House.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
We welcome any attempt to improve the lives of children in care, and I am sure that aim is shared in all parts of the House. The challenges facing those children are significant, as is the effort needed to tackle them. The National Audit Office said recently:
“Nationally the quality of help and protection for children is unsatisfactory and inconsistent, suggesting systemic rather than just local failure.”
The Government need to take action in the Bill to address that failure, rather than make it worse. I hope that the Secretary of State is listening to this very important debate, even if she is not able to attend the Chamber.
A new report by LaingBuisson for the Department for Education, which was published only last Friday, considered the options of outsourcing and developing markets in children’s social services. That is privatisation by another name. Quite simply, it would be not just the wrong solution, but no solution at all.
Following the excellent work of my noble Friends and others in the other place, the clauses that would have allowed local authorities to derogate from their existing legal obligations are no longer in the Bill. However, given the seriousness of the proposals and the timing of that report, I must ask the Secretary of State’s Department to think again and guarantee to this House that the Government will not seek to use the Bill as a vehicle to privatise children’s social services.
I hope the Minister can give us that assurance later, because there is a good deal to welcome in the Bill. From the principles of corporate parenting to the local offer for care leavers, there are steps towards helping young people in care and leaving care that we welcome. I do not want to have to divide the House in later stages and the Opposition would like to make progress collectively.
This issue is vital to the collective good of our nations. The services that are provided and the great work that is done on the ground by many public sector workers should be applauded, as they change lives every single day. I must declare an interest as my niece is one such worker. Our aim collectively within the Bill should be to enhance and enable that important work. Privatisation and fragmentation are not the answer. Our overall concern is less with what is in the Bill than with what is not in it. In short, the Bill lacks the ambition to have the meaningful impact on the lives of vulnerable young people that is needed.
If we are to make significant progress, we have to improve child mental health services. The Bill focuses on adoption, which is hardly a surprise—in the past several years, the Government have taken several steps to make it easier to adopt, such as the Education and Adoption Act 2016 —and we welcome measures that support adoption, but surely the Minister is aware that only one in every 20 children in care goes on to be adopted, so can he explain to the House why the Bill, much like the last one, focuses exclusively on adoption and does not contain provision for other forms of care? Would this not have been an opportunity to come forward with a comprehensive strategy for children in all forms of care? Will he indicate whether we might anticipate further legislation or whether he thinks that no changes are needed?
Similarly, we welcome the principles of corporate parenting, but there are questions about why the Bill does not go further. I am sure the Minister agrees that children in care will often have complex needs that require a joined-up approach across public services in order to get the best possible outcomes, so will he explain why there is no provision in the Bill to facilitate ways for public services, such as health and education, to play a key role in ensuring good corporate parenting? These public services play a key role in ensuring the best outcomes for children in care, yet there is no apparent involvement for them in the corporate parenting principles.
The principle of the local offer is welcome, and we supported it when it was introduced for children with special educational needs and disabilities in the Children and Families Act 2014, but we have since seen failings in practice, with the quality of local offers varying wildly between local authorities, no minimum guarantees of quality, no statutory guidance and no certainty that the local offer will be available to all those who need it. When there are no minimum guarantees of quality, we know which areas will lose out. Overwhelmingly, it will be areas already facing disadvantage that will not get the support they need.
There are already unacceptable variations in spending on children’s services between regions. In one local authority, £4,970 is spent on children in need; in another, it is only £340. The Department for Education’s own figures show that these spending inequalities fall along our all-too-familiar geographical divides.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
In my conversations with Hull City Council’s children’s services department, it talks to me about the resource inequalities it faces and the very disadvantaged community it serves. It is not asking for powers to innovate; it is asking for proper resources to provide the services that young people need in the city.
Angela Rayner
My hon. Friend makes a significant point. Local authorities in the north-west, such as mine, have faced cuts of 50% since austerity while trying to deal with the complex needs of their communities. I ask the Government to look again at that.
In the south-east, spending tends to be much higher than average, but, as we move through to the midlands and the north-west, spending in local authorities is far lower. Once again, levels of spending on public services fall on either side of the north-south divide, with the north losing out. In his final report as Her Majesty’s chief inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw has singled out the north-south divide as one of the great challenges facing our education system and our country, and only this morning the Children’s Commissioner said that the problem was simply that parents in the north were not as ambitious as those in the south. I am sure that the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families, a parent from the north himself, will agree that such comments are neither acceptable nor helpful. In an effort to ensure that all regions of our country, north and south, benefit from the local offer, I hope he will seek to put clear national standards in the Bill that all local offers will have to meet. There is a clear case for proper guidance on what the local offer should contain and how to make it accessible to all those who need it, drawing on the best available practice. Will the Minister tell us why these issues have not been addressed in the Bill, and whether the Government will bring forward amendments during its passage?
Part 2 establishes the new regulator, Social Work England. I want to pay tribute once again to the excellent work done by the parties in the other place. Following their scrutiny, plans to place regulatory control with the Secretary of State were defeated. I am sure that the Minister would acknowledge the norm that regulators are operationally independent from Government and, in this case, serve the interests of children. Will he guarantee today that that independence will be respected as the Bill is ultimately agreed?
While we welcome the new regulatory body, assuming that it is effective and independent, we will seek answers to a number of questions about how it will function. After all, the Government seem to want Social Work England to have a representative improvement and regulatory roles within the profession, yet they have not told us how it will be achieved. We have no detail on the remit of the work of the new regulator. As it stands, we will find out only through a series of regulations to be made by the Secretary of State. Will the Minister tell us exactly what the remit and powers of the new regulator will be, and why it is appropriate for those to be decided in secondary legislation, away from scrutiny of the full House? After all, we have been down this path before. Only four years ago, the General Social Care Council was closed. What, then, will be done differently this time to ensure that we do not look back in a year or two and see yet another regulator that has been closed down?
We broadly welcome what is in the Bill, although we hope that the Minister will answer some of the many questions that remain. Once already in the other place, the Government’s plans for the outsourcing and privatisation of our children’s services, dressed up as “innovation”, were defeated. Nobody in the profession believes that privatisation is the answer to the immense challenges it currently faces, and neither can it alleviate the growing demand for children’s services.
Mr Lammy
My hon. Friend is doing a very good job of putting forward the case that exists in the country. Is she concerned that the Minister has not said much at all about what “innovation” he expects would require a local authority, in effect, to wash its hands of its statutory duty in respect of our young people and children?
Angela Rayner
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Most people who work in the profession believe that privatisation is absolutely the wrong answer and will not help with any form of innovation that the Government might currently want. In fact, the best way of helping would be to restore the investment in our community and local services that the Government have cut over the last few years.
I call on the Minister to confirm today that the Government will not seek to bring these clauses back into the Bill. I am sure that he knows as well as Opposition Members and indeed all Members that these plans do not offer a real solution. If the Minister fails to take that suggestion on board, Opposition Members will be far less conciliatory when we debate the Bill again.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
The Bill is a very good one. It has been amended in the House of Lords, and we will need to consider the implications of that in due course. The central points of the Bill are well founded. I am particularly impressed with the theme of reflecting the work of the Munro report and improving the capacity of social workers to use their own judgment, rather than simply rely on box ticking. That is an appropriate theme for the Bill and it explains why the regulatory structure introduced by the Bill will help. It is through such a regulatory system that the ability to make judgments will be made easier.
It is important for social workers to have a clear eye on what professional regulation is all about. The profession should be operating, of course, at arm’s length, which is usefully stressed in the Bill. A register of social workers makes a lot of sense, because one of the things that we must do is enhance professionalism in social work. That is where I have some difference with the Government, in that I think that ultimately we should have a professional body for social workers. The Education Select Committee made it clear in a recent report that it thought there was a strong case for such a body, and I think there is an appetite for that beyond the Chamber. I urge the Government to have an open mind, and I suggest that they continue to send signals that they would like a professional body to be established. I also think that an independent review of proceedings in five years’ time makes a huge amount of sense, because that is a realistic timescale.
There is, however, one area in which I think the Bill needs some additions, or at least some recognitions. Given that more than 70,000 children are effectively children of the state and that so many more children are subjected to sexual abuse, and given the historical sexual abuse that has taken place, our failure to place the issue of sex and relationships education front and centre is becoming increasingly obvious. The Government must embark on a full consultation to provide reassurance that something will be done about this most important matter. I ask the Minister to confirm that there will be a realistic and meaningful consultation on the introduction of statutory SRE.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has raised that point. May I ask him to back Labour amendments to make SRE part of the safeguarding of all children, so that we can finally ensure that we keep every young person in the country safe?
Neil Carmichael
To an extent, that will depend on what the amendments are, and whether the Government make it clear that they will organise a full consultation. However, I note what the hon. Lady has said, and I am sure that the Government have noted what I have just said. We need a full, meaningful and comprehensive consultation on this important matter.
Five Select Committee Chairs sent a letter to the Secretary of State. Obviously, I organised one of them. The others came from the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee—Members may well ask what it has to do with SRE, and I can explain if they wish me to—the Women and Equalities Committee, the Health Committee, and the Home Affairs Committee. All those Committees effectively said precisely the same thing: we need SRE to be introduced statutorily in our schools.
Finally, I want to say something about latitude for local government. The Select Committee did some work relating to children in care, particularly those with mental health difficulties. When we went to Trafford, it was strikingly obvious to us that through co-operation with other agencies, coterminous structures and strong leadership, the council was delivering outstanding results. Its ability to benefit from strategic leadership at the top end, operational leadership within the structures themselves, and a coterminous relationship not only with its own organisations and related agencies but with the police force was clearly extraordinarily beneficial for working practices and the way in which decisions were made and responses given on issues connected with children in care and children at risk. Therefore, the Government are right to move towards giving local government more latitude in the way it formulates its structures to deliver outcomes.
In short, there is a lot to be said for the Bill. It is critical that we acknowledge that some form of professional body will be good for social workers and social work generally. The absence of SRE is a pity. It is important, however, that the Government give the firm commitment I have asked for. Generally speaking, the Government are going in the right direction on local government.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
I am aware that very few clauses in the Bill affect Scotland but, as a member of the Education Committee, I may have some points of interest and I might be able to help the Bill to become even better.
When a child or young person cannot live at home, we all owe it to them to make the process of finding a new, stable family as efficient and straightforward as possible. Clause 1 would introduce seven “corporate parenting principles” that local authorities must “have regard to”. I ask the Minister: why are those not mandatory? The Joint Committee on Human Rights has said:
“We have considered the arguments and the evidence for and against introducing a statutory duty on public authorities in England requiring them to have due regard to the rights of children in the UNCRC in the exercise of their functions relating to children, equivalent to the duties already introduced in Wales and Scotland.”
If Wales and Scotland can have such a duty, I find it difficult to understand why it will not be mandatory in England. The Joint Committee went on to recommend that Parliament takes the opportunity presented by the Bill to ensure that there is “such a duty”.
It is important that children are the focus of and are at the heart of any Bill that is introduced in this Parliament. We need to look at how children are affected by legislation introduced by not just the Department for Education, but Departments across the board.
In Scotland, the First Minister has said that people who have experienced the care system will be the driving force of an independent review of how Scotland treats its looked-after children. That is the mandatory duty in action. In Scotland, we want to move forward and to listen to young people, and we are looking at extending what is happening in Scotland to people who have been in care and are going through the process of becoming adults who stand on their own. It is good that the Bill looks at what happens to children after they leave care, but I ask the Minister to examine what we do in Scotland, because we are moving forward at a far faster pace than England and Wales.
A former children’s Minister in Scotland has said:
“children don’t need a system that just stops things happening to them”.
We have safeguards, but we also need a system that
“makes things happen for them. A system that supports them to become the people they can be”,
fostering a sense “of belonging”. I am sure that the Minister agrees with that and with the fact that that should be a guiding principle for any legislation. What steps will the Government take to respond to the recommendations made earlier this year by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child? When do they plan to publish their official response? What further steps will the Government take to ensure that policy development across Whitehall has children’s rights at its heart?
Clause 31, which is the one measure in the Bill that affects Scotland, relates to whistleblowing. The Scottish Government acknowledge and respect the need for whistleblowing. They believe that procedures should be in place across the public and private sectors to support staff in raising any concerns to ensure that people can work in a safe and secure environment. They believe that it is important that NHS workers in Scotland should be able to raise any concerns about patient safety or malpractice, because that helps to improve our health service. That should be the case not only in the health service, but across all professions, especially in the social work sector, given the importance of child protection. We welcome this measure and are really keen for the Government to see it through.
Social work is regulated in Scotland, and I again ask the Minister to look at how the Scottish system works. When the Education Committee heard evidence from social workers and their representatives as part of the inquiry referred to by its Chair, the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), one of the first things they said was that we should look at the Scottish system. I encourage Ministers to do that. The Scottish Social Services Council regulates the profession and all social workers in Scotland have to belong to it. I am pleased that England will be moving forward in a similar way.
I share the apprehensions expressed by the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) about creeping privatisation in the care sector, especially in relation to children. It is imperative that children should be looked after when they cannot be with their own parents and families, and the duty to protect children is shared by us all in society, not just by professionals. This is another reason why whistleblowers can be important.
The Bill will improve the situation in England, but it has to be seen in the context of child poverty. The Institute for Fiscal Studies states that child poverty in the UK is projected to rise by 8 percentage points by 2020, which makes it even more important that these provisions are right. Many more children could be drawn into the care system as a result of the ongoing austerity programme across the UK, so will the Minister please look at what we are doing in Scotland? We might not be perfect, and we might not get everything right, but we put children and their experiences at the heart of our system and we listen to them. I ask him please to look to the north, as well as to Wales, which is also doing really good work on child protection and childcare across the board.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
I welcome most parts of the Bill, and I particularly welcome the fact that it is now without certain parts, as I said earlier. It is good to have this opportunity to discuss child protection and social workers. We spend far too little time in the House highlighting the excellent practices that we expect our social workers to achieve in highly adverse conditions. I have always referred to social workers as our fourth emergency service, and I am proud to be a patron of the Social Worker of the Year awards, along with the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck). I attended the awards dinner just over a week ago, at which fantastic examples of dedication, hard work, skill and expertise were on display. Alas, none of that made it into the mainstream media, as is so often the case.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the challenges facing social workers are particularly intense as a result not only of immense reductions in funding, but of the fast-changing climate and the Government’s occasional initiative-itis that seems to attach itself to the social work sector?
Tim Loughton
Social workers are certainly under a huge amount of pressure, but that initiative-itis has, to an extent, gone into reverse, not least through the shrinking in the past six years of the “working together” rule book—the bible of social workers and social work practice—which amounted to more than 750 pages when this Government came into office. Social workers were spending all their time checking what the rulebook said, looking over their shoulders and ticking boxes, rather than being allowed to get on with the business of being social workers, and eyeballing families and the vulnerable children whom they are there to protect and work with. With the support of Professor Munro, that work was an important initiative that tried to take away many of the administrative burdens on social workers, notwithstanding their other pressures and challenges.
I am proud of the work that the Conservative party has done in this area, starting with the commission on social work that I chaired back in 2007. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) is in the Chamber because she played an important role in the commission. We produced the document “No More Blame Game—The Future for Children’s Social Workers”, which is as relevant today as it was then. The trouble is that social workers are still too often subject to the blame game, especially in the tabloid press, from which it would appear that it is social workers who abuse and murder vulnerable young children. Of course they do not; they are there to try to protect such children. Parents, carers and others commit those foul acts, but people would not believe that based on the reports. Too many people view our social workers with disdain.
From that piece of work, of which I am proud, came the suggestions for consultant social workers and a chief social worker. In 2010, our manifesto commitment was to take child protection back to the frontline. I am also pleased and proud that the first review initiated by the Department for Education after the 2010 election was not about schools or education matters; it was the excellent Munro review into child protection. I was slightly surprised that the Minister prayed in aid Professor Munro so explicitly. I appointed Professor Munro and worked closely with her, but the problem is that many of her 15 pertinent recommendations are still to be implemented, and they do not involve the removal of a local authority’s basic duty to protect vulnerable young children.
I support the Bill as it stands, but it could certainly be improved by a number of enhancing amendments, although I would not include among those any that would rehash clauses 29 to 33. I was alarmed by the Minister’s comments that strongly suggested that those clauses will be revisited. That would be a shame because, after the good work done in the Lords, we were promised a period of reflection —perhaps it could be referred to as a pause, as we have had for other legislation—but that reflection will not have lasted long if the Government return with amendments. I caution them to extend the period of reflection before they hurry into repeating what was clearly a mistake. A clear majority in the House of Lords and a great majority of important organisations involved in child protection were not in favour of the proposed changes and made their feelings clear.
Let us be clear, many good things have happened around child protection under this Government. The reform of fostering and adoption regulations has helped not only fosterers and adopters, but, most importantly, children who are being fostered. It has also helped more children to get adopted. There is more to be done, but a lot of progress has been made over the past six years. Ofsted’s inspection system is now much more appropriate and rigorous.
The Munro review gave rise to a lot of innovation in child protection. The child sexual exploitation action plan was published back in November 2011—well before the Savile scandal became so public and made CSE a headline issue of which we have never seen the like. We have the Staying Put policy which, although perhaps underfunded and less effective in certain local authorities, includes the right to a personal adviser until the age of 25 and places a duty on local authorities to stay in touch.
These are all good things being innovated through the Bill that, along with staying close until the age of 21, offer support to vulnerable children in the care system at what is often a most fragile time in their lives. Previously, at the age of 18 or even 16 they faced a cliff edge, coming out of care into the big wide world without the help and support—the safety net—that so many of these children and young people need.
Catherine West
The hon. Gentleman is being extremely generous in giving way a second time. Does he agree that much of this could be quite academic if funding does not accompany these exciting developments?
Tim Loughton
Funding is, of course, part of this, but we can do a lot better with existing funds, although the National Audit Office report showed that funding on vulnerable children had gone up as well. But what was not working properly is when social workers were spending, through the integrated children’s system and other very bureaucratic systems, up to 80% of their time in front of a computer filling in forms to do with child protection, rather than getting out there and dealing with children face to face. That was a huge waste of resources, but more importantly a huge waste of opportunities to deal more effectively and early on with children, who really did need to have the support, and often intervention, of professional services and social workers in particular.
Despite all these innovations, we still need to do an awful lot better for vulnerable children, children in the care system and our care leavers. It is a fact that 40%—almost half—of our care leavers aged 19 to 21 are classed as not in education, employment or training, and 4% of them are in custody. Two thirds of children in the care system have special educational needs, almost half of them with a diagnosable mental disorder. The percentage for the educational achievement of children achieving A* to C GCSEs is still in its teens, compared with its peer population now with over 60% achieving those grades.
I particularly welcome some of the Bill’s corporate parenting principles— although it will be interesting to see how they work in practice—that apply to physical and mental health, which is so important. Although this Government have again done a lot to raise the profile of mental health, particularly among children and young people, and have injected a further £1.4 billion into that area, the problem is that not nearly enough of it—and that is not enough in itself—is getting through to the frontline, to help the children and young people who so desperately need it, when they need it and where they need it.
These are challenging times. The NAO report on children in need of protection, to which various hon. Members have already referred, flagged up some worrying observations. Too often the way we look after vulnerable children is a postcode lottery. We are still very poor at sharing best practice in this country, yet a child in need, a child in care and a child in desperate need of protection should be dealt with no differently whether they are in Durham, Worthing, Exeter or anywhere else throughout the United Kingdom.
There was a surge following the horrific case of Baby Peter, but the number of children coming into the care system continues to rise: there are now in excess of 70,000 children in the care system in England—the highest since 1985, when the environment in respect of why children tended to come into the care system was very different. I do not know whether we need to take more children into care, or fewer, but I do know that we need to take the right children into care at the right time, and give them the right support and services if they cannot be supported living with their families or other kinship carers.
Another thing I am very proud of is the Government’s initiative on promoting adoption, which had fallen into neglect, frankly, after the good work done in the Adoption and Children Act 2002. The adoption figures have started to fall back considerably and there is still a very big grey space following the Munby judgment. But that should not have happened, because those adoption reforms were about bringing forward an easier system for adopters to offer their services and for children to go through all the hoops. There were too many hoops and it took too long for children to get adopted. We needed to bring onside not only those involved in adoption at the local authority level, which largely we did, but, contemporaneously and in sympathy, those in the legal profession, as many judges felt put upon, in that they were being told how to run cases in their courts. I am afraid that the Government have failed to do that and should not therefore be surprised by the disappointing reversal in the adoption figures, which I hope will be reversed again, because adoption does offer the best chance at a second childhood—a second possibility of being brought up in a safe and loving family—for a lot of children who still do not get that chance and are still in the care system.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that although many younger children are being adopted, it is far more difficult to place older children? We need to do more to promote the benefits to those children of adoption at a later age.
Tim Loughton
The hon. Lady is right about that, but shiny, squeaky new babies have always been much more attractive to people who want to adopt than problematic teenagers who have been through all the trials and tribulations of broken families—perhaps abuse, neglect, mental health problems and behavioural disorders—and have been pushed from pillar to post in the care system. Those are the children we have most let down, which is one reason why the introduction of adoption scorecards was based not just on improving the number of children adopted, but on concentrating on those harder-to-adopt children: older children; large sibling groups; and children from black and minority ethnic communities. Too often these children were at the back of the adoption queue. I am glad to say that in recent years disproportionately they have found themselves more likely to get adopted than they were before. This is still not enough and there remains a lot to be done, but that was absolutely the right focus to bring in over the past few years.
Another thing I am concerned about is that despite all the good work the Government did on paralleling the kraamzorg system for health visitors in Holland, we have lost 722 health visitors since January and there has been a 13% decrease in the number of school nurses since 2010. They are really important people in early intervention—in identifying children with problems, and those for whom the support of social services and other caring services is essential, sooner rather than later.
Of course, I am also worried by the recent rise, again, in social worker vacancy rates in many authorities around the country, and too often the positions are taken by temporary social workers. Social work, particularly when dealing with child protection, is an area where staff need to forge empathetic relationships with those vulnerable children and families whom they are there to look after. Being pushed from pillar to post, from one home to another, from one social worker to another reviewing officer—or whoever it may be—only accentuates the instability and vulnerability of those children.
I worry when, even in this place, we are still too quick to point the finger of blame at the social workers because a child has been brutally assaulted or killed, as still happens in too many cases, by their carer, parent or close relative. We hear the talk of “wilful neglect”. There are social workers who are not doing their job properly, and there are social workers who are not up to the job and should not be in social work, and they should be removed from it, but they are a small minority. We should not make the rest of our excellent, hard-working, dedicated social worker force feel constantly that they are the ones to blame for many of these tragedies. We have to up everybody’s game, but they are part of the solution; in the vast majority of cases, they are not part of the problem.
It is odd therefore that at the heart of the original Bill, since eviscerated of clauses 29 to 33, which it would seem are about to make an unfortunate reappearance, were radical new proposals supposedly to test new ways of working, under the guise of promoting innovation. As I said earlier, the clauses were not remotely welcomed by the vast majority of people who are involved in the whole field of child protection. They were opposed by the British Association of Social Workers, the Care Leavers Association, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, CoramBAAF, which is the Government’s appointed adoption provider, the Fostering Network, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and Action for Children. In various polls, about 90% of working social workers did not support those clauses either, which was hardly surprising given that the clauses came out of the blue. There was no consultation on absolutely fundamental changes to the way in which we apply duties of care to vulnerable children in this country.
I pay tribute to the House of Lords, particularly to Lord Ramsbotham, for putting forward the amendments that saw those clauses taken out of the Bill. Lord Ramsbotham referred to clause 29 as nothing less than
“the usurpation of the proper parliamentary process.”
He asked
“how the courts are expected to respond where a young person or child in a particular local authority area is clearly disadvantaged by the arbitrary disapplication or modification of the law as it is applied in all other parts of the country.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 8 November 2016; Vol. 776, c. 1056.]
As I said earlier, a child needs protection wherever he or she may be in the country. We cannot have a competition between different areas on ways of looking after vulnerable children, some of which will not work and some of which might. Every child needs the protection of the law as set out by Parliament, and it should not be subject to a postcode lottery, as is convenient for certain local authorities.
In the debate in the other place, Lord Low said:
“It is perfectly possible to test different ways of working…within the existing legislative framework…it makes no sense to get rid of the duty.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 8 November 2016; Vol. 776, c. 1063.]
The squeeze on funding, which Members have mentioned, and which is, I am afraid, inevitable at the moment—[Interruption.] I am afraid that it is inevitable because of the disastrous way in which the Labour Government ran the economy into the ground. In too many cases now local authorities are providing only what is their duty; additional services are no longer on the agenda at all. Taking away that duty means that some of these fundamental things could not happen in the future.
Clause 29 as it was would have allowed local authorities to request exemptions from their statutory duties in children’s social care. Every Act of Parliament and every subordinate piece of legislation concerned with children’s social care from 1933 onwards could have been affected. The proposed mechanism for exemption orders was to be statutory instruments, which would have handed over enormous powers to the Secretary of State and the Department for Education. I am afraid that the Minister for School Standards is wrong: the DfE acknowledged that this part of the Bill directly concerns children’s fundamental rights. How can vulnerable children challenge those lack of services? I gave an example—it was one of many examples raised in the House of Lords—of independent reviewing officers. I am a big fan of IROs—I think we can do better, and there is a bit of a postcode lottery—as their role is to stand up and be the voice, or the advocate, of children who are not getting the services to which they are entitled and which they need from local authorities. If no IRO is available because an exemption has been applied for and granted, which means that the authority has no IROs, where is that child to go? There are not just IROs, but key legal protections that exist in the form of regulations now, including the ban on corporal punishment in foster care and children’s homes, protection for disabled children placed away from home, leaving care entitlements and complaints procedures. All of those could be granted an exemption and could disappear from fundamental rights, which we apply to protect vulnerable children now. This would be the first time in the history of children’s welfare that legislation made for all vulnerable children and young people could be disapplied in a particular area. This is a very radical proposal that warranted at least a Green Paper and a White Paper and proper consultation, but there was none.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the NSPCC and Action for Children said that
“the case that the Government is making presents considerable risk. Despite numerous conversations with ministers and officials, the evidence for the need for this power remains unconvincing and does not justify the potential risks of suspending primary legislation.”
The British Association of Social Workers said:
“If the clauses are re-introduced it will pave the way for significant and dangerous changes to the provision of children’s social care which would jeopardise hard fought victories for children’s rights spanning decades.”
How would the pilots for these provisions be monitored? How would we monitor whether children were still safe and what the results were for those children? It is no surprise that only one in 10 practising social workers surveyed by the BASW and by Unison thought this was a good idea. That is why I have severe reservations if the clause is to be returned to the Bill.
The Munro review took away much of the bureaucracy from social workers. It gave flexibility on the timing of assessments of children and how social workers could prioritise. It gave greater powers and confidence back to social workers to use their professional judgment to do what they thought best in the interests of vulnerable children. Sometimes they will get it wrong. I always say to social workers, “What I want to do, and what the Munro review was all about, is to give you the confidence to make a mistake—hopefully, not often, but to do it for the very best of reasons, not simply because that’s what it says on page 117 of the rule book and you needed to tick the boxes.” That is not what social work is all about. It is not a science. It is a complicated and challenging job.
If we are going to give social workers those flexibilities and allow them to act in different and innovative ways because they think that is the best way of looking after vulnerable children, we do not need to take away the statutory duties of the local authorities which are the corporate parents of those children, so that those new ways do not have to abide by the fundamental duties which ensure that social workers are doing the right thing and looking after those vulnerable children.
Finally, I shall look at a few specific clauses and ask the Minister some questions, which I hope he will refer to in his summing up. Clause 1 is about corporate parenting principles, which I welcome, but it is not clear exactly what they amount to in practice. Are they in addition to the section 23 commitments of the Children Act 1989 or do they replace them? I have used examples which I welcome: promoting physical and mental health, promoting high aspirations and securing the best outcomes for those children and young people. Nobody could vote against such things, but in clause 3 new section 23CZB(7) states:
“Where a former relevant child to whom this section applies is not receiving advice and support under this section, the local authority must offer such advice and support . . . at least once in every 12 months.”
Once in every 12 months will not go very far for a vulnerable child who needs intensive help. Subsection(4) makes provision for personal advisers. The problem is that too many children in care whom I met and children leaving care had never heard of personal advisers, let alone knew who their own personal adviser was.
In clause 4 new section 23ZZA(3) gives a local authority this extraordinary power:
“A local authority in England may do anything else that they consider appropriate with a view to promoting the educational achievement of relevant children educated in their area”—
motherhood and apple pie. Why do we require that sort of thing in legislation? It strikes me that a bit much of this is a bit too mushy and full of cotton wool—too many vague assumptions which in practice, particularly with funding pressures and duties taken away, will not amount to a row of beans, if we are not careful.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
Obviously, the primary focus and concern is the duty of care to children, but there is also the issue of mothers who might well end up having successive children who end up in care. The local authority needs to have a responsibility for those vulnerable women, who may well be victims of a coercive relationship and have complex needs as a result. The sooner there is intervention and therapeutic care, the better, to avoid subsequent issues—maybe subsequent children and subsequent costs and concerns for all.
Tim Loughton
My hon. Friend, who has great expertise in this area, is right. Of course we cannot look at vulnerable children in isolation; we need to look at their families holistically. There are some really good examples. I hope that the Minister will stick to his word and provide funding for things such as FDAC, the family drug and alcohol court set up by the excellent Nick Crichton, a fantastic family district judge.
At FDAC, a mother—often a single mother—at risk of losing a child to the care system because of substance abuse or an abusive partner, say, is given a clear choice of an intensive package that will help her back on to the straight and narrow so that she can bring up her own child. It is a tough, challenging exercise. Alternatively, perhaps both parents will be involved. If they are able to do that, the whole family is put back together and the child stays, which is the best outcome. If not, that child will head for care.
I have sat in court, as has my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who will speak shortly, seeing mums who have had six, seven or eight children taken into the care system. We have to tackle the root of that problem: why is it? Is it that the mother just does not know how to parent, in which case what are society, social workers and the troubled families programme doing to help her become a fit parent if she remotely can? If she cannot, that child must go to a safe family elsewhere who can give them a second chance of a beneficial and happy upbringing.
I would like to make a few other quick points, Mr Deputy Speaker; I am aware that there are not too many speakers for this debate, so I have an opportunity to elaborate on some important points a little longer than the Chair normally allows. I know how generous you are in these matters, which are of great interest to you.
Clause 5 is about the designation of a member of staff at school
“having responsibility for promoting the educational achievement”
of children in the care system. That is a good initiative, but it already exists for children with caring responsibilities and alas that does not work in practice. It is a good idea, but it has to have some teeth so that it means something on the ground: that children in the care system have special attention from a designated teacher who understands the particular needs of such children, who are often subject to bullying, mental health problems and everything else. There must be more than a clause on paper in a Bill: the proposal has to work in practice.
There are some good points on the child safeguarding review panels, although I have concerns about the independence of the panels. Certainly when we gave a commitment before the 2010 election that we would publish serious case reviews—opposed by the Labour party, although the reviews have now become the norm—one of my concerns was also about the calibre of the people producing those SCRs and the quality of some of the reports. Effectively, they were not properly monitored; they were monitored only on a local basis. Some time ago, I put forward the idea that a national body should oversee the quality and that there should be a national register of authors of serious case reviews with a requirement for continuous professional development; there needed to be training, which would be updated. Before now, anybody, effectively, could apply to be the author of a serious case review. We need to regulate that important area rather better.
Under clause 13, the panel
“must publish the report, unless they consider it inappropriate to do so.”
Given that, previously, when serious case reviews were published, they were seen only by a few people locally and Department for Education officials if we were lucky, it was really important that, other than in exceptional circumstances where there could be detriment to surviving children or families, the reviews should be published and the lessons learned to see how they could apply elsewhere. This new review panel is an exercise in doing that and in disseminating best practice rather better. I very much support that, and I would like more details on how it is going to work.
Then, however, we have the section about safeguarding partners. These appear to be replacing the local safeguarding children boards, which are a really important feature of bringing together local agencies to make sure that we have workable solutions and partnerships in place, particularly to deal with child sexual exploitation at the moment. We need to be convinced about how these new bodies are better than, or different from, local safeguarding children boards and, in particular, about how they are going to be funded. Clause 20, on funding, says:
“The safeguarding partners for a local authority area in England may make payments”
towards the expenditure of these bodies
“by contributing to a fund”
or making payments directly. It also says:
“Relevant agencies for a local authority area…may make payments”.
The problem with LSCBs at the moment is that not all the partners pull their weight. In too many cases, key partners are, first, not turning up at the table and, secondly, not helping to fund the work of the LSCBs. Too often, it falls to the local authority—the default partner —to pick up too much of the tab. If we are going to put these things on a statutory basis, can we make sure that it is laid out clearly and unequivocally that the funding contribution from, and the active participation of, all the relevant partners is absolutely essential?
I am also concerned because clause 21 says:
“The safeguarding partners for two or more local authority areas in England may agree that their areas are to be treated as a single area”.
How big can they be? It is important that LSCBs are able to come up with local safeguarding plans and local plans to tackle child sexual exploitation in their areas—plans that are relevant to Rotherham, given the particular problems there, to Rochdale or to wherever. If these bodies are going to be looking after huge areas, their effect will surely be diluted in key hotspots. The Bill also talks about having cross-border constabulary co-operation, but these are very large areas, and I am concerned about how big these new bodies could become.
On the part of the Bill about the new body, Social Work England, I think we need to improve the regulation of social workers. I am not sure whether this is the right way to do it, and I would like to see more details. The demise of the College of Social Work is a shame, and I think it would have performed a lot of this function if it had been allowed to continue and to thrive. A lot of effort went into setting it up in the first place.
I am also concerned about the independence of Social Work England. My understanding is that it will be an Executive agency of the Department for Education, and we need to have some clarity over that.
The Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families (Edward Timpson)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Edward Timpson
I can reassure my hon. Friend that the new Social Work England regulatory body will not be an Executive agency; it will be a non-departmental public body, so it will be at arm’s length from the Government and provide the independence that people called for and that I think is right.
Tim Loughton
I am grateful, and gratefully reassured, and I look forward to being able to support that provision, as opposed to some others that I am not so reassured about.
In clause 31, one of the overarching objectives of Social Work England is
“to promote and maintain public confidence in social workers in England”,
and that is quite right. However, that is also the job of the chief social worker. One disappointment to me is that when we set up the chief social worker—originally, it was to be one chief social worker covering the elderly and children, but then it was split into a child social worker and an adult care social worker—the point was for them to be a high-profile face of social work, particularly for the public, and a reassuring face of child protection for the public in times of high-profile tragedies and disasters involving safeguarding issues. Therefore, while the current chief social worker for children said recently:
“I don’t pretend I am the voice of the profession. I am a civil servant and I see my role”
as
“offering advice to ministers based on what other people tell me about a the system”,
I think there is more to the role. This person must not just be a civil servant. They need to work closely alongside Ministers and civil servants, but equally—in action out on the street—to work alongside social workers, consultant social workers and practitioners at the sharp end. We need to revisit the balance that we currently have in that regard.
I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker, for going on at length. This is a subject that interests me enormously. I have spent most of my career in Parliament involved with child safeguarding and child protection. I am very proud of the progress that has been made over years, but very worried that we still have a long way to go. Most of this Bill will help in that journey, but certain parts will not. I hope that when scrutinising the Bill in Committee and on Report, the Government reflect a little more before they rush to do some things that clearly are not in the best interests of vulnerable children.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a true pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and his detailed, precise and, some might say, exhaustive analysis of the Bill before us. I think I can speak for all Labour Members in saying that we share many of the concerns that he outlined about getting right the legislation on how we protect young people in our country. I associate myself with the excellent introduction by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) in which she raised Labour Members’ concerns about the Bill while recognising that many parts are welcome and could take us forward. We share the wish across the House to provide the best safeguarding for all children.
I see this Bill as being about how we best support our children in an imperfect world—a world that we are all painfully aware of through our casework and work within our communities. That is why we all share the concern expressed by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham about the importance of partnership working—in particular, working with professionals. Many of us will have dealt with cases where we are acutely aware that we are not professionals but wish to help, and where the guidance of social workers with years of experience in complex and delicate matters has been of vital assistance to us. We therefore recognise that not involving them in this conversation may take us backwards rather than forwards as a country. Some of us have real concerns about what will replace the local safeguarding boards, and how we make sure that the multi-partnership work that has worked in some parts of the country and led to some significant changes is not lost in the process of recognising where change is needed.
In a wish not to indulge one of the customs of this House where the same thing is said several times, let me try to offer the Minister some ideas about things that I believe are missing from the Bill. I hope that we will find cross-party consensus in adding to it. One of those things, as well as a concern to avoid any suggestion of privatising such a delicate and important service, is to make sure that in talking about safeguarding we involve the concept of prevention, particularly the idea of acting earlier within the system to make sure that children are protected. I am particularly drawn to clause 16, which talks about the safeguarding and promotion of welfare of all children, and the role that local authorities might play in that.
Bearing in mind the comments of the Minister, who is sadly no longer in his place, about ensuring that a robust safeguarding system is in place, I wish to let him know that I will table amendments to bring in one of the most crucial parts of safeguarding we have yet to get right—sex and relationships education for all young people. We cannot say that we safeguard our children when we make sure that they are taught about composting but not consent. Many of us may have stories of our own sex and relationships education. I might have feared that I was forever scarred by having once fallen asleep in a classroom only to be awoken by somebody waving a female condom in my face. However, it is no laughing matter. Many of us are acutely aware of the many pressures on our young people that we need to be able to address, and, crucially, in a positive and inclusive manner. All parents will tell us that they are concerned about the world today. In a former lifetime, I was a youth worker, and we used to say that we had all been 15-year-olds but none of us had been 15-year-olds in today’s world. I am incredibly grateful, for a start, that Facebook was not around when I was at school. One third of young girls in this country report being sexually harassed at school. Three quarters of girls in a Girlguiding survey said that they were anxious about sexual harassment in their age group, and 5,500 sexual offences, including 600 rapes, were recorded in UK schools over the past three years alone.
I say that not to make parents fearful, but to ask what we can do to make sure that every young person in this country has the tools and the confidence to lead the lives that we would all wish for them, and to be able to know when no means no and yes means yes. That is why it is important that we do not let it become the internet that educates our young people or the playground that tells them what passes for acceptable sexual conduct, but that we give every young person the kind of training that we would want for our own children.
That is not a critique of parents. Indeed, many parents work very hard to make sure that their children have good ideas about sex and relationships education. We need to recognise that parents can only ever be 50% of the answer, because this is also about the other children that children will meet. Giving every child good sex and relationships education should be considered part of safeguarding, because it will make sure that every young person, whoever they come into contact with, has the skills and the tools to lead the life that they wish to lead and to deal with the modern world as it is, not as some might wish it to be.
I know that Members across the House will support that proposal. I am mindful of the support of the Select Committee Chairs, one of whom—the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller)—is in her place. I was taken by her Committee’s report, but this is not just about the Women and Equalities Committee: the Select Committees on Home Affairs, Education, Health, and Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy all agree that now is the time to make sure that every child is given access to good sex and relationships education.
Mr Burrowes
The hon. Lady has prayed in aid the Home Affairs Committee. I think that she is referring to the previous Chair, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who signed up to a letter, but he did not do so on behalf of the Committee. As a member of that Committee, I did not support it. I certainly support proposals for high-quality sex and relationships education. There are ways of achieving that, not least through building resilience and supporting families, which is what the Bill is about. We can do that in lots of ways, not just the path suggested by the hon. Lady. I ask her to please acknowledge that there is significant opposition to her proposal.
Stella Creasy
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, but I hope that we will be able to change his mind during our discussion. We have been having this debate for some time, and I tell him plainly that the young people of Britain are crying out for this kind of education. Time and again they say, “Ignorance is not bliss; confidence is what we want.” It is not about replacing parents; it is about supporting them and making sure that young people, wherever they are, have the right environment. It is too important not to listen to our young people when they ask for this kind of education to be done in an age-appropriate fashion in their schools. Now is the time to get it right. Select Committee Chairs acknowledge that, and, although the hon. Gentleman did not support the letter, I believe that many do. It is right that we have this debate and I hope that we can allay those fears, because the consequence of not doing so is to leave young people at risk, and I do not think that that is acceptable in the 21st century.
I agreed with the Secretary of State for Education when she said that she was minded to see this happen and that she wanted to consider all the options, and I believe that this Bill is the right way to do it. There were discussions about doing it as part of the proposed education Bill, but that has stalled, for whatever reason. The matter is too important to delay any longer. That means using this legislative opportunity to acknowledge that, in order to safeguard every young person, they need to be taught about consent—not just the biology of sex, but how to have positive, equal and safe relationships. The honest truth is that that is not happening for too many of our young people and we are seeing the consequences.
I will ask the Government to make sure that that work is part of safeguarding at a local level; that schools are given the guidance to make it available to every young person in an age-appropriate and inclusive way; that they work with communities; and, above all, that they do not simply consult, but set a timetable, because for too long our young people have been asking us to get this right, and for too long their voice has not been heard.
The hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) is no longer in his place, but I hope that there will be cross-party support for amendments that I will table on this subject. I will certainly seek that support, and I know that many Labour Members—including, I suspect, the Front-Bench team—will support those amendments. I would be happy to sit down with Ministers and look at how we can make these proposals work, because I do not think that any of us can be happy with the situation that obtains. There is general agreement that this needs to happen, and yet there is no legislation to make it happen. We are failing our young people if we keep kicking this issue into the long grass.
I hope that I can convince the Minister that there will be cross-party support on another area as well. Although the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) is yet to be convinced about the case for the changes I have just outlined, I hope that he will be convinced to back the amendments that I will propose on child refugees. He and I were certainly on the same side when it came to supporting the young people left in Calais. I acknowledge the Minister’s statement about safeguarding child refugees and recognising the importance of extending safeguarding proposals to our young people. However, I believe that his statement was undermined by the guidance that was issued by the Home Office at the same time. The Minister’s statement caused the noble Lord Dubs—a tremendous champion of our child refugees—to withdraw his amendment to this very Bill about this very matter. That amendment was withdrawn on the basis that there was good will across the House about making sure that we safeguarded child refugees, including during the process of transferring them from overseas to the UK.
Catherine West
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her outstanding work on unaccompanied asylum seekers, who are often voiceless. Does she think that enough is being done to provide post-trauma and post-traumatic stress counselling for those children, who have seen things that are quite unimaginably horrible?
Stella Creasy
My hon. Friend raises an incredibly important point. Counselling should be part of the safeguarding process.
Many of us who deal with these young people are concerned about the fact that many of them are still in France, precisely because of the guidance issued by the Home Office, which set out a two-step process and specified that nationality would be one of the criteria for helping child refugees—ahead of their best interests. It cannot be in the best interests of a child to put nationality before need, and I hope that the Minister will recognise that the detail in his statement of 1 November is undermined by such a strategy. It is right that we clarify in amendments to the Bill that the country will always put the best interests of a child first, and that includes child refugees.
Mr Burrowes
I was with the hon. Lady on the Dubs II amendment. Perhaps the link with her proposed amendments is that we can agree on the outcomes, but the question is how we achieve them. If we will the ends, is a prescribed piece of statute needed or are there other means to achieve what we want? We will debate amendments about SRE at a later stage, but the issue with her proposals about safeguarding is the practical implementation. We saw with the Dubs amendment that we need to pay careful attention to practical implementation. Prescribed legislation is not always required, but we need to hold the Minister to account and ensure that he stays true to the good words in his statement.
Stella Creasy
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. I agree with much of what he has said about the difference between having to prescribe, and recognising locally led solutions. However, I disagree with him fundamentally on both points for precisely the reason that he is putting out. The outcomes that are being achieved are not what we desired; they are not the will of this place. The desired outcome in sex and relationships education is not being achieved at a local level because there is no clarity about what schools should be teaching, so too many young people are not getting the appropriate support. Even with the best will in the world and the best parenting, unless we wrap those children up in cotton wool, the other young people they meet may present a risk to them.
So, too, with child refugees. Sadly, with the Dubs amendments, good will has slowly ebbed away in this place when the implementation has not matched the outcome that we desired. Nowhere is that clearer than when the Government try to say that nationality is more important than need. Many of us were delighted by the statement that the Minister made on 1 November, and then we were horrified to read the Home Office guidance, which seemed to stand against the spirit of the statement. I believe it is necessary to clarify that we must always act in the best interests of those children, just as Lord Dubs sought to act in their best interests when he tabled his original amendment.
The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate will know the battle that we have had throughout proceedings on the legislation. As difficult and uncomfortable as some of the debates may be, and although some people may have concerns about child refugees, we must surely all want to act in their best interests. I am sorry to have to tell the Minister that some of the Government’s conduct has led many of us to believe that amendments are necessary. I will seek support from across the House to make this happen so that we can put the matter beyond doubt, because, sadly, the guidance from the Home Office does cast doubt on it.
I do not wish to echo the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham in terms of length—not to undermine anything he said—but through my proposals I am looking forward to being part of the legislative process. I am looking forward to scrutinising the Bill. I am looking forward to seeking cross-party agreement on these issues, because all of us in this House recognise that protecting children is one of the most important jobs we do. There may be disagreements about how to get there, but we do have to get there. We cannot avoid these issues any more. Whether it is our young people facing an uncertain world or the young people stuck in child centres in France right now, we have a responsibility for all of them, just as we have a responsibility for children through our corporate parenting rules. I hope that the Minister will listen and respond on all these issues. I am happy to meet him, as I am sure are many others, but we will not rest until this is resolved.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and to have heard not only Opposition Members’ broad support for the Bill, but the important points they have raised. There can never be too much consensus on these issues. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said, we just need to do better for vulnerable children. Challenge is part of that, as are new ideas. We cannot allow the Bill to be a missed opportunity in terms of prevention or the knowledge we give to children, because they are as much a part of the safeguarding process as any other structure or law that we put through this place.
The focus of the Bill is very much children who cannot remain in the family home, but its scope has been widened, particularly through Government amendments made in the other place, to broader issues around child welfare. I will focus on some of the broader issues, particularly the provisions regarding adopted children and ongoing support for them; the more contentious issue of the power to innovate, which some Members have talked about today, the measures on which were voted down in the other place; and, finally, what more the Bill could do to improve the welfare of children and to empower children.
The Bill proposes improvements to the long-term placement of children for adoption and the assessment of their current and future needs through care orders. I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to tell the House how the new measure sits alongside recent Government announcements on the adoption support fund. In particular, I am thinking about the interim cap on financial support that was put in place midway through the financial year.
The adoption support fund ensures that important therapeutic support can be funded for adopted children, some of whom are coping with difficult trauma, complex and challenging behaviour, and mental health problems. That can result in a high risk of adoption breakdown. The fund already helps thousands of families—I believe it was 3,500 last year—and the Government are increasing the budget to about £23 million this year. That significant investment perhaps underlines the Minister’s deep knowledge of the subject and his understanding of the challenges that parents of adopted children face, which he has gained from his own family’s experiences. I put on record my thanks to the Minister for all that he has done to support families with adopted children. I know that my constituents are enormously grateful for his expertise in this area.
Perhaps we should be unsurprised to hear that the demand for the fund has outstripped the supply of finances. The Minister, with the inevitable fiscal duties on him, had to introduce a cap to the budget in October. Although that was understandable as a normal response to keep control of budgetary pressures, it has inevitably created uncertainties for families such as my constituents, Mr and Mrs Cross, who adopted their son in August 2013. Mr and Mrs Cross are incredible. They have adopted a young child with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder which, as many will know, means their son requires significant support.
Mr and Mrs Cross have taken the necessary measures and are doing a fantastic job. The child’s therapy has been hugely beneficial, leading to real progress, but because it costs in excess of the new £5,000 cap, it is uncertain whether the funding will be available in the near future. The next phase of treatment costs about £10,000 and would require the local authority in Hampshire to match fund, in year, any costs over £5,000. Clause 8 calls for long-term plans for the care of a child to be in place, yet my constituents, who have made an incredible choice to care for a severely disabled child, are now unsure whether his care can be funded. I hope that the Minister, perhaps in his response to the debate, will reflect on how a local authority such as mine in Hampshire might respond, and reassure Mr and Mrs Cross that the support for their child will continue.
The second issue I want to speak about is the controversial power to innovate, which was contentious in the other place. Indeed, the then clauses 15 to 18 were removed from the Bill after a vote. The provisions would have allowed local authorities to apply to the Secretary of State to test new ways of raising children’s outcomes and to allow high-performing local authorities to be involved in that work. It is important that we pay heed to the strongly held concerns raised by expert voices, not just in the other place but outwith this place, and I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to those concerns, which have been echoed again today.
None the less, the Department has put in place something that we need to look at again: the idea of giving “partners in practice”—my local authority in Hampshire is one of only eight in the country—the opportunity to look at innovative ways of working. If we are to find better ways to care for the vulnerable children about whom we all feel so deeply, we need to be open to new ideas, so I hope that we can revisit this idea, which was strongly supported by my local authority as well as experts such as Professor Eileen Munro. It is right that this tightly regulated area is as protected as it is, but I cannot believe that there would not be a benefit from our looking at new ways of working. We will all have seen examples of that in today’s briefings.
The problem might be—hon. Members might have put their finger on it today—that the proposals came somewhat out of the blue, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said. We need to take care that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I do not think that the Minister had any intention for the proposals to create competition between local authorities; rather, the intention was to drive improvement, which we would all applaud. No one is suggesting that this approach would do anything other than drive innovation in an area that has developed, inevitably, in a piecemeal way in response to the various and sometimes quite appalling situations in which local authorities have found themselves.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham talked about the need for policy and law to work in practice. When I read the Hansard report of what the Minister in the other place said, I felt that that was exactly the purpose of the proposals. I think the intention is that local authorities are able to look at how they can make the law work in practice, rather than creating something of a postcode lottery. When there is an insight into better ways of working, authorities need to be able to pass it on to other areas to improve the way in which we care for this vulnerable group of individuals.
The final issue I want to raise, building on what the hon. Member for Walthamstow said, is what we are doing to empower children themselves, especially vulnerable children who might not have the consistent involvement of their parents in their lives and who, frankly, face really difficult situations when they have to take decisions about their own welfare without the input of other adults to guide them. This Bill is one of many pieces of legislation that have put in place laws, procedures and protocols to help to protect and improve the welfare of children through a whole host of agencies, but that does not directly address what we will do to help those children themselves. We need to ensure that they are armed with the knowledge that they need to make the right choices to safeguard themselves.
That is not a new concept, but something that we have done for many years. For example, we have tried to encourage children to understand the dangers of drugs, alcohol and, indeed, early pregnancy. It is important to take that forward in a more structured way. As parents and carers, we know that we have the prime responsibility to protect our children, but we also know that our children need the ability to make good choices. We cannot be there 24/7; social workers cannot be there 24/7. It is crucial that children have the ability to make decisions themselves in an informed way.
The Bill provides a perfect opportunity for the Government to respond positively to the five Select Committee Chairs who have called for PSHE and, in particular, sex and relationships education, to be made compulsory for school-age children. I am one of those Select Committee Chairs. Our work taking evidence on our recent inquiry on sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools was a sobering experience for all members of our Select Committee.
We need to help to empower children to make their own decisions. When we hear the evidence and some of the statistics about the challenges that young people face in respect of their own personal welfare, it becomes clear that this debate is overdue and that we need to take action now. Two thirds of girls regularly experience sexual harassment in school. Children as young as eight are seeing online pornography as a place to learn about sex, and there were 47,000 sexual offences against children in this country in the last year, a third of which were perpetrated by children against other children. Communities should be able to enjoy freedom and safety, and school communities are no different from any others.
When we look at what happens to children after their school life, we find that, according to a study by the National Union of Students, 68% of students say that they are subject to verbal or physical sexual harassment on campuses. The problem does not stop there, as some 85% of women are experiencing unwanted sexual attention in public places.
The hon. Member for Walthamstow is absolutely right when she says that this is all about prevention and making sure that we can stop these problems from happening in the first place by ensuring that children have the knowledge they need to make good decisions, to understand what consent means, and to achieve some control over their own personal space and their own bodies.
The Bill has been extensively debated in the other place, where many amendments were tabled, particularly relating to the importance for the welfare of children of joint working between agencies, including local authorities, the police and clinical commissioning groups. In the other place, the Government tabled amendment 113, which dealt with that, because they recognised that a multifaceted strategy was vital to children’s welfare.
Another set of organisations also have a crucial role to play in children’s welfare: schools. If the Bill is to do what it sets out to do and to promote welfare for children, it must make sex and relationships education compulsory. What is currently compulsory in secondary schools is the science of reproduction; the rest is based on guidance that was last updated at the turn of the millennium and makes no reference to pornography, through which, as we know, more young children are finding out about sex. We also know that 40% of schools do not teach SRE very well. Perhaps all that explains why organisations such as Barnardo’s have made clear that the development of an early understanding of and respect for each other’s bodies, and a knowledge of when to ask for help through PSHE, can help to build resilience and an understanding of what healthy relationships look like, as well as mitigating the effects of exposure to such things as pornography.
Tim Loughton
I am closely following what my right hon. Friend is saying and agree with much of it. As is the wont of speeches on Bills concerning children, hers is straying into a number of subjects that relate to children but are not dealt with in the Bill, but I support her on this subject. Does she agree that one way of securing the better-quality PHSE and SRE that we desperately need would be to bring in experts from outside schools, especially young experts such as youth workers? They could empathise with young people who would listen to them, take notice of them and act on their advice. Would that not be better than giving the task to Mrs Miggins the geography teacher who just happens to have a couple of free periods on a Thursday afternoon?
Mrs Miller
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Expertise is necessary when it comes to teaching those subjects. However, as I have said, I have raised this issue because if we are to tackle the welfare of children, we must ensure that we do so effectively. It is no good leaving children out of the equation; we must tackle their welfare head on. While I do not disagree with my hon. Friend’s point that undertrained teachers will not provide effective sex and relationships education, I think that all teachers—whether they are Mrs Miggins teaching geography or anyone else—need to understand how they can stop the sexual harassment and sexual violence that too many young people told the Committee they took for granted in their everyday school lives, and which we would never take for granted as adults. All teachers should have some sort of training in this sphere because they are responsible for the wellbeing of children while they are at school.
Stella Creasy
The right hon. Lady will know that I completely agree with everything that she is saying. May I help her by reassuring the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) that her speech is entirely in order in relation to the Bill? Clause 16 not only deals with the promotion of the welfare of children in local authority areas, but requires local authorities to work with the “relevant agencies”, which are those that are exercising functions in relation to children in their areas. That is exactly what schools do, and that is why we need to do this now.
Mrs Miller
I thank the hon. Lady for her helpful intervention.
We sometimes worry about raising the issue of sex and relationships in the House because we feel that we are taking away a primary function of parents, but that is not the way parents see it. Research conducted by YouGov shows that 90% of parents want compulsory SRE because they understand the pressures that their children are under. Those pressures have the potential to undermine the welfare of those children, especially when they are at school. Teachers understand that, too. They understand the importance of helping young people to navigate, in an appropriate way, the pressures of being a teenager in the internet world.
There is overwhelming evidence of the need for change and I make no apology for underlining it today for the Minister’s benefit. Five Select Committee Chairs have made the same point as a result of work that their Committees have done, and the Department for Education itself told the Education Committee that good PSHE underpins good academic achievement. We know that children who have received sex and relationships education and PSHE more broadly are less likely to engage in risky behaviour and much more likely to seek help when things go wrong. Children need to be able to recognise abuse, grooming and predatory behaviour. As Alison Hadley of the University of Bedfordshire told the Education Committee, if children have no
“ammunition to understand these things, no wonder they are ending up in very dangerous situations.”
Educating children about this is not an optional extra; it needs to be mandatory and an integral part of the Government’s safeguarding strategy.
In January 2014, in response to the Education Committee’s report, the Government said that they would work to ensure that all schools deliver high-quality PSHE, but 40% still do not. In November 2014, the Government established an expert group for PSHE, which recommended that PSHE should be a statutory entitlement for all pupils. Two years on, can the Minister update the House on the progress that has been made on the issue, which 90% of parents want action on, and which Girlguiding, End Violence Against Women, the NSPCC and Barnardo’s—the list goes on—are calling for action on?
I call on the Minister to put in place a timetable for action, including a comprehensive consultation to ensure that we get this right. No one is calling for rushed measures but, as Members have said, the issue of making SRE compulsory has been ongoing for some time. Of course the education should be age-relevant in all cases, and any proposal should be implemented in a way that brings the whole House together, because that is always the best way to handle such important cross-party issues.
Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
I am pleased to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). I very much welcome this debate and the time and focus that this Government are devoting to the outcomes for children who are looked after and to the social work profession. However, I must declare an interest. My sister is a senior practising social worker and, prior to becoming a Member for Parliament, I worked for Supported Fostering Services in a contact supervisor capacity. I am also still connected with that charity as I remain an independent visitor for one of our looked-after children.
I consider myself to be extremely lucky. I was brought up in a safe and loving environment and was given the necessary tools to go out into the big wide world and make my own way. In 2007, via my sister, I got involved for the first time with Supported Fostering Services. That was the first time I had the privilege to meet and work with some of our looked-after children, their families, carers and social workers, and to see at first hand the challenges that our young people and the social work profession face. There has been an increase in children becoming looked after, and some of that has been attributed to the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, representing 6% of the looked-after population. I have also seen at a local level the increase in the number of children in care.
In that environment, it is right that this Government, and society, are putting the outcomes of our young people at the top of the agenda. It is also right that there is a focus on the decisions made about the futures of those young people. In my limited involvement over the past nine years, I have seen some fantastic outcomes for our young people, but far too many disappointing ones—some due to decisions made about their futures and to a lack of understanding of the child and of the use of timely interventions that are best for that child.
One young person who has been in care for over 10 years since the age of four has had to go through unbelievable experiences, which even an adult would struggle to cope with—being split from siblings, attending therapy, a failed adoption, time in a therapeutic centre, and number of foster placements and social workers. That young person has amazing strength of character and a resilience that we could only hope to have. Luckily, an amazing placement has now been found and that person will succeed, but it will be in spite of some of the interventions and not solely because of them.
If a young person is ready for adoption by a family that is the perfect match, no one would disagree that adoption for the child should be a major consideration for social services and the courts. Achieving the best outcomes for that young person should be the duty and focus of social services and the courts. Unfortunately, I have seen decisions on adoptions being delayed by too much focus being placed on challenges by the birth parents and on their needs, even after several reports from professionals have recommended a decision. Allowing judgments to be challenged over long periods does not put the interests of the child first.
A social worker once told me that she did not like adoptions and that they made her feel nervous. I asked her why, and she said that the stakes were too high. At the time, I did not know quite what she meant and I thought it rather an odd thing for a social worker to say. However, having subsequently seen the damage that a failed adoption can cause, I finally understand. Relationships with children are like all relationships. We as adults do not like everybody we come into contact with, and it is the same for children. We ask a lot of children and adopters when, after an introduction period of perhaps only two weeks, we put those strangers together and hope that it works out okay. I know that the process is far more complicated than that, but fundamentally we hope that a good relationship will be built after only a short honeymoon period and that the adopters and children will be given the support they need to make it a success.
I have seen children being given the best chance of a great life when their adoption has worked, but once an adoption order has gone through, the support from the agencies stops. The stakes are high with adoption. It should be regarded as the perfect solution, but its success will always be dependent on the individual child, and the use of special guardianships and placements should not be undermined by a focus on adoption.
I welcome the fact that support for care leavers features heavily in the Bill, through the local offer and the extension of personal advisers. This is a major step forward in supporting this vulnerable group of young people as they make the difficult transition from coming out of care to going it alone. Some of our young people have had upbringings and experiences that we would struggle to comprehend. The care system tries to wrap them in a safety blanket, so a child in care can be far less prepared to go it alone without a support network of trusted people giving guidance, or to make decisions for themselves after most decisions have been made for them up to that point.
It is a long outdated view that once a young person reaches 18 or even their early 20s, they do not need any help. I very much welcome the extension of personal advisers to work with our young people to ensure they get access to the services they need, to give them the support they deserve in order for them to succeed, and to put them on the pathway to achieving their full potential. That is great, and I very much welcome it, but will the Minster tell us how this will work in practice? Will personal advisers always be social workers? How will plans for young people leaving care be monitored and evaluated to ensure that this is not just a box-ticking exercise by local authorities, that it provides meaningful help, support and advice to our vulnerable young people and that the personal advisers get to know the young person and truly understand their needs?
The local offer will be extremely important to young people, but we know that due to local authorities’ budget burdens the availability of that support will very much depend on a council’s priorities unless there is a statutory obligation to deliver the services. Investment in our most vulnerable young people at this crucial time in their lives can only bring rewards, and I would like to see high-quality offers from local authorities for our young people.
A high proportion of formerly looked-after children are not in education, employment or training. We also know that leaving care and going it alone can present barriers to prevent a young person from moving forward with their life in a positive way, even though they might think of this time as being exciting and full of hope. However, some of those young people will never have to manage their finances while in care and are therefore much more vulnerable to getting into debt and not being able to manage without the safety net that a family or carer can provide. We must ensure that young people are given all the tools they need to succeed. They deserve to be treated differently in terms of accommodation provision and access to funds so that they are able to move forward and get the best chance to succeed. My constituency contains a young offenders institution and a secure training centre and, sadly, too many of the young people in such institutions were once looked-after children. That is a direct outcome of not only what they experienced growing up, but a lack of support and access to the services they needed as they moved towards adulthood.
My final point relates to social workers. Policemen, doctors, nurses and firemen are public servants, and many sectors of our society stand up to defend them and will hear no criticism. However, social workers are often criticised, blamed and singled out when something goes wrong. They put up with a negative dialogue about their profession, including stereotypes and being dismissed as interfering do-gooders. However, our social workers should be held in the highest esteem as professionals who make decisions, intervene to protect children and families from harm, work with families to help them stay together and have an impact on outcomes—day in, day out. They see some of the most terrible situations on a daily basis, including where children are being neglected or physically and mentally abused, and they work with children who have severe, complex disabilities. Social workers do not go into social work for the money; they do it because they want to protect children—often a thankless task.
I remember when my sister was working in a duty team and would struggle to sleep at night as she worried about what was happening within some families after she went home. She feared what she would be presented with when she got into work in the morning. That is not unusual. It is the daily life of a front-line social worker. I welcome the creation of Social Work England, even though the profession has some concerns about the change. Social work is so important and it is right to have a regulator focused on raising standards, good practice and strengthening formal training pathways. However, I spoke to several social workers before today’s debate and, owing to the level of their caseloads, some were not even aware of the Bill.
Social workers carry out a mentally and emotionally demanding job, and I feel that one element has been missed. There is a high burnout rate among front-line social workers and individual social worker caseloads are far too high in some parts of the country, causing some to feel unsafe in their work. For example, a social worker working 40 hours a week with a caseload of 20 would have only two hours a week per case. The casework could involve a mixture of children in need, court cases or child protection, all requiring a different amount of attention in any one week. Some cases require a significant amount of time and yet we expect social workers to know the children and the family and be able to make safe decisions. Such circumstances do not give our professionals the opportunity for thinking space or allow them to carry out the preventive work that many want to do. The nature of their work means that every child and family is different, and social workers innovate every day within the current framework in sometimes challenging circumstances.
In conclusion, everyone in the House should champion outcomes for children, who will go on to become the parents, workers and leaders of the future. It is unacceptable in this century for some of our young people’s future to be predictable based on their past or where they have come from. State intervention must work, and I hope that this Government will continue to push for better outcomes for vulnerable looked-after children.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)
It was my choice to be last today, so I am very pleased to be speaking now. It is a great honour to follow my very hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst), who made an excellent speech, and I completely agree with her on the support for adoptive parents; I have a close relative who has adopted three children and it really is not easy, so I completely agree.
I am very pleased with this Bill, and particularly welcome some of its measures, including on decision-making support for looked-after children, and especially the raising of the age of care leavers to 25 in respect of local authority services. I know that young people in their 20s still need looking after, having four of my own in their 20s. There is plenty of evidence to show that the brain does not fully develop until 25, and the state needs to keep its parental responsibility until young people are firmly launched.
In March 2016 there were 70,440 looked-after children in England, and based on the 2016 data there were 26,340 care leavers aged 19, 20 or 21, of whom 40% were not in employment, education or training, compared with 14 % of all 19 to 21-year-olds who did not go through the care service. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said, 4% of these care leavers end up in the criminal justice system.
The role of the corporate parent is to safeguard the young, but there is a resource aspect to it. Portsmouth children’s services estimates that if a young person is kept out of a single involvement in the criminal justice system, it saves the state £100,000 in various ways, for instance in avoiding the need for probation services, the cost of the criminal justice system and social services for rehabilitation.
I also mentioned the increase in age on Second Reading of the Homelessness Reduction Bill a couple of weeks ago. Many twenty-somethings are still living at home, and therefore we need to look after the housing of our care leavers, too. That protection should follow the care leavers around the country, so, like any other young person, they are looked after by either the local authority where they have settled or their original local authority. I welcome the amendment of the Earl of Listowel for a national offer for care leavers. Independent living is very different from living in the care environment in terms of budgeting and looking for jobs, and there is also the question of setting up home, including dealing with bills and council tax. I hope that the national offer will be accepted and personal advisers are clearly identified.
On social workers, I welcome the establishment of Social Work England as an independent non-departmental public body. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham mentioned, I worked with him on a commission on children’s social workers in 2007, called “No More Blame Game”. Some of the recommendations were adopted—for instance, that of the chief social worker—but the General Social Care Council, which was the regulator, folded in 2012, and the new regulator, the Health and Care Professions Council, looks after many other jobs. It is important that social work is seen as a unique job, and therefore we must recognise that it is a separate profession, on a level with other professionals such as doctors and nurses.
Some of the other recommendations have already been accepted, but I thought it would be a good idea to remind the Minister in case he has not read the report. The first recommendation is that the generic nature of social work must be maintained and resources better targeted to enable social workers to work with families in a preventive role. That is largely happening already. There is also the role of the consultant social worker, which I think is what the sister of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood does. That senior practitioner has been introduced to keep experienced social workers on the frontline, rather than putting them into management. That requires an appropriate career and pay structure to be put in place to support them, because if they do not want to go into management, there is no other way of going forward.
Thirdly, every social worker should be encouraged and have an opportunity to become a member of a professional body similar to the British Medical Association or Royal College of Nursing, which could advocate on their behalf, negotiate on salaries and conditions of services, provide good public relations on behalf of the profession as a whole, and influence future Government policy. Consideration should also be given to a requirement that employers, including agency employers, fund this membership for the first post-qualifying year to ensure that all entrants to the profession can become members.
We also recommended that there should be a chief social worker—an idea we took from New Zealand, where it works incredibly successfully. This person would work across Departments, and with Unison, the British Association of Social Workers, other representative bodies and, in particular, the media. Again, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood mentioned that the attitude some people take to social work is appalling, because it is an incredibly tough profession. We need to get the media to look at the health of the profession, and provide good news stories and cases. I do not know whether anybody is watching “Damned”, but it shows how hard the profession works, although it is made to be amusing. It would be nice if we could also have positive stories coming out in the media.
Our next recommendation was that the social work degree must continue to be generic to allow social workers a good foundation in all aspects of social work, so that they can get a good grasp of all the different aspects of looking after children in the care service. The content and the length of the degree course might be reviewed, to equip them with the right knowledge and skills for rewarding jobs—I believe that is in the Bill, too. That is beginning to happen. We also considered that the course should extend to four years, so that they have a year out in practice and get a good grasp of what they are getting themselves into.
Our next recommendation was that multi-agency training should be incorporated into the qualifying degree and should continue to be part of continuing professional development. In many professions, be it teaching or medicine, professional development is incredibly important. Social workers need that continued professional development and support throughout their career. We also recommended that the Department of Health and the Department responsible for children’s services work with local authorities and other employers of social workers to ensure that resources, both course fees and replacement time, are available so that all social workers can undertake the level of post-qualifying education and training necessary for the roles and tasks they are employed to undertake. Again, that goes back to the point about continued development.
There should be a combination of a national recruitment campaign and local headhunting to encourage more people to enter social work. As we have heard, there are a lot of vacancies and social workers are incredibly overworked. It is an incredibly rewarding profession and we need to ensure that we get more people into it, so we need a national recruitment campaign. One way of doing that is through high-impact advertising, similar to what we see for the Army, the police and teaching. We need it to send a clear message that the role of social workers is important in society and should be respected.
Another recommendation was for the establishment of the newly qualified social worker status, which is essential to supporting and retaining inexperienced social workers. Often they were coming out of university and going straight into work in harrowing circumstances and were not getting the support they needed. I hope we will also look at apprenticeships in social work. I know we are doing those in nursing and it would be great if that could extend to social work. Social workers need to have protected caseloads and guaranteed post-qualifying study and training time, so that we retain the social workers we already have. There also needs to be a flexible pay structure that corresponds to those of other similar professions working in multi-agency teams and that recognises the difference in living costs around the country.
We said that the numerical adoption targets and other targets that are not in the best interests of the child should be phased out, and I am pleased that has already been adopted. We also suggested that better targeted funding should go into research and development in social care.
Some of our recommendations have already been accepted, but this very good report is now nearly 10 years old, so if the Minister has not read it I insist that he does so. I ask him to look at anything that we have not done already, with a view to putting it into practice. I hope that the new regulator continues the improvement that has been happening in the social work profession. It is a tough job at the front-line but it is a very necessary and rewarding one. I look forward to seeing this Bill go into Committee.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
As we have already said, Labour will not be dividing the House on this Bill this evening. However, I will take this opportunity to deliver some home truths to the Government. This is a Bill, which, from its very inception, has been ill-thought out and hastily put together without any guidance from children or from the very industry that it purports to be helping to improve. In short, it is a Bill about children and social work with negligible input from children and social workers. By not listening to the profession, the Government have once again shown how little value they see in using the professional experience and expertise of those who work, day in, day out, and often at the risk of their own welfare, to protect children and families.
What social workers want is to be out in the field with vulnerable children and families, because the more time they spend with them the more vulnerable children are identified and supported or saved from harm. It could not be simpler than that.
So far, the Government’s social work reform agenda has been a total failure, rooted as it is in structural system change and in tinkering around with individual, mainly Labour-held, local authorities. [Interruption.] The Minister twists in his place, but he will get his turn soon I am sure. There continues to be an obsession with adoption to the detriment of early intervention and work that can keep families together and children out of the care system. This Government are completely oblivious to the severe impact that their austerity measures and punitive welfare policies are having on our most vulnerable children and families. They are causing untold damage
I remind the Minister, as I have done many times before, that social work is a holistic profession. The Government’s closure of Sure Start units and removal of early years help in family support centres, and the disproportionate cuts to local authorities in the most deprived areas have measurably taken their toll. All this Government seem to be doing for desperate families is turning the screw tighter and tighter, year on year, until they break. As other hon. Members have already said, the demand for help and protection is rising.
Over the past 10 years, there has been a 124% increase in serious cases—where a local authority believes that a child may be suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm—and the varied spending on social work has been found to be totally unrelated to quality. In short, all of the Government’s initiatives and changes are not yielding positive results. This is systemic not local failure. In other words, it is the Government’s fault.
Both the National Audit Office and the Education Committee looked into social work reform and noted that there are significant weaknesses in the Government’s agenda, and that the reforms focus on
“changing structures potentially to the detriment of the people delivering this key public service.”
What the social work profession needs is continuity, stability and confidence, and a Government who can hold their nerve on how best to help children and families by putting in place and embedding good policies—policies such as the introduction of personal, social, health and economic education, which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), and supported by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller).
The Government are failing to get the basics right. They are not reducing social worker caseloads, preventing experienced professionals from quitting the profession or training social workers in a holistic way—they are fast-tracking them, and forcing them to specialise before they have even been trained in the basics. The Government are not amending IT and the bureaucratic process across the board to achieve the goal of getting social workers where they want to be, which is out from behind their desks and seeing the families with whom they work. This Bill does nothing to respond to the crisis in social work and to the hundreds of thousands of children who need better services right now.
Like other Members, I wish to take this opportunity to thank the Labour Lords and other peers whose tireless work has resulted in the Bill before us today being markedly different from that which was first introduced. In particular, I wish to congratulate peers on defeating the Government and forcing them to remove dangerous clauses from the Bill that would have paved the way for the privatisation of children’s social care. It is scandalous that these clauses are soon to reappear at Committee stage. The Government’s proposals will allow local authorities, under the guise of innovation, to opt out of protective primary legislation. That legislation, which has taken decades to achieve, has led to us having one of the safest child protection systems in the world. It was hard fought for by the profession in this place and in the other place. These proposals have caused alarm and outrage in the profession and the sector overall. I have yet to meet a social worker who supports the changes. I have had no clarity from the Minister about where the demand for change has come from and what pieces of primary legislation local authorities and social workers say prevent them from carrying out good social work. Will he tell us today?
This is legislation formed in the worst possible way, without demand and without any evidential basis for fixing the problems it purports to fix. The Government have invented a solution to an invented problem, because the Bill will not solve any of the problems in social work. What I know from my time in social work practice is that the things that social workers find restrictive, such as case recording, derive from secondary legislation, guidance, or the custom and practice in their particular local authority—all of which can be changed without primary legislation.
The Government have denied time and again that the opt-out clauses were about privatisation, yet late last week, two years after it was written and after an inexplicable delay in responding to freedom of information requests, the Department for Education released a report, referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), which sets out how children’s social care can be moved out of local authority control—a report which states that independent contractors have said that they are willing to play the long game and wait for councils to hand over the majority, if not all, of their children’s social care services after they have developed their experience in children and families social work. There we have it—independent contractors are going to use vulnerable children and families to experiment with, once the Government allow local authorities to opt out of protective legislation. These are the most dangerous changes to child protection that I have ever seen.
Labour, bolstered by the support of the profession and related stakeholders who have expressed outrage at these plans, will fight the Government every step of the way on these clauses. Vulnerable children are not to be used as market experiments, and any child protection strategy that requires the dispensation of the law to achieve it is counter-productive and downright dangerous.
Of course, there are parts of the Bill that we can support. The introduction of detailed principles of corporate parenting, the extension of the personal adviser role to care leavers up to the age of 25, and the local offer for care leavers are all steps in the right direction. Our concern is whether the Government can deliver it. For example, they promise in the Bill to promote the physical and mental health of looked-after children, but on their watch child and adolescent mental health services are in meltdown, with many looked-after children waiting not just months, but years, for specialist help. Changes need to be properly resourced, otherwise they are warm words and nothing more, so can the Minister confirm that these proposals will be properly resourced?
The Bill establishes a new social work regulator. In Committee we will carefully consider this change and those that relate to local safeguarding boards and the child safeguarding practice review panel. We share some of the concerns of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). We have ongoing concerns about the independence and impact of the proposed non-departmental public body model, especially the lack of detail in the current proposals which envisage Government appointments directly to the leadership of the organisation. Can the Minister please explain why the social work profession is treated so differently from other health and care professions?
Finally, the Bill is impotent in its response to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. These children are experiencing the most immense suffering and trauma. Thanks to Lord Dubs forcing the Government’s hand and reminding them of this crisis, we will see a strategy in May next year, but these are urgent and pressing matters and deserve further debate in this place. We fully support the amendments so eloquently and passionately outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow.
In essence, what we have here is a Bill with some nice-sounding elements that do not appear to be fully resourced, and are therefore not guaranteed, and the continual threat to open up children’s social care to the market by allowing opt-outs from legislation. In fact, we will be presented with a Bill in Committee that local authorities could, in theory, dispense with if it became law. That is a completely ridiculous approach to legislation and an insult to the House.
I know that getting things right for children and families in the social work arena is not an easy task—it is difficult and complex, and many Governments have grappled with it. But trust me, this Bill is not the answer. We will seek significant amendments in Committee and make sure that the Government understand that privatisation and micromanagement are not the answer to every problem. Labour will never allow the Government to use our most vulnerable children as experiments in Tory ideology.
The Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families (Edward Timpson)
I begin by thanking hon. Members for their enthusiastic engagement with the issues at the heart of the Bill. We all share a commitment to improving the lives of our most vulnerable children, and that has been demonstrated by the energy shown throughout this debate. As we enter Committee, I look forward to exploring in much more detail aspects of the Bill that have been raised today.
As the Minister for School Standards set out in opening the debate, protecting our most vulnerable children and giving them the care and support they need to thrive is one of the Government’s most important responsibilities. The children who need support from social care services have often faced challenges that most of us can only ever imagine. They have disabilities, they have faced abuse and neglect, or they have been let down time and again by the people who are supposed to love and protect them. They may be being exploited by perpetrators preying on their vulnerability. Children’s social care professionals deal with these highly complex and demanding challenges every day. They step up and take on responsibility for protecting our vulnerable children.
In my time as children’s Minister, as a family barrister and as a foster sibling, I have often been inspired by stories of children whose lives are transformed by social workers, foster carers, residential care staff, adopters and others. These people epitomise the compassion and deep desire in our society to help others, without which we, and our children, would be so much the poorer.
The Bill we are debating today is a critical part of creating a children’s social care system that enables those people to do the very best job possible for our children. It builds on the Children and Families Act 2014 and takes forward important measures from our overall strategy “Putting children first”—a strategy that I think represents the most fundamental reforms to the system in a generation.
The Bill places the interests of vulnerable children right at the heart of the social care system. It defines what good corporate parenting looks like, and secures the involvement of the whole council in looking out for children in or leaving its care. It requires every local area to set out exactly what support it is offering care leavers, and extends the help of a personal adviser to all care leavers up to the age of 25. It introduces improved national arrangements for analysing serious incidents and learning from them, and strengthened arrangements for local multi-agency co-ordination of safeguarding.
The Bill extends educational support to children leaving care via adoption or special guardianship. It creates the conditions for good placement decisions to be made for children coming into the care system, by ensuring that the child’s long-term needs and the impact of the harm they have suffered are properly considered. Furthermore, it introduces a new, bespoke regulator for social work, Social Work England—an organisation that will be empowered to raise standards in social work and raise the status of that vital profession.
Members have raised a multitude of important points in today’s debate, and I will do my very best to respond to them without detaining the House longer than would be deemed acceptable. I am grateful for the constructive engagement of Members, and want to work together to move forward with these legislative provisions, which have huge potential to improve the life chances of the children we all care so deeply about.
The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), the shadow Secretary of State, asked where our comprehensive strategy for all children in care was. We have it: it is the “Putting children first” document, and I urge her to refresh her memory of that all-encompassing strategy for children in care, which goes through to 2020.
The hon. Lady asked about spending on children’s services. It is right to say that the pattern of inspection outcomes is not about how deprived an area is, the local geography or even the amount of money being spent on children’s social care. Some of the local authorities judged inadequate by Ofsted this year were among the highest spending, while higher performers were found to spend their money more effectively, investing in the best services and bringing costs down. The key here is identifying where investment makes a difference, and spreading knowledge and practice about what works.
The hon. Lady asked about the local offer and about what guidance there would be for local authorities. The legislation already sets out the areas where local authorities should provide support: health and well being, education and training, employment, accommodation, participation in society, and relationships. We expect a wide range of services to be covered, from relevant universal health provision, to careers advice, to specific financial support, which care leavers can access and will benefit from. We have also developed a prototype local offer that sets out the areas we expect local authorities to consider and that provides examples of more specific support a local authority may choose to offer, and I am happy to share that with the hon. Lady so that she can scrutinise it in more detail.
The hon. Lady asked about the independence of the new regulator—Social Work England. The Bill makes it clear that Social Work England will be a separate legal entity, with its own staff and set of responsibilities as a non-departmental public body. The Government have always been clear that they have no intention to make decisions about individual social workers, and that is reflected in the legislation.
The Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), made some central points about the foundations of the Bill, which he welcomed, and that included the regulatory changes. He raised the issue of a professional body for social work, and I agree that it is absolutely important for the profession to have a strong body to represent it, to provide support and guidance, and to help it develop its own practice. I set out at the national children and adult social services conference a few weeks ago exactly how I want to work with the profession to make sure we come up with the right solution. We have tried a whole host of different ways of making these things work, and we now need to go further to make sure we have something that will endure long into the future.
My hon. Friend alluded to Trafford, one of the outstanding care-leaving services in England, and to the virtue of its having strong leadership. I agree with him, and I have been hugely impressed by the work that has been done there by Mark Riddell and his team. There is a lot they can show others in terms of what works.
The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) told us to look at the work in Scotland. I am always happy to look at the Scottish perspective. As ever, I invite her to look at what we are doing in England, too. She said Scotland has children at the heart of the system; so do we—if she looks at the “Putting children first” strategy document, she will see that. Although Scotland may lead the way in some areas, we lead the way in others—Staying Put being a good example.
The hon. Lady asked why local authorities are only to “have regard to” corporate parenting principles. The reason for that is that the local authority is the corporate parent and is legally responsible for looked-after children and care leavers. We believe that maintaining this clear accountability is right. There is an existing duty under section 10 of the Children Act 2004 in terms of who the key partners are, and they include health, police, education services and others. The intention is that the provisions will help to improve the response in terms of them carrying out the duties they already have set out in legislation.
The hon. Lady asked about the Government’s commitment to the UN convention on the rights of the child. The Government remain fully committed to protecting children’s rights and to the UNCRC. We have considered the concluding observations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and we responded through the written ministerial statement published in October and through the permanent secretary’s letter to his counterparts across Government. The Bill is an example of how we constantly seek to not only protect children’s rights but enhance them. A full child rights impact assessment was conducted during the development of the Bill. There was considerable debate in the Lords on this issue, and we recently reaffirmed our commitment, through the written ministerial statement, to reinforcing the message of the importance of the UNCRC across every Department and to making sure there is a proactive approach to considering children’s rights in policy making.
I will do my utmost to address all the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). I do join him and my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) in praising the incredible work and dedication of our social work workforce—something that was reiterated by the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck). Children’s and adults’ social workers do a fantastic job, which is so difficult, day in, day out.
I agree that the administrative burdens on social workers—sitting in front of computers filling in forms—has hampered much of the progress of social work. I have read on several occasions the report, “No More Blame Game”, which my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham was instrumental in producing. The whole purpose of the changes we are making to the serious case review process is to get away from pointing the finger and to look at where things have gone wrong, why they have gone wrong and how we make sure that it does not happen again in future.
My hon. Friend set out some of the highlights of the Government’s reform programme in children’s social care over the past six years, mentioning Staying Put as one of those. I can inform him that there has been an exceptional response to this, with 54% of 18-year-olds, 30% of 19-year-olds and 16% of 20-year-olds now choosing to stay put. Of course, however, we keep the mechanism under review to ensure that it will continue to benefit more children and young people in future.
My hon. Friend talked about some of the deficiencies in the system, including in sharing best practice. Again, I agree. That is why we are setting up a What Works centre for children’s social care that will build a robust evidence base, and disseminate learning about what does and does not work in children’s social care practice, in order to help local practitioners and commissioners to employ the most cost-effective front-line practices to support children. Crucially, it will work closely with the child safeguarding practice review panel to ensure that practice developments identified through reviews are also widely disseminated.
On adoption, I share my hon. Friend’s pride in the work of this Government to try to improve the adoption process for prospective adopters and, crucially, for children. The number of children being adopted has risen to over 5,000 per year, and they are being adopted more quickly. On the back of the Re B-S judgment, however, there has been a disappointing fall in those numbers, and we are seeking to do all we can to address that so that we do not lose the ground that we made up in the early years of this Government. Over 10,000 families have benefited directly from the adoption support fund, which was also mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). Although we reluctantly had to put in a fair access limit in the short term to enable more families, where at all possible, to benefit from the fund, we want to try to find a sustainable solution so that we can continue this support in the long term. I am happy to meet my right hon. Friend to look at the particular case she raised, as it may exemplify some of the wider issues we need to look at in getting the decision right.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham asked whether the corporate parenting principles are additional to section 23 of the Children Act 1989. This is not about trying to put new duties on local authorities, as the duties are already very clearly set out. We are trying to engender a whole-council approach with councils taking responsibility for children and their care, and having regard to the principles in any decisions they make on their behalf.
Although we are extending the use of personal advisers, I concur with my hon. Friend that there is a whole range of quality and access for care leavers to personal advisers. That is why we are conducting a review of both those issues to make sure that the scope of what a personal adviser is there to do, and the types of people who become personal advisers, together with the training that they get, really matches the needs of care leavers in the way that they have told us they desperately want.
My hon. Friend raised some drafting issues and details around the additional support for education of children in care. I will look at that carefully, and I am sure we will address those issues in Committee.
On serious case reviews, I could not agree more with my hon. Friend about the need for transparency. We worked hard in opposition on the issue of their publication. I remember substituting for him on “Newsnight” to talk about this very subject. We now need to make sure that the new system reflects this important element of an approach that will provide us with a shining light on where practice has fallen short.
My hon. Friend asked about active participation in new local safeguarding arrangements, including financial contributions. That is an important part of the new system and we will set out in more detail, in guidance, how we expect to engender such an approach. He also made a clear pitch for where we should go next with the power to innovate. I will talk about that at the end of my speech.
My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) asked about cases of mothers who have repeat pregnancies. He should know that we will spend a total of about £11 million until 2020 on the Pause project, which has been extremely successful in trying to break that cycle, helping mothers find a different path through their lives and reducing the number of children coming into the care system.
The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) talked about the need to concentrate on prevention, which has to be at the heart of any decision about where money should be spent and where policy should be moving to. A number of other hon. Members also talked about sex and relationships education, and I will come to that subject towards the end of my speech.
On child refugees, the hon. Lady referred to my written statement on the safeguarding strategy across Government. I am grateful for her support for it, but she queried how it sits alongside the Home Office guidance. I will look carefully at what she has said and talk to Home Office Ministers. The Home Office has published guidance setting out the eligibility criteria for children to be transferred to the UK from Calais. Those criteria are: all children aged 12 or under; all children referred to us by the French authorities who are assessed as being at high risk of sexual exploitation; and those nationalities most likely to qualify for refugee status in the UK aged 15 or under. As the Dubs amendment makes clear, children transferred should be refugees, and the best interests of the child are also established in every case as part of the process. The hon. Lady will appreciate that we have to have a method to ensure that those children who are at greatest risk are prioritised. I am happy to discuss the matter further with her, in conjunction with my colleagues at the Home Office.
Stella Creasy
Does the Minister acknowledge that that guidance explicitly sets out nationality before the best interests of the child and, further, that it identifies particular nationalities, thereby ignoring, for example, the Oromo and Afghan children who are currently in France, a third of whom have now gone missing because of the gap that it has caused? I appreciate the Minister’s offer to look carefully at the situation, but will he look at it speedily as well, because we are very worried about those children in the run-up to Christmas and the cold in France?
Edward Timpson
I am happy to do that. Like the hon. Lady, I do not want to create conditions that are counterproductive to our shared mission. I will make sure that acknowledgment of the further work that needs to be done is as rapid as possible and that we progress in a way that does not create more difficulties, but that brings about positive solutions.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke mentioned the adoption case in her constituency. I am happy to discuss that further with her. We need to move to a more sustainable approach, but the adoption support fund has shown that there was a real need for that additional therapeutic support. As the Minister with responsibility for children, I am committed to doing what we can to continue to do that into the future.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) spoke of her enduring experience of many issues touched on by the Bill. In particular, she raised delays in the adoption process, and I agree with much of what she said. She will be pleased to know that the average time that it takes for a child to get through the adoption system has reduced to 18 months—a reduction of four months from its peak—but more work needs to be done, because every month that goes by is one that the child will never get back. More children are receiving that adoption support and I know that my hon. Friend will ensure that that message gets through to families in her own area who may not yet realise that it is available. She was also clear that the new provisions for care leavers are a major step forward, but I acknowledge that we need to make sure that social workers and personal advisers have the necessary tools to make the most of those changes.
I am grateful for the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South for our measures to improve the support for care leavers. She raised the issue of a national offer. I have met the relevant Minister at the Department for Work and Pensions to see what further practical action we can take, and I will be able to allude to that in more detail in Committee. I take her point on social worker training, which is very much behind the work that we are doing on the assessment and accreditation process to make sure that we raise standards in social work wherever possible.
The hon. Member for South Shields and I get on very well, but I agreed with very little of what she had to offer this afternoon. She questioned the value that we place on the experience and expertise of social workers, but I have to say to her that that is exactly what this Bill is about. I ask her to look more widely at the work that the Government are doing, such as the innovation programme, where we have already spent more than £100 million. That money has gone directly to local authorities to test new ways of working, and there will be another £200 million up to 2020. That £300 million of value has been put directly into improving children’s services.
When the hon. Lady started her speech, I felt as though she was determined to try to turn the debate into some sort of ideological struggle on many of the issues. I do not think she wanted to do that, but we seemed to be moving in that direction. I understand her desire to oppose and to be seen to oppose, but I hope that when we get into Committee, we can have a constructive debate about what is in the Bill and how it fits into the wider Government programme. I do not doubt that we have a shared desire to improve outcomes for vulnerable children. I have a pragmatic streak running through me; I am not some ideologue who will sit here and create a wall of noise. I want to hear the hon. Lady’s argument, but I want her to hear mine, too.
The hon. Lady raised the LaingBuisson report, but I note that she failed to share with the House the official Government response to that report, which states that
“we disagree with the option in the report relating to the privatisation of children’s social care services and we will not be implementing this option.”
We could not be clearer about our position.
I want briefly to talk about the power to innovate, which has generated the most debate. Several hon. Members have raised questions about the power to innovate, a provision that was removed from the Bill in the other place, and which my hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards referred to at the opening of the debate. We intend to revisit those powers, because of the important role that they stand to play in improving the quality of children’s social care. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke for her support in explaining that new ways of working are a means of driving improvement in practice.
Whenever I visit local authorities and speak to front-line social workers—I am obviously not meeting the same ones as the hon. Member for South Shields—I am always struck by the passion, energy and dedication that they bring to their work. Too often, though, I leave with a message that, rather than helping them in their task, the structures and processes that we have put in place prevent social workers from using their professional judgement to truly respond to the needs of the children they look after.
As Professor Eileen Munro’s landmark review of child protection told us, over-regulation can get in the way of social workers’ ability to put children first. The power will address that challenge, and it is being called for by local authorities around the country. It will give councils the ability to test new ways of working that are designed to improve outcomes for children in a safe and controlled environment, where the impact of removing a specific requirement can be measured and evaluated carefully.
That is not to say that important points have not been raised in the House and in the other place. I have considered them all carefully and I will continue to do so, and I will bring back a power with significant changes and additional safeguards that will, I hope, provide the reassurances that have been requested.
I want to be clear: we do not want to privatise protection services for children. We will not privatise child protection services. There are already clear legislative restrictions on the outsourcing of children’s social care functions, and it was never our intention to use the power to innovate to revisit those. To put that beyond doubt, however, we tabled clarificatory amendments in the other place.
Neither will we remove fundamental rights or protections from children. Our aim is to strengthen, not to weaken, protections. My mission—since entering this House and before—has always been to improve the lives of vulnerable children. It is our job as a Government to create the conditions in which excellent practice can flourish. I am convinced that with proper safeguards in place, the ability to pilot new approaches will, in the long term, allow this House to enact more effective, evidence-based legislation and drive wider improvement for our most innovative practitioners and services across the system.
I agreed with Professor Eileen Munro when she said:
“I welcome the introduction of the power to innovate set out in the Children and Social Work Bill. This is a critical part of the journey set out in my Independent Review of Child Protection towards a child welfare system that reflects the complexity and diversity of children’s needs.
Trusting professionals to use their judgement rather than be forced to follow unnecessary legal rules will help ensure children get the help they need, when they need it. Testing innovation in a controlled way to establish the consequences of the change…is a sensible and proportionate way forward.”
I ask hon. Members, before casting a final judgment on the power to innovate, to consider the amendments that we intend to table, which I believe provide that “sensible and proportionate” approach, built on the clear and single purpose of improving the outcomes of vulnerable children.
Finally, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud and the hon. Member for Walthamstow spoke powerfully about sex and relationships education. I, too, recognise its importance. Of course, the Government already issue statutory guidance on the teaching of sex and relationships, and have made funding available to improve the quality of that teaching. However, I have heard the call to go further in this area to build the resilience and confidence of children and young people in tackling what the modern world throws at them, not least online. This is, of course, a topic on which there are many, and strongly held, views and it will be important to look at those in the round, not least because PSHE and SRE are inextricably linked.
This matter is a priority for the Secretary of State, so I have already asked officials to advise me further on it, but I will ask them to accelerate that work so that I can report on our conclusions at a later point in the Bill’s passage, when everyone in the House will be able to look at them and have their say.
I am sure that these reflections only start to do justice to the range of important issues we have debated here today. I look forward to picking up these matters in greater detail as the Bill moves into Committee. I see the contents of the Children and Social Work Bill as a major step forward in making sure that our most vulnerable children get the levels of support, protection and opportunity that any of us would want for our own children. I welcome the debate and challenge we have engaged in this afternoon—it helps to maintain the momentum behind what is a shared endeavour across these Houses. We are all united in our commitment to improving the lives of our most vulnerable children. Please let me leave the House in no doubt that I recognise and accept the challenges we face. This Government are more determined than ever to rise to those challenges, with our clear and ambitious plan for fundamentally reforming the system. Our vulnerable children deserve no less. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Children and Social Work Bill [Lords] (Programme)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]:
Committal
(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.
Proceedings in Public Bill Committee
(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 17 January 2017.
(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
Proceedings on Consideration and up to and including Third Reading
(4) Proceedings on Consideration and proceedings in legislative grand committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and up to and including Third Reading.
Other proceedings
(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of any message from the Lords) may be programmed.—(Andrew Griffiths.)
Question agreed to.
Children and Social Work Bill [Lords] (Money)
Question’s recommendation signified.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Children and Social Work Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—
(1) any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by a Minister of the Crown, and
(2) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.—(Andrew Griffiths.)
Question agreed to.
Children and Social Work Bill [Lords] (Ways and Means)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Children and Social Work Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the charging of fees.—(Andrew Griffiths.)
Question agreed to.
Business without Debate
Terminal Illness: Support
(7 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
It is appropriate that this debate, on an issue that will touch millions of people and their families at some point in their lives, should take place today, given that 5 December has been designated International Volunteer Day by the United Nations since 1985. Its purpose is to
“celebrate the power and potential of volunteerism”.
The UN states that IVD is
“an opportunity for volunteers, and volunteer organisations, to raise awareness of, and gain recognition for, the contribution they make to their communities”.
This year’s IVD theme of #GlobalApplause seeks to give volunteers around the world the recognition they deserve, while also “giving a hand” to potential volunteers by encouraging them to give up some of their time for others.
Of course, the link between IVD and this debate is that the vast majority of end-of-life palliative care outside hospital is provided by the charitable sector and only partly funded by the NHS. For that reason, people who donate their money to—and, crucially, their time through volunteering with—end-of-life-care charities play an immeasurably important role in ensuring that the majority of us, and our loved ones, will get the right care and support when we are dying. We will need more volunteers as more people die each year and the demand for high-quality palliative and end-of-life care increases, which is something I will return to later.
I have long been an advocate of the need for good palliative care and support to be available to those who need it, but it is as a result of my recent work locally with the charity Marie Curie that I sought this debate. As I am sure all hon. Members will know, Marie Curie has been providing care and support for people living with terminal illness and their families for the last 65 years. It was able to care for more than 40,000 people across the UK in the last year alone, in large part thanks to the support of more than 10,000 volunteers.
In October, I had the absolute privilege of meeting my constituent Don Lowther, who has terminal cancer, and Faye Morrison, a 21-year-old student from Gateshead who has befriended Don through Marie Curie’s helper service. This pioneering service, which has been available in the Tyne and Wear area since last year, matches trained volunteers with people living with terminal illnesses, providing them and their loved ones with companionship, emotional support and practical help with the aim of ensuring that their quality of life is the best it can be in its final stages.
Since last December, Faye has been making regular visits to see Don in his home, and over that time they have developed a close friendship. Faye is able to ensure that Don, who can no longer drive, can still get out of the house to places such as North Shields for fish and chips. Perhaps most importantly, Faye is a non-family member who Don can talk to and share his concerns with. The impact of Faye’s volunteering on Don’s quality of life, and that of his wife’s, is clear to anyone who meets them, but Faye is the first to say that she has—from giving her time and being part of the helper service—gained as much as Don has.
The Marie Curie helper service also helps to co-ordinate local services, enabling people affected by a terminal illness and their families to understand what is happening, and ensuring that they are supported throughout this challenging journey. In the case of Faye and Don, this has involved signposting Don to the services provided by Marie Curie’s Newcastle hospice, which I also heard more about from Lead Nurse Michelle Scott when I recently visited this facility, which is located in the west end of the city in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah).
I saw for myself the newly opened complementary therapy and relaxation area, with its Alnwick garden theme, and the different types of accommodation available to patients and their carers, including for respite care. I learned more about the wide range of medical and nursing care, physiotherapy and occupational therapy available, and about the practical, psychological, emotional and spiritual support provided by the highly experienced hospice team. What I took away most from my visit, however, was the hospice’s absolute dedication to celebrating life and to ensuring that those using its services—whether terminally ill parents with young children or those, such as my constituent Don, who use their day services and activities—receive the best possible support and enjoy the best possible quality of life as their time comes to an end. Don told me he was concerned that once he stepped inside the hospice, he would never leave, but that is just not the case. Thanks to the helper service and Faye, he was signposted to the care and support provided at all stages of terminal illness. That support is not negative about death and dying, but treats them as a part of life. Of course, not all Marie Curie’s nursing care takes place in a hospice setting, because the charity’s nurses also provide overnight care in people’s own homes.
Marie Curie is certainly not the only charitable organisation providing end-of-life care in the Newcastle area. Other vital organisations include Macmillan Cancer Support, with whom I recently had the pleasure of enjoying coffee and cake at the Lemington Centre and St Cuthbert’s Primary School in Walbottle, as well as St Oswald’s hospice in Gosforth, which has worked to
“make the most of time and improve quality of life for everyone in the North East living with an incurable condition, and their families”
for the past 30 years.
Despite the incredible efforts of these charities and the NHS for people who are dying, the risk that they will not get the care that they need to manage their symptoms and to maintain their quality of life until the end of their life is worryingly high. Research undertaken last year by the London School of Economics on behalf of Marie Curie found that a deeply concerning 92,000 people who need palliative care in England each year are not receiving it. That means that one in four people are not getting the good end-of-life care—care for managing pain and other symptoms, alongside psychological, social and spiritual support—that they clearly need.
The people who miss out most frequently on this support are those with a terminal illness other than cancer, such as heart failure or chronic pulmonary disease. Indeed, written evidence submitted by the National Council for Palliative Care to the Health Committee’s inquiry into end-of-life care, which was published last year, drew attention to the fact that people with cancer access over 75% of specialist palliative care services, although cancer causes around 30% of all deaths. Concerns about the availability of palliative care for people with non-cancer diagnoses have been raised with me by a constituent living with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
Others who are likely to miss out are people aged over 85, including those with dementia, despite the fact that dementia is now identified as the leading cause of death in England and Wales. Written evidence submitted by Age UK to the same Health Committee inquiry highlighted that while one third of all deaths are of people aged over 85, only around 15% of the people who gain access to specialist palliative care fall into that age group. Worrying inequalities already exist regarding the quality of end-of-life support available, depending on a person’s illness, age and, as ever, where they happen to live.
A growing concern is that the existing system, which is already unable to provide care for all who need it, is coming under ever greater pressure as our social care services fast approach breaking point. Marie Curie states that in its own services, it is seeing people waiting weeks in hospitals and hospices for social care packages to be put in place so that they can get home or into a care home to spend their final days in the place of their choosing. Very sadly, that situation means that it is not uncommon for people to die while waiting. This does, of course, have a terrible human impact, not only on the person dying, but on their families, making what is already a hugely traumatic situation immeasurably worse. This state of affairs is also totally cost-inefficient for our NHS, which could be using those hospital beds for people who need acute care.
The situation I have outlined will come as no surprise to any hon. Member, given that adult social care budgets have been cut by some £4.6 billion, or 31% in real terms, since 2011. They continue to fall in the face of an increasingly elderly population and therefore increasing demand. I have no doubt that the Minister will want to champion the social care council tax precept that the Government have allowed local authorities to raise for this purpose, but I gently remind him that that is anticipated to raise £1.4 million a year in Newcastle, yet the city council faces a social care shortfall of some £15 million.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this issue to the House’s attention. She is making a powerful speech. Let me also pay tribute to the hospices in my constituency— St Peter’s hospice, and the hospice that cared for my father and my mother-in-law in their dying days.
Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the fact that the Government have not made adequate progress in meeting the recommendations of last year’s inquiry into end-of-life care by the Health Committee? Will she join me in asking the Minister to explore the question of how well the five principles of end-of-life care are being followed across the country?
Catherine McKinnell
I think that we would all like the Minister to try to explain that key point. Marie Curie’s main concern, which I know is shared throughout the sector, is that the provision of palliative care is simply not growing to meet the demand for services. That is clearly extremely troubling, given that one in four people are already unable to access the end-of-life care and support that they need. Like the rest of our health and social care services, the palliative and end-of-life care sector—including those who provide such care in hospitals and care homes—is facing a demographic crisis. More people are dying each year, at an older age, and with more long-term and often complex conditions. Indeed, the number of deaths per year will rise by 100,000 over the next five years.
Given those facts, when the Government announced in July this year in their
“response to the independent review of choice in end of life care”
that they would establish a board within NHS England to implement the recommendations of the review, it came as a grave disappointment to all involved in the sector that they had chosen to reject the review’s key recommendation that £130 million of funding should be made available at the next spending review to
“invest in social care and NHS-commissioned services, to deliver a national choice offer in end of life care.”
Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) and, I am sure, others who are listening to the debate, I ask the Minister to state clearly how, without the additional funding that was recommended by the independent review, the Government will ensure that palliative and social care services grow to meet existing and increased demand in the coming years.
Thangam Debbonaire
Does my hon. Friend agree that the autumn statement provided an ideal opportunity for the Government to produce sums to meet the ever-increasing demand for social and end-of-life care, and that that opportunity was missed?
Catherine McKinnell
That is a good point. Everyone was disappointed not to hear a commitment from the Government. I think we would all like to know how, without those additional funds, the Government will end the distressing and unacceptable circumstances in which 92,000 people—one in four—are missing out each year on the care and support that they and their families need at the end of their lives, and how on earth the Government will prevent that deeply concerning figure from growing ever bigger.
I am acutely conscious that there are many more issues that I could have raised in a debate about such an important issue. They include the provision of end-of-life care for children and young people with life-shortening conditions, which, according to the charity Together for Short Lives, is often
“inappropriately coupled with the palliative care needs of adults, when their needs can be much more complex”.
A key concern for that charity, and for all of us, is that the number of children and young people affected by life-shortening conditions is not properly monitored, which makes it impossible for the Government, the NHS and local authorities to plan properly and budget for their needs.
Another serious issue relates to the fact that our welfare system can let down too many people with debilitating and terminal conditions such as motor neurone disease. While welcoming the recent and long overdue announcement that people with severe lifetime conditions will no longer have to undergo reassessments for employment and support allowance, the Motor Neurone Disease Association and many other charities remain extremely concerned about the Government’s determination to devolve attendance allowance to local authorities, and the impact that that could have on the vital support that people with extremely challenging conditions currently receive.
I have raised a number of issues with the Minister this evening about the additional funds for end-of-life care that the NHS, charities and their much-needed volunteers clearly need. When people do not have the palliative care that they need, there are real and damaging consequences. They may die in pain or discomfort, which causes distress not just to them, but to their families, friends and loved ones. That will be avoidable if the Government can make a commitment to those people. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the important concerns that I have outlined this evening.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (David Mowat)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) on bringing this debate to the House. This is an important subject and it is good that we have the chance to talk about it.
It is also good, as the hon. Lady said, that we are debating it on the UN’s International Volunteer Day. She reminded the House, if it needed reminding, how much of the palliative care burden is taken up by volunteers. We should all reflect on the fact that there are 6 million informal carers in this country. Without those people, things would be much more difficult. We have a carers strategy coming out in the next few months, which I will discuss during my speech.
The hon. Lady talked about her hospice, the work that the Marie Curie charity does there and the helper service it has pioneered in Newcastle. I am happy to acknowledge the fantastic work that hospices do. I have one in my constituency, St Rocco’s, which also does brilliant work. The hon. Lady used a good phrase: we should recognise that at their best hospices celebrate life. That is important.
The Government’s position is that high-quality, end-of-life care, reflecting individual needs, choices and preferences, should be available to everyone. That is our objective; that is what we are working to achieve. Much is being done, despite perhaps the tone of the hon. Lady’s remarks. However, of course there is more to do: more can always be done. This is not something that will ever be finished, but I want to set the context in which we are working.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Minister has rightly acknowledged, as has the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), the importance of charities and the work that they do. In his response to the points that she has made, will he say what the Government intend to do for young carers who look after those who are at the end of life? I am aware of the pressure on those young carers given their age, and their ability to cope with the life-changing event that will happen to them and their family very shortly. We need something for them, Minister. Can I make a plea for them?
David Mowat
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is right. There are about a quarter of a million informal carers under the age of 25, half of whom are under the 16-to-18 age range. There are issues for education and future employment. The carers strategy is addressing that and I will have more to say about that.
On the context, 480,000 people in England die every year. Thirty-six per cent. of those are over 85 and about 350,000 of those deaths are expected, in the sense that they are not a surprise. Roughly half that number get some specialist palliative care as part of the pathway. The hon. Lady talked about that not being enough, and I will come back to that. Forty-seven per cent. die in hospital, which is an improvement: 57% of people were dying in hospital 10 years ago. There is an emphasis—the charities, particularly Macmillan, are offering a lead on this—on ensuring that fewer people die in hospital.
In terms of authoritative evidence of how that is working—the hon. Lady mentioned some of the points made by Marie Curie—the Office for National Statistics conducts a yearly survey called “Bereaved VOICES”, which looks at how carers and bereaved people evaluate the last three months of the end-of-life care for their loved ones. About 75% of those services are regarded as good, excellent or outstanding. Ten per cent. are regarded as poor. Ten per cent. is 48,000 deaths a year, and that is still too high. Nevertheless, 75% of those services are regarded as good, excellent or outstanding. The highest proportion of those services are in hospices. Care homes rated about the same as hospices, with hospitals doing less well. The figures are patchy, however, and that is generally linked to deprivation. They are not as good in areas of relatively high deprivation as they are in other areas. That is partly because hospice availability is somewhat skewed by the fact that the charities that run them tend to operate in more affluent areas.
The hon. Lady mentioned the need for spiritual and emotional attention at the end of life, and I can tell her that 70% of those who responded to the survey regarded their loved ones as having received good or outstanding spiritual or emotional care. That reflects well on those in the voluntary sector and the NHS who provide that care, and we should acknowledge that.
I do not wish to sound complacent, because I acknowledge that things could and should be better. I have had this job for four or five months, and there are very few of the areas I cover in which the UK could be said to be the best in the world. Let us take cancer outturns as an example. We know that our one-year survival rates for most types of cancer are worse than those of most other countries in Europe. Last year, however, the Economist Intelligence Unit compiled a quality of death index, which evaluated 50 or 60 countries in the world against a number of criteria, and the UK came top in end-of-life care. As I have said, I do not know the situation across all the areas for which I am responsible, but we should acknowledge this finding. To put it into context, Germany came seventh, France came 10th and Sweden came 16th. That has been achieved through the work of people in charities and in the NHS, but we must also acknowledge that things could be better.
The hon. Lady spoke about social care funding—although that is a slightly different area—and about delayed transfers of care and all that results from them. I have acknowledged many times in the Chamber that social care funding is under pressure and that that can cause delayed transfers of care, or bed-blocking, if we want to use that term. However, in terms of adult social care, if we compare the top 10% of councils with the bottom 10%, we see that there is a factor of 30 times in the difference between their performance in delayed transfers of care. That is not related to budgets; it is related to best practice, leadership and all that goes with that. We are sometimes quick to say that money is always the issue, but although that is of course part of it, it is not the only issue. It is important to understand that other factors are involved. Among other areas that need to be improved, we need to continue our drive to ensure that more people do not receive their end-of-life care in hospitals, where they generally do not wish to be. We should also acknowledge that there can be non-uniform commissioning among clinical commissioning groups, and we can do better in that regard as well.
The hon. Lady talked about the choice review, which was produced in 2014 by the National Council for Palliative Care, helped by Macmillan and Marie Curie. It contained some 62 recommendations. The Government’s response came out in July—it was one of the last acts of my predecessor—in the form of a five-point charter. In it, we accepted that we would have personalised care plans in place by 2020, that everyone was entitled to an honest discussion about their end-of-life care and to support in making informed choices, that family and carers would be involved in those choices, and that all people going through an end-of-life process would have an identified contact at all times.
Those elements will need to be implemented right across NHS processes, technologies and pathways, and we have set up the end-of-life care board under Bruce Keogh, the chief medical officer, to oversee that. All arm’s length bodies will be represented on the board. This has not yet been published—it is my role to ensure that it is—but the requirement now is to turn the commitments in the review response into tangible milestones, deliverables and responsibilities. I recently met several members of the End of Life Care Coalition and undertook to have a transparent process so that between 2016 and 2020 we know what we are implementing and when and how that is being done. It is important that that happens. We are extremely committed to it—it is a Government priority. We could do things better as a country, but we do pretty well and we need to do this to make things even better.
Thangam Debbonaire
I thank the Minister for his responses to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell). On that point about the plan for between 2016 and 2020, given that the last days of someone’s life are etched into the memories of those who are left behind—I can remember every single moment of the day 23 years ago yesterday when I lost my father—will the Minister commit to report back to the House at various points over that four-year period, or will he report on progress in other ways?
David Mowat
That is a very reasonable request. That intervention was not quite what I was expecting, but it is entirely reasonable and I will commit to do that either in debates such as this or at Question Time, or whenever. I am unsure whether a statement would be appropriate, but it is a reasonable thing to request of a Minister and I am happy to do it. I will at least write to the hon. Lady on the process, because I am determined that the programme of work will be transparent and meaningful with clear deliverables that achieve what we need to achieve.
In addition to implementing the choice review, other ongoing and day-to-day work needs to happen. The Liverpool care pathway was pretty much supplanted last year by the five priorities for dying people that were mentioned in an earlier intervention. We are trying to embed those things within the structure of the NHS. They exist in training programmes, in Health Education England, and in the choices that people make when working in this sector. It is not rocket science; the priorities relate to sensitive communication, the need for individual plans covering food and drink, and also spiritual things for those who need or want them. Fundamental to all this—it should not really need saying —is that the dying person is involved in all aspects.
We put end-of-life care as a priority in the NHS mandate. Clinical commissioning groups must commission end-of-life and bereavement care, and there are NICE guidelines for that. That does not mean that it is not patchy, as the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North said, but those are the requirements. When the CQC evaluates care homes, hospitals and hospices, it specifically looks at end-of-life care, and those that want high rankings will need to address such things and work effectively.
I talked about milestones. One important initiative that I expect to come out of the choice review is electronic palliative care records, through which care plans are accessible to the many different workers who need access. I recently saw that happen in London, where the system is called “Coordinate My Care”. The idea is that if a person is in need of an ambulance or paramedic, the paramedic will have access to the care record on the way to the call-out. The record might explain that the person may not want to go to hospital, depending on the issue, and such decisions will become embedded in the process, which is important and good. I want that technology to be rolled out as quickly as possible.
Catherine McKinnell
I was concerned at the beginning of the Minister’s remarks that he sounded complacent about this issue, but he does certainly seem committed to making this review work over the next few years. Will he just acknowledge that if the NHS is not able to get the support from the social care sector and is not able to utilise the funding required, it will fail in its efforts? It will fail unless the funding is there within the community sector and the NHS itself in order to achieve what the Minister sets out as a very important strategy going forward.
David Mowat
I am getting towards the end of my speaking time, so I will finish by answering that as best I can. Of course money matters, and every process works better if there is plenty of money for it. The facts of the matter are that both adult social care and the NHS are under cost pressures. To be honest, that will always be the case in every system, and I just gently say to the hon. Lady that she may be surprised to know that we spend about a third more on adult social care, which is a particular responsibility of mine, than either France or Germany.
Catherine McKinnell
The Minister acknowledged that the challenge in addressing this issue properly is often the patchwork nature of services in our country and the postcode lottery. He also acknowledged that some of the areas that fare the worst are the most deprived, and they are also the areas facing the biggest cost pressures in terms of social care funding. Will he acknowledge that something needs to be done to ensure that that does not undermine these efforts?
David Mowat
This is not the autumn statement, and I cannot make commitments on funding other than to say that many Members on both sides of this Chamber would like to see, when the time is right, more funding for our vital public services. I again just gently make the point to the hon. Lady that we spend considerably more on adult social care than countries such as France and Germany, those it would be reasonable to compare us with, and it is not just about money in terms of the delayed transfers of care performance of different councils—it is hugely different.
Let us agree that what really is important is that over the next few years we implement the choice review: what is important is the Government’s commitment to implement that and our clear intent, as signalled by Bruce Keogh leading the implementation board, that we will be held accountable for it. I will be held accountable for it, and I will report back to the House in due course on that.
I thank the hon. Lady for raising this important issue.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Childcare (Early Years Provision Free of Charge) (Extended Entitlement) Regulations 2016
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Caroline Dinenage)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Childcare (Early Years Provision Free of Charge) (Extended Entitlement) Regulations 2016.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Gillan. The Childcare Act 2016 delegates powers to Ministers to create regulations that provide for an additional 15 hours of childcare for children of working parents in order to create what is known as the 30 hours free childcare entitlement. The Government are committed to doubling the amount of free childcare for working parents of three and four-year-olds from September 2017. We know that the cost of childcare poses a barrier to work for families with small children, and this policy provides significant support, worth about £5,000 a year, to working parents.
All three and four-year-olds are already entitled to 15 hours a week of free early learning. Take-up is high, at about 95%, and the quality of provision continues to improve, with 86% of children taking up their place in a good or outstanding setting. On top of that, the most disadvantaged two-year-olds can receive 15 hours a week of free early learning, because we know that when they arrive at school less advantaged children can be behind their better-off peers.
Let me make it clear that we will retain the same stringent quality standards as we apply to the existing entitlements, so providers delivering any part of the 30 hours entitlement will need to follow the requirements of the early years foundation stage and must be registered as an Ofsted early years provider. We debated the eligibility criteria and the detail of the 30-hours policy extensively during the passage of the Childcare Bill last year. The regulations provide more detail and clarity on the design and delivery of the additional 15 hours, including all the eligibility criteria.
My Department continues to undertake extensive informal consultation and engagement with key stakeholders, including childcare providers, local authorities and national childcare provider organisations. That has helped tremendously in ensuring that those who will deliver the 30 hours have contributed to the development of the policy and how it is delivered to parents. I appreciate the fact that all those involved have worked so constructively with me and my team.
It is important to view our 30 hours offer as one part of a much bigger Government commitment to childcare support. All three and four-year-olds already receive 15 hours a week of early learning, as do the most disadvantaged two-year-olds, and the early years pupil premium provides additional support for the most disadvantaged three and four-year-olds. Our new special educational needs inclusion fund and disability access fund, worth £615 per child per year, offer targeted support for children with special educational needs and disabilities. The Government will introduce tax-free childcare early next year, and our flagship welfare reform programme, universal credit, allows low-income working parents to claim up to 85% of their childcare costs, even if they work only a few hours a week. Together, those childcare support offers amount to funding worth £6 billion a year by 2019-20. That is a major package of support for working families. I hope that the Committee will support the regulations.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to face the Minister again under your chairmanship, Mrs Gillan. It will come as no surprise to anyone listening that the Labour party welcomes any initiative to extend free childcare, but examining the regulations and the explanatory memorandum provides another opportunity to touch on several important concerns about the policy that have been expressed by Labour Members and sector leaders since it was first announced. None the less, the Opposition do not intend to divide the Committee on the regulations, as above all else we want swift progress ahead of the national roll-out of the entitlement.
The regulations are largely practical in providing a statutory framework for the policy, but the context presents a challenge to their feasibility. Childcare providers and local authorities will be keen to know whether they can truly expect to meet the demands being placed on them. Before I ask about the pressures faced by providers and authorities, I will say that the Government’s response to the early years funding formula consultation, which has somewhat changed the terms of the guidance we are discussing, offered some much-needed changes, which I welcome wholeheartedly.
Maintained nursery schools offer an excellent education to some of the most disadvantaged young children, so the guarantee of their supplement throughout this Parliament is welcome. It removes at least one unnecessary challenge for local authorities in fulfilling the measures outlined in part 4 of the regulations. Furthermore, the Opposition welcome the recognition in paragraph 9.8 of the draft explanatory memorandum of
“issues with the way the funding system currently works to support children with SEND”.
The extra funding offered for disabled children is certainly a welcome change in step, but the response from providers and sector leaders still shows the latest offer from the Government to be insufficient to achieve the requirements set out in the regulations and the policy more broadly. The difference between the cost of delivering free entitlement places, per the regulations, and the funding received from Government remains significant. Sector leaders at the National Day Nurseries Association and the Pre-school Learning Alliance have been clear that unless the gap is closed entirely, it will be difficult to secure free childcare, per part 2 of the instrument. Does the Minister believe that the concerns over the latest funding announcement are well founded? Can she say with certainty that the current offer is sufficient to implement the regulations?
Given the duties on local authorities outlined in part 4, Committee members may wish to note that the chair of the Local Government Association’s children and young people board said:
“Both councils and childcare providers are under severe financial pressures”,
and that councils
“remain very concerned that the increase in funding will not be sufficient”.
That is important because the main difference between the 2014 regulations and the draft 2016 regulations is a 20-page definition of a working parent. The decision to restrict the additional entitlement to working parents will therefore produce significant bureaucracy for local authorities and may ultimately confuse parents about whether they actually qualify. I would appreciate the Minister’s reflections on whether local authorities are equipped to handle the regulations. Specifically, it would be good to hear whether her Department has considered the extra bureaucracy being generated and whether it has a plan in place to deal with that.
I welcome the analysis in paragraph 9 of the explanatory memorandum—on the Government’s consultation—regarding the delivery of the extended entitlement, but I was surprised by some significant omissions. I am worried that there is no mention of the fact that almost two thirds of the early years providers responding to the same consultation said that they were concerned about funding. I am surprised that a memorandum covering guidance to support parents into work makes no mention of the fact that of the 25% of providers who thought there would be an impact on disadvantaged families, just 4% thought that impact would be positive. I hope the Minister will comment on some of those omissions, which constitute some of the most important findings of that consultation. The guidance seems to be missing a long-established trend in the early years acknowledged in Sir Michael Wilshaw’s annual report: that the increase in early years places has not kept pace with the increase in the early years population. How confident are the Government that there is sufficient capacity to meet demand for the extended entitlement?
The instrument before us has several laudable aims: to impose a duty on local authorities to secure early years provision; to have high quality within that provision; and to provide proper framework of eligibility. However, the positive aims, which I welcome, must be backed up with adequate resources and, most importantly, proper funding to guarantee the long-term viability of the scheme. Members of Parliament from both sides of the House and across the country have been campaigning relentlessly on behalf of early years providers and families in their constituencies to get the needed support. In particular, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and my hon. Friends the Members for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), for Kingston upon Hull East, for Ashfield, for Dagenham and Rainham, and for Ealing, Southall for all the work they have done.
The idea of 30 hours of free childcare is absolutely welcome but it must be fully funded. My fears are that it is not, so I would appreciate reassurance from the Minister t his afternoon.
Caroline Dinenage
I thank the Opposition spokeswoman, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn, for her welcome for some parts of the policy. I am grateful for her constructive approach and will be happy to respond to some of her questions.
I start by reiterating my opening comments—that we want the 30 hours free childcare entitlement to have a real impact on the lives of working families by making childcare more affordable. That will ensure that parents have real choices about work and are not constrained by the cost of childcare. As I mentioned, we have undertaken extensive consultation with key stakeholders, including childcare providers and local authorities, to ensure that those who will be delivering the 30 hours of free childcare have contributed to the development of the policy. I know that their commitment will be key to making the policy a success, and I have been encouraged by their enthusiasm and determination to meet the needs of parents and children.
We have been very pleased with the early implementers, which is why we went live with the 30 hours offer in eight local authorities in September. The programme is going extremely well, with more than 3,700 children already accessing a 30 hours place. I had the opportunity to visit Swindon last week, to see at first hand how the offer is working for those involved. The early implementers have trialled focuses on different challenges of the policy: Northumberland focused on rurality and Staffordshire and Portsmouth on low-income families, which the hon. Lady mentioned. Swindon is championing flexibility; it has a nursery that is co-located at a hospital site, where staff work some obviously quite challenging shifts. Newham is supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities; I hope to visit them in the next week or so. Wigan and Hertfordshire are also exploring partnership working and focusing on low-income families. We are capturing the learning from those areas throughout the year and sharing it with every area, to make sure that the full roll-out benefits from learning from their successes and experiences.
With regard to the funding, the hon. Lady is absolutely right: we need to get the funding right and ensure that early years providers are funded on a fair and sustainable basis. That is why we are delivering our promise by spending an additional £1 billion a year by the end of this Parliament on free childcare. That will provide more than £300 million a year to increase the funding rate and it will be allocated on a much more fair and transparent basis. In the Government response to the consultation on the funding formula, which was published last Thursday, as the hon. Lady mentioned, we announced that the new national average funding rate paid to local authorities would be £4.94 per hour per child. We have also introduced a minimum funding rate of £4.30 an hour, which will reassure some of the areas that are at the lower end of the scale.
Equally important is ensuring that that funding reaches providers, so that they can deliver all of the free entitlements on a sustainable basis. The new funding rate will give local authorities the scope to pay providers, but we are also maximising funding to the frontline by requiring local authorities to pass 95% of the funding through to providers, and we are making sure that there is fairness in local formulae by moving towards the universal base rate for all providers in a local area. We are also creating a better deal for children with disabilities, as the hon. Lady mentioned, by introducing a new £12.5 million disability access fund, which is worth £615 per child per year, and we are legislating for every area to set up a local inclusion fund for children with special educational needs.
The hon. Lady is rightly concerned about the burden on local authorities. We have committed to undertake a new burdens assessment for the extended entitlement, and we will respond to the findings. We are committed to ensuring that we do not add unnecessarily to the workload of local authorities, which is one of the reasons that the guidelines for the way that this is calculated is done in partnership with tax-free childcare. The aim is not to impose an additional administrative burden on families or add to their confusion.
The hon. Lady mentioned sufficiency. We do not expect that the 30 hours free childcare offer will double the demand for childcare places, as we know that many parents of three and four-year-olds are already accessing more than the 15 hours of free childcare per week and paying for the additional hours themselves. We expect that the market will need to adapt and respond to meet the need of additional demand for places. It has shown that it can do that through the successful rollout of the 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two-year-olds that was introduced in the last Parliament.
As well as learning from the eight early implementer local authority areas, which I already mentioned, we are supporting localised sufficiency needs by providing £50 million of capital investment to support the creation of additional places. We have also appointed a new delivery contractor, Childcare Works, which will be a conduit between the Department for Education and local authorities and work with local authorities to ensure that there will be sufficient 30-hours places from September 2017.
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her comments on maintained nursery schools. We very much recognise the work that they have done to help the most disadvantaged children to achieve their potential, and we also know that they bear costs over and above other providers. It is important that they have certainty to be able to plan for the future. I am also grateful for her comments on provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities, which I think I have covered. The local authorities’ inclusion fund in their local funding systems for children with SEN will be helpful in that.
I am pleased that the regulations are broadly supported. We all agree with the underlying policy that we must do more to support parents with childcare.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
There is a small, technical point that the Minister might be able to help me with. It relates to the calculation of income for the self-employed in regulation 6(3). There are some concerns that the regulations are introducing a different method for calculating self-employed income from normal bases. We now have cash basis for smaller businesses, which allows items of a capital nature to be deducted in calculating the old D1 income under self-employment, but regulation 6(4) says clearly that
“receipts and expenses of a capital nature are to be disregarded.”
It therefore seems that we will be going back to the normal basis that we are all used to in calculating someone’s income under self-employment, but I am rather concerned that we will have two bases with one for tax purposes and another for calculating what is deemed income under the regulations. That is a fairly technical point and I wonder whether my hon. Friend can offer some assurance.
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have sought as far as possible to co-ordinate everything we have done with other Departments to avoid any misunderstanding of that kind or extra bureaucracy or burdens, but to be on the safe side, I will double-check and write to him with the answer to his question.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Bank Recovery and Resolution Order 2016
Draft Bank of England Act 1998 (Macro-Prudential Measures) Order 2016
(7 years, 7 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Simon Kirby)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Bank Recovery and Resolution Order 2016.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider the draft Bank of England Act 1998 (Macro-prudential Measures) Order 2016.
Simon Kirby
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Pritchard.
Since the financial crisis, the Government have implemented significant reforms to address the problems of the past and make the financial sector safer and more stable. In addition, these reforms have ensured that a bank failure can be managed in a way that protects the wider economy and financial sector without relying on taxpayer bail-outs. I will speak to both orders, which concern two key planks of these reforms: macro-prudential regulation and resolution.
I will begin with the Bank of England Act 1998 (Macro-prudential Measures) Order 2016. The Government have reformed our financial regulation so that risks to the whole system are identified and addressed. The Financial Policy Committee addresses macro-prudential risks through its powers to issue recommendations and, importantly, directions.
Mortgages are the single largest asset class held by UK banks, which makes them sensitive to the performance of the housing market and exposes them to direct risks when borrowers struggle to pay back their loans. Work done by the Bank of England suggests that buy-to-let mortgage lending can amplify the housing cycle. As house prices go up, buy-to-let investors are incentivised to enter the market and accrue capital gains, which pushes prices up for all homebuyers. As prices fall, buy-to-let investors are incentivised to sell their properties, which can drive prices down further.
The lessons of the recent financial crisis are still fresh in our memory, and we all know that the costs of financial instability are huge. That is why, in his Mansion House speech on 12 June 2014, the then Chancellor committed to ensuring that the FPC has
“all the weapons it needs to guard against risks in the housing market.”
In 2014, the FPC recommended that its powers of direction be expanded so that it could effectively tackle the systemic risks in the UK housing market. The Government agree with those recommendations and have, indeed, already legislated to grant the requested powers regarding owner-occupied mortgages. Today’s order will provide similar powers over buy-to-let mortgages. It will allow the FPC to direct the financial regulators—the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority—to require regulated lenders to place limits on buy-to-let mortgage lending in relation to loan-to-value ratio and interest coverage ratio. This instrument is another step taken by this Government to ensure that our financial system is resilient and supports the wider economy.
I will now turn to the Bank Recovery and Resolution Order 2016. The UK’s special resolution regime provides the authorities with the tools to manage the failure of financial sector firms without relying on taxpayer bail-outs. The EU bank recovery and resolution directive established a common approach across the EU to the recovery and resolution of banks and drew on key aspects of the UK’s existing resolution regime. Since the transposition of the BRRD in January 2015, industry and the regulators have had time to digest the new rules, and they have uncovered a small number of areas where the UK’s special resolution regime could be improved. This order therefore makes changes to strengthen the UK’s special resolution regime so it works more smoothly and effectively. The Government have consulted extensively on the draft legislation through both public consultation and close engagement with the banking liaison panel. The changes have the support of industry.
The Bank Recovery and Resolution Order 2016 makes changes in three key areas. First, it makes amendments to allow the Bank of England or the Treasury to activate contractual default event provisions where they would assist a resolution. That will support the Bank of England’s efforts to resolve a failing firm and maintain financial stability.
Secondly, the order introduces new stand-alone early intervention powers for the PRA and the FCA, which could be used when an institution’s position is deteriorating to try to prevent it from failing or requiring resolution. The stand-alone powers, which include the power to require the removal of senior management, clarify the scope of the existing powers.
Thirdly, the order provides new backstop powers for the Bank of England to resolve branches of third-country institutions operating in the UK, independently of the third-country resolution authority. The circumstances in which those independent powers would be used are exceptional. The preference of UK authorities is for co-operation between authorities.
The order also addresses a couple of other issues. First, it introduces powers to enable the bridge bank tool to be applied through a share-transfer scheme for building societies. Secondly, it introduces powers for the Treasury and the Bank of England to recover bail-in expenses. As I said earlier, the changes will strengthen the UK’s resolution regime. I hope hon. Members will support both orders.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
What a pleasure it is to see you in the Chair, Mr Pritchard. I thank the Minister for his introductory remarks.
The Opposition support measures to protect and enhance the stability of the financial system, including plans to avoid another banking crisis. Recent history has unfortunately revealed that the insolvency rules and legislative framework that applied to all companies were highly unsuited to the particular circumstances of bank failure. As the Minister said, this bank recovery order follows on from the Banking Act 2009. It is absolutely vital that we as legislators get this right. There is simply no room for error. These are measures that will be used only once in the event of a bank failure. There is an incredible duty on our shoulders to protect the people we serve—indeed, the Labour party takes that responsibility with the seriousness it commands.
In that light, we have concerns that the guidance for these orders is not as accessible and transparent as it might be. Not only does that make it challenging for the Opposition to provide effective scrutiny, but it raises questions about how usable the regulations will be by the industry itself and, indeed, the wider public.
Article 15 of the banking recovery order amends section 48Z of the 2009 Act to allow the Bank of England or the Treasury to activate default event provisions. The order states that the
“Bank of England…or the Treasury (in the case of a share transfer order)”
need to
“consider that such provision would advance one or more of the special resolution objectives.”
We have previously raised concerns that that will give considerable discretion to the relevant authorities. In a letter to my Front-Bench colleague in the other place dated 24 November 2016, the Government promised further guidance on the types of contracts, which could include clauses that are activated by the use of a crisis prevention or management measure. Will the Minister update us on whether any progress has been made in that regard?
Given that the power to remove directors is significant, we would want some oversight of a kind not covered by this provision of the people chosen by the regulator to serve as replacement directors. We would also like clarity about the tribunal under proposed new section 71G, which will presumably sit under the FCA. Are we to understand that it is to be a police force, a judge and a jury in all cases? I wonder whether anyone might claim it is unlawful, either via a judicial review or a human rights appeal, for the regulator to be able to make all those decisions using its own people when taking a bank from its shareholders.
What consideration have the Government given to providing for a periodic report back to Parliament or a review by an outside oversight committee to see what the regulator has done? More generally, we would like a clear assurance from the Government that the measures do not represent the risk of a spaghetti of committees—perhaps the FCA, the PRA, the FPC—making decisions in various contexts.
Moving on to the shorter macro-prudential measures order, I want to probe concerns about the power that the FPC will gain. If I understand the Minister’s remarks correctly, the FPC now has the ability to interfere with mortgage business on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis. Will he elaborate on this, as some fear that article 3 is somewhat vague? Is the idea to empower the FPC to constrict the buy-to-let mortgage market as much as possible? Although we support restricting that market, we have concerns about a committee of the Bank of England doing so without external oversight and without parliamentary referral. It would therefore be helpful to have assurances that any oversight is transparent, meaningful and democratic.
We are all aware that the issues raised by the orders have a topical significance. The decisive victory of the no side against proposed constitutional changes in the Italian referendum followed by the resignation of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi represents a challenge to ongoing efforts to break Europe’s economic malaise. Despite major changes for the better, there are those who fear that the European banking system remains one with large and unresolved problems. As the Bank of England UK bank stress tests last week emphasised, Government and financial authorities must ensure that precautionary measures are ready for use if needed to prevent contagion and to protect depositors and taxpayers.
We know that people and society want and need banks in which they can safely deposit their money and savings, which lend responsibly and provide credit to finance investment and growth across the country. We will support financial services where they deliver a clear benefit to the whole community and we will work with the finance sector and the Government to develop this new deal with finance for the British people.
Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)
I am aware that the Committee is not able to propose amendments. I will certainly want to support the orders, but can I induce the Minister to make a comment, which might be useful for the purposes of subsequent legislation and perhaps any subsequent court actions, in relation to article 32, particularly the removal of directors and senior executives under section 71B? May I draw his attention to an oddity of drafting? He will see that under section 71H the regulator can impose the requirements for a new temporary manager only if he reasonably considers that it is necessary for the requirement to take immediate effect. That seems to be proper drafting. However, under 71B, bizarrely and very unusually in this kind of illustration, there is no reference to reasonableness as a test. It states,
“If the appropriate regulator is satisfied that the conditions in section 71D(1) and (2) are met”—
essentially, if there is significant deterioration in the bank’s solidity, the appropriate regulator may require the firm to remove the person who is a director or senior executive, so there is no reasonableness test there. I think that is an oversight in the drafting, but we cannot change the drafting. Is the Minister therefore willing to put on the record what I think must be the intent of the Government, namely that 71B would apply only where the regulator is reasonably satisfied that the conditions are as such? I take it that that is the way the court would then read it and I think the possibility for mischief would be removed.
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
I shall be brief. I have just a couple of questions for the Minister. I will say at the outset, however, that if the risks of failure are to be mitigated, the key issue to address is the culture in the institutions, as we have argued for a long time, and that cannot be addressed by regulation alone.
I want to come back to the opening remarks of the Minister when he talked about macro-prudential regulation and risks. Will he clarify exactly what assessment of risk has been taken post-Brexit? There are two components of risk that I am particularly interested in. First, what is the estimate of the probability of increased risk of failure? Secondly, what would the nature of that failure look like post-Brexit?
I support what the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde said about the need for oversight of the appointment of directors, and I would like to know more about the Government’s thinking in that regard.
Simon Kirby
I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. These are important instruments and it is right that they are debated properly and that questions about them are answered properly.
The Government continue to learn the lessons of the financial crisis and take action to strengthen financial stability. The instruments will enable the authorities to take action to address and mitigate systemic risks in the UK’s housing market and to improve the functioning of its resolution regime. These powers are another important step in making the UK’s financial system resilient so that it works for everyone.
The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde, mentioned that oversight of the new directors could create problems. In answer, I can say that anyone chosen to act as a director in place of an existing board will have to satisfy the same standards and be approved by the regulations.
The hon. Gentleman said that the amendments were not clear and were hard to understand. The Government acknowledge the technical nature of the changes; HM Treasury’s special code of practice and the Bank of England’s guidance document should be helpful in increasing understanding, but these are technical measures and we have done our very best. He also mentioned that the requirements were unclear. The Bank of England Act requires the FPC to act proportionately, to publish guidance on how it will use the powers and to publish an explanation, including a cost-benefit analysis, when using those powers.
My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset asked about the difference between proposed new sections 71B and 71H and about the concept of reasonableness. The regulators will exercise their powers under section 71B reasonably, and they can be challenged if they act unreasonably. I hope that that is very clear.
The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath mentioned risk assessment. The FPC has published two financial stability reports since the referendum, which make interesting reading.
I hope that right hon. and hon. Members on the Committee will support both measures.
Question put and agreed to.
DRAFT BANK OF ENGLAND ACT 1998 (MACRO-PRUDENTIAL MEASURES) ORDER 2016
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Bank of England Act 1998 (Macro-prudential Measures) Order 2016.—(Simon Kirby.)
Draft Representation of the People (Electronic Communications and Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2016
(7 years, 7 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Kris Hopkins)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Representation of the People (Electronic Communications and Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2016.
What a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Flello. The draft regulations amend the existing legislative framework for elections in Northern Ireland to allow people to register online.
In Great Britain, people have been able to register to vote using the online system since 2014. The online digital service offers a quick and easy alternative to the more traditional option of paper application forms. It is right that the people in Northern Ireland should be offered the same choice and I want to make it clear, at the outset, that it is a choice. There is no suggestion that the move would introduce an online registration system that would replace the existing paper one. Applying to register on a paper application form will remain an option, but for individuals in Northern Ireland who want to take advantage of the digital service that already operates successfully in Great Britain, the draft regulations allow its extension to Northern Ireland.
Figures suggest that about 9% of those registering in Great Britain this year, outside the canvass period, did so using the online service. I am sure that hon. Members would like to see increased political participation among young people, including in Northern Ireland, and I am pleased to report that since the introduction of online registration in Great Britain a record 2.4 million applications to register have been made by people aged between 16 and 24.
Under the draft provisions, a Northern Ireland online application will work in essentially the same way as in the rest of the UK and require the same personal data as the existing form. I have had a demonstration of the system and can say that it is excellent, quick and easy to use, taking no longer than five minutes. I have arranged for Northern Ireland Members who want to see how the system works to come to my office in the coming weeks for a demonstration.
I appreciate that some hon. Members might have concerns about electoral fraud, and will wish to seek reassurance that the Northern Ireland system remains secure. In Northern Ireland, the usual requirement for those applying to register is to provide a handwritten signature. In an online application through the digital service, the act of submitting the application, in conjunction with the declaration at the end of it, will constitute an electronic signature.
Hon. Members will be aware that there are strict rules on absent voting in Northern Ireland, and they will continue to be enforced. Unlike in the rest of the UK, every successful digital registrant in Northern Ireland will be issued with a digital registration number. The number will act in place of a signature, to ensure that digital registrants’ postal vote applications can continue to be scrutinised appropriately. The number will be unique to the individual, last for their lifetime, and remain unaltered no matter how many times they move or change their name.
We have consulted the Electoral Commission and it agrees that the provision of an identifier to replace the signature check in the postal vote process is necessary. However, it has expressed concerns about the number of individuals who might lose their number. Therefore, we have put in place a system that allows for a lost number to be reissued. Officials will work closely with the chief electoral officer to monitor the successful operation of the digital registration number procedures.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Is the Electoral Commission content with that approach?
Kris Hopkins
Yes, it is. I will comment on that later, but both the Electoral Commission and the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland are content.
We have changed the wording of the declaration at the end of the registration number for both digital and paper applications. Applicants will be required to declare that they are the person named in the application and that the information they have provided is true. There will also be a special provision for people with a disability. The declaration makes it clear that the application and the declaration can be submitted on behalf of someone who is unable to do it themselves due to disability, as long as it is done in their presence.
The draft regulations make comprehensive provisions for the exchange of data. That exchange is necessary to facilitate digital registration and allow applications to be verified against Department for Work and Pensions databases. I assure the Committee that those data-sharing provisions are necessary and include all the necessary safeguards. The provisions have been modelled on existing provisions for Great Britain and have been scrutinised and approved by the Information Commissioner for Northern Ireland.
The implementation of digital registration is fully supported and welcomed by the Electoral Commission and the chief electoral officer for Northern Ireland. The regulations have been approved by the Information Commissioner’s Office for Northern Ireland. If the Committee approves the regulations, the precise timing of the introduction of digital registration will be determined by the successful testing of the Electoral Office computer system. I hope that all the necessary checks will be passed by the end of February. It will be the intention to sign the regulations as soon as possible after that date, when the digital platform is ready to be launched. The regulations will then effectively come into force the day after that signature.
I hope the Committee will agree that the introduction of digital registration in Northern Ireland will be a major step towards modernising the delivery of elections in Northern Ireland. It is an excellent service that will offer people in Northern Ireland the level of choice and service that we all expect in these modern times. I hope that will lead to an increase in political participation among a range of groups, and particularly young people.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
It is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Flello; I had not realised you had risen up the ranks, but well done.
I welcome the Minister’s statement, and particularly that digital registration will be a choice, rather than compulsory, which is really good. There would be worries about people’s access if this were made compulsory, but he put my mind at ease on that straight away. More choice in the way that people can sign up is really good. I acknowledge what he said about the number of people—young people in particular—who have been added to the list over the last couple of years. It is a shame that those 2.4 million people have been excluded from the Boundary Commission review that is under way at the minute, but that is a debate for another day.
It is very welcome that fraud prevention is a key part of this. Given the discussions had about digital registration, will the Minister assure the Committee that he will keep this under review and report back to the House about whether it is working? If there are problems, we need to work together to ensure we put them right. I welcome what he said about the security within the system—clearly none of us wants to do anything that will create opportunity for fraud—but I want to ask him a more basic question: is he confident that the system will be effective? Will it work? Is it exactly the same system as the one working in the rest of the United Kingdom? If so, has that system been shown to be effective? If not, what assurance can he give us that the system will work?
I do not have much more to say. At the moment, there are five electoral offices in Northern Ireland, and people working in those offices have expressed concerns to me about whether these measures will ultimately have an impact on their jobs. I know that the Minister shares my concern about the loss we have seen in recent months of a huge number of private sector jobs in the north. Really good, high-level, strong jobs in manufacturing have basically disappeared. Despite the Government’s attempts to rebalance the economy, outside forces have put that beyond the Minister’s and my control. Will he assure us that there will be no impact on either individual staff working in electoral offices or the towns in which those offices are based?
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Flello, particularly as you are a fellow west midlands MP.
I have four questions for the Minister. I spent three years in the Northern Ireland Office, and seem to recall that historically there have been problems in Northern Ireland with personation and the intimidation of those who donate to political parties, meaning that the electoral architecture has been somewhat different there from that in Great Britain.
First, paragraph 7.3 of the ever-helpful explanatory notes to the regulations states:
“The signature obtained on the application form is not used to check the veracity of the registration application but is used in the scrutiny of absent vote applications. There is no such requirement in GB.”
Will the Minister explain why there is no such requirement in Great Britain but there is in the Province?
Secondly, as the Minister mentioned in his helpful introductory remarks, and as is explained in paragraph 7.4 of the explanatory notes, there will be a new declaration for the system in Northern Ireland. It will be different and, as far as I could tell from what he said, although I may have misinterpreted him, tighter than the declaration in Great Britain. If a tighter declaration would be helpful in Northern Ireland, why do we in Great Britain not have the new wording that has been developed?
Thirdly, paragraph 7.7 of the explanatory notes states:
“In contrast to Great Britain the Chief Electoral Officer will not be required to send all applications through the Digital Service as there may be circumstances in which the Chief Electoral Officer does not find this necessary.”
On the face of it, it sounds like the provision will be weaker in Northern Ireland, where it will not be necessary for all applications to be sent through the digital service, than it is in Great Britain. I may have misunderstood, so I hope the Minister can explain that anomaly and the difference between the two systems.
Fourthly, paragraph 7.17 of the explanatory notes states:
“As there will be no signature obtained at registration for digital registrants these Regulations provide that all DOIs”—
declarations of identity—
“will be checked against the signature on the absent vote applications rather than the register”.
Again, I may have misunderstood, but having read that I appreciate that, after the regulations are passed, as it looks likely they will be, that system will obtain across the United Kingdom—it already does in Great Britain and will in Northern Ireland. In terms of the risk of personation and the selling of postal votes and so on, it sounds like a weakening because the signature check for a digital application, whether done in Great Britain or Northern Ireland, clearly cannot be made against a human signature because the application is digital.
When checking whether the voter is who they say they are, officers will have to check the postal vote application, rather than the register, as they would be able to if all registers contained the signatures of every voter. A fraudulent person could make a fraudulent application for a postal vote with a fraudulent signature, and that fraudulent application would be signed off because when the person voted the signature would match with the signature provided on application. There would be no physical signature on the register with which to compare it because it is a digital signature. I appreciate that there is a balancing act when encouraging people to register to vote—the Minister mentioned the extra 2.4 million applications, and it is a pity they will not be taken into account for the boundary changes—but is he sure he has got it right?
Kris Hopkins
I thank the hon. Member for Blaydon for his simple questions, compared with more challenging ones offered by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West. I welcome the support of the hon. Member for Blaydon. We have common cause on young people voting, and we obviously never want to see fraud in an electoral system, so we have ensured that the system is robust and has been well tested. The system we are discussing is the same system, with one or two modifications, as is in place in the rest of the United Kingdom, which has proved to be very successful in its roll-out. I reiterate that if Members from Northern Ireland would like a demonstration of that, we would welcome any feedback from them, from people on the ground and from officers who are delivering the service during the roll-out of the system.
The hon. Member for Blaydon spoke about challenges in the system. I encourage all Members to participate in the ongoing electoral consultation. I have had constructive dialogue with the trade unions. The consultation remains open until 9 January, and I am sure that, with his interest in this subject, he will make a positive contribution.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The Minister says there is a consultation. I know it is the responsibility of the Committee of Selection and not the Minister to choose the members of this Committee, but does he not think it a little odd that there is not a single member with a Northern Ireland constituency?
Kris Hopkins
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that it is not my choice, but she makes an astute observation.
Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Flello. Monday is a big shooting day for the Northern Ireland MPs. They do not arrive until 7 pm.
Kris Hopkins
On jobs and the future, the economy in Northern Ireland is strong and continues to grow. I hope we can all make a positive contribution.
Mr Anderson
I might have missed it in thinking about the shoot in Northern Ireland, but are the jobs at the five offices secure? Are there going to be any issues for them?
Kris Hopkins
It is for the chief electoral officer to make that choice, and they will make the choice as a consequence of the consultation. I cannot make a commitment now because we are talking about the specific issue of digital registration.
Kris Hopkins
I reassure the hon. Gentleman that there is positive dialogue and a working relationship between the chief electoral officer and the Northern Ireland Office.
The hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West raised some detailed points, and I will not go into all the details. It is appropriate to ensure that he has a detailed written response to each of those questions, but I will touch on them. First, there is a difference in Northern Ireland because verification is important. Maintaining confidence in the process is the one key point from the electoral review. Everything we have done seeks to provide reassurance. I am confident that there are mechanisms in place, including on the exchange of data, so that digital registration is cross-checked with existing Government databases to ensure that the information is right. Where absentee votes are sought, that is reinforced by a manual check against some of the known or expected forms of identification.
It is important that we put in place the framework to make this process work, but it is the chief electoral officer who must have confidence in the system that has been put in place. I talked about the relationship being strong. The office is open to challenge; we have maintained a really good dialogue. As a Department, we have been talked through how the mechanism is constituted and I have confidence in that process as well. Regarding the hon. Gentleman’s specific points, I will ensure that he receives a full written response to them in the hope that he can be as confident as I am.
Rob Marris
I am grateful to the Minister for that generous offer. On the general point, perhaps he could say a little more today. If and when this statutory instrument becomes law, the system in Northern Ireland will still be somewhat different, as I understand it, from the system in Great Britain. Is that because the Government think there should be a difference because of the particularities of the situation in the Province? Alternatively, is it because some things in Great Britain need changing and learning from the experience in Great Britain has informed a somewhat tighter system in Northern Ireland in the regulations?
Kris Hopkins
The hon. Gentleman drags me into an area that is outside my area of responsibility, but I can make a comment. The challenges that people have faced in Northern Ireland is confidence—it is about ensuring that people are who they say they are when they turn up to vote.
Kris Hopkins
Absolutely. The system has to be absolutely robust. Do I think it is a good system? Yes, I do. Do I think we could learn from the Northern Ireland system? There is an opportunity to do so. Work has been undertaken by my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles), the former Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who has looked into fraud. I am sure he will take on board some of the good practice that has been deployed in Northern Ireland.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Statements
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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EU Energy Council
(7 years, 7 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Jesse Norman)
The Energy Council is taking place in Brussels on 5 December. I will be representing the UK, and below are the agenda items to be discussed.
The Council will hold a policy debate on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning measures to safeguard the security of gas supply and repealing regulation (EU) No 994/2010. This will focus on possible alternative approaches for regional co-operation, exchange of information on commercial contracts and solidarity. The Council will consider the structure of core regions or groups of countries working together to address specific risks. The debate will also cover the role of competent authorities and the Commission in accessing contract information on security of supply issues and whether a solidarity mechanism should be harmonised or reflect member state specificities.
The Commission introduced the “winter package” on 30 November. As expected this is comprised of legislative proposals for the update of the energy efficiency, energy performance of buildings and renewable energy directives together with new legislative proposals on electricity market design and governance of the energy union.
The Commission will update the Council on progress on developing the external dimension of the EU energy policy. This will be followed by an exchange of views on whether progress has been made on strengthening the common voice of the EU in relations with partners beyond its borders; which countries or regions are the most relevant for the EU; and the tools to be used to enhance mutual cooperation. It will also cover how the EU should best approach the ongoing transformation of the global energy system, and respond to reform processes within international energy organisations.
The presidency will provide an update on the “state of play” on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council, setting a framework for energy efficiency labelling. This will focus on the delays in the trilogue negotiations between European Parliament, Council and the Commission.
The presidency will also provide a short “state of play” update on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on establishing an information exchange mechanism with regard to intergovernmental agreements and non-binding instruments between member states and third countries in the field of energy.
The Commission will update the Council on recent developments in the field of external energy relations.
Finally, Malta will inform the Council of the priorities for their presidency in the first half of 2017.
[HCWS313]
Public Service Ombudsman Bill
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)
I am pleased today to publish the draft Public Service Ombudsman Bill.
The draft Bill sets out the Government’s plans for a new public service ombudsman. The Government want to make it as simple as possible for everyone to pursue a complaint about public services. The measures in this draft Bill will ensure that anyone who makes a justified complaint can expect a rapid, effective remedy and that their voice will be heard. The new body will provide simpler access to individuals who believe they have suffered injustice or hardship and to share the learning from failures to improve services for everyone.
The draft Bill would abolish the present parliamentary and health service ombudsman and the local government ombudsman and create a new organisation with strengthened governance and accountability. It would improve access to the ombudsman’s services by allowing for all complaints to be made with or without the help of a representative and in a variety of formats to meet the digital age. The draft Bill provides powers designed to allow the new ombudsman to work more effectively including an explicit role in championing improvements in complaints handling.
I am grateful for the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee for their work in championing an improved ombudsman service. I look forward to Parliament and the public’s consideration of our proposals.
[HCWS315]
Finance Bill 2017 (Draft Clauses)
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane Ellison)
The Government have consulted on a number of tax policies following announcements made at Budget 2016 and previously.
Today, the Government are publishing draft clauses for Finance Bill 2017, along with associated responses to consultations. This fulfils our objective to consult, where possible, on draft clauses for the Finance Bill at least three months in advance of the introduction of the Bill.
The Government will publish draft legislation for the following measures in January 2017:
Making Tax Digital
Social Investment Tax Relief
Clarification of tax treatment for partnerships
The remaining draft legislation for tax deductibility of corporate interest expense and loss relief reform will also be published in January 2017.
Further detail on the clauses published today can be found in the overview of legislation in draft, which includes corresponding tax information and impact notes. All publications will be available on the gov.uk website.
[HCWS320]
Hillsborough: Operation Resolve
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
Following the decision of Assistant Commissioner Jon Stoddart OBE to stand down as head of Operation Resolve on 5 September 2016, I am pleased to inform Parliament that I have appointed Assistant Commissioner Rob Beckley QPM as the head of Operation Resolve.
Operation Resolve, established in December 2012, is examining the full circumstances surrounding the planning and preparation for and the events on the day of the FA cup semi-final on 15 April 1989 at Hillsborough, Sheffield at which 96 Liverpool football club supporters died. It is an IPCC managed investigation, its terms of reference can be found at:
https://www.ipcc.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Documents/Hillsborough/Terms_of_Reference_Hillsborough_ Managed_Inv_April2016.pdf
Rob Beckley has been appointed to the Metropolitan police as Assistant Commissioner to carry out the investigation. Most recently he was chief operating officer, College of Policing, retiring on 30 March 2016, having previously served in the Metropolitan Police Service, Thames Valley, Hertfordshire constabulary and Avon and Somerset police, where he was deputy chief constable.
[HCWS318]
Police Leadership
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
I am pleased to inform Parliament that Her Majesty the Queen has approved a two-year extension to the appointment of Craig Mackey QPM, Deputy Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis.
I recommended this extension to Her Majesty having had regard to a recommendation from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and a representation from the Mayor of London as occupant of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime.
My recommendation recognises the important contribution the deputy commissioner has made both nationally and to the Metropolitan Police Service as it has been undergoing a period of transformation.
The extension to 22 January 2019 provides stability for the Metropolitan Police Service and enables the deputy commissioner to continue to play a vital role in cutting crime and keeping Londoners safe.
[HCWS317]
World Trade Organisation
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade (Dr Liam Fox)
The United Kingdom is a founding member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In addition to the general obligations of membership, all WTO members undertake specific commitments in their goods and services schedules: WTO members’ goods schedules set out upper limits for tariffs and detail any tariff rate quotas, and WTO members’ services schedules set out commitments and reservations across all sectors and list specific sectoral commitments and reservations.
The UK’s WTO commitments currently form part of the European Union’s schedules. When we leave the EU we will need UK-specific schedules. In order to minimise disruption to global trade as we leave the EU, over the coming period the Government will prepare the necessary draft schedules which replicate as far as possible our current obligations. The Government will undertake this process in dialogue with the WTO membership. This work is a necessary part of our leaving the EU. It does not prejudge the outcome of the eventual UK-EU trading arrangements.
[HCWS316]
Employment Outcomes of Drug or Alcohol Addiction, and Obesity: Review
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Penny Mordaunt)
Today I am publishing Professor Dame Carol Black’s independent review into the impact on employment outcomes of drug or alcohol addiction, and obesity (Cm 9336). This fulfils a manifesto commitment.
Dame Carol makes 13 recommendations for Government intended to help improve the employment rates for those with drug or alcohol addition, and obesity.
The review does not recommend addicts should be mandated to treatment, providing evidence that this would not improve employment outcomes, or meet legal or ethical concerns. The review makes clear recommendations for improving welfare and health services, building new evidence, and focusing on the role of employers—all with the aim of increasing job outcomes for people with addictions. There is a limited focus on obesity in the review, a reflection of the weak evidence that obesity directly causes unemployment.
The Government welcome the report and will carefully consider its findings. The Government are grateful to Dame Carol, and her team, for the hard work that has gone into this review.
[HCWS314]
Opportunity and Integration
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Sajid Javid)
Dame Louise Casey has today released her report on how to boost opportunity and integration in isolated communities. A copy of the report has been placed in the Library of the House, and it is also available through my Department’s website.
Dame Louise was commissioned to carry out her review by the then Prime Minister in July 2015. The review conducted through a combination of written consultation, visits and engagement across the country with members of the public and statutory agencies, round tables with academics, faith leaders and analysis of research and data. I am most grateful to Dame Louise for the thoroughness of her review and the comprehensive report.
This country has long been home to many different cultures and communities, but all of us have to be part of one British society. It is right that we celebrate the positive contribution that diverse groups make to British life, but we also need to recognise that more needs to be done to make sure nobody is excluded or left behind. To do that, we need to take a serious look at the evidence and must not shy away from the challenges we face. Dame Louise’s report is a crucial step in that process, and I will be studying her findings very closely.
The report considers population change, patterns of residential and school segregation, social interactions between different groups in society, public attitudes and values, social and economic exclusion, equality impacts of cultural and religious practices, hate and extremism, past approaches and the role of leadership. It concludes with a series of recommendations to Government for promoting integration that could be implemented as a new programme across Government.
I will carefully consider the findings in this review, in consultation with my Government colleagues and faith and community leaders, and will bring forward proposals in due course.
[HCWS319]
House of Lords
Mobile Phone Use: Motorists
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Jordan
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce the incidence of mobile phone use whilst driving.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, the Government are introducing legislation increasing the penalties for using a hand-held mobile phone while driving from three to six penalty points, and from £100 to £200 when a driver is issued with a fixed penalty notice. We will be running a THINK! campaign when these higher penalties are introduced to alert drivers to the changes and raise awareness. Drivers also need to understand that it is unacceptable to put lives in danger.
Lord Jordan (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and I declare an interest as a vice-president of RoSPA. We all welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to make this dangerous and potentially devastating practice socially unacceptable. The increased penalties and the proposals that drivers who kill while using a mobile phone could face a life sentence should be a real deterrent to this growing and seemingly obsessive addiction. But previous increases in penalties—
Lord Jordan
I need to make this point. Previous increases in penalties have not had a lasting impact. What plans do the Government have to ensure adequate enforcement of their new measures?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble Lord makes an important point about enforcement. Laws are only as good as their enforcement. We have seen a rising tide in the use of mobile phones by drivers in vehicles; they have admitted it themselves through various reports. We will be working closely with the police and crime commissioners, as well as the police forces, to ensure much more effective enforcement.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, if the maximum sentence is increased to life imprisonment, will my noble friend remind people that it would be discretionary rather than mandatory? Given the fact that the courts presently impose sentences which fall far short of the maximum permitted, reflecting as they do culpability as well as consequences, it is unlikely that the overall sentences would increase to any great extent.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My noble friend is referring to the consultation launched today in this respect by the Ministry of Justice, which will be open for the next 12 weeks. He also makes the important point that the actual sentencing is determined on a case-by-case basis and by the judge looking at the circumstances prevailing in each case.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, increased sentences will no doubt help but, as the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Jordan, recognise, a change of culture is really what is required. Has the Minister’s department considered introducing, in addition to a penalty for mobile phone offenders, mandatory attendance at mobile phone awareness courses, paid for by the offender, rather than offering such courses as an optional alternative to points and a penalty as at present?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
It has been left to the discretion of the police whether to offer the courses to which the noble Lord refers. However, the Government’s view is that this issue needs to be scaled up. We are therefore suggesting that those discretionary courses are not offered and that awareness is raised through campaigns such as THINK! and increased regarding the revised penalties that will be implemented if someone is caught using a mobile phone. Let us be clear: if you use your non-hands-free mobile phone and you are caught, it is a criminal offence.
The Lord Bishop of Bristol
My Lords, your Lordships’ House will appreciate that this is quite a difficult subject to regulate. I am grateful to the Minister for outlining the Government’s plans. Given that motoring organisations seem to be extremely dubious about the safety of using hands-free equipment in a motor car, do the Government have any plans to regulate car manufacturers’ ability to produce this equipment, which is distracting, I believe, and can cause accidents?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The right reverend Prelate raises an issue about the manufacture of motor cars. The Government are not talking specifically on this issue. Hands-free mobile phone use is very difficult to regulate and enforce, and there are often other distractions in a car, such as loud music. I am the father of three children, and if I have all three of them in the back seat at the same time, that is quite a distraction. On a more serious point, we are looking to ensure that we inform the public, and campaigns such as THINK! will stress the importance of not using handheld mobile phones when driving.
Lord Woolf (CB)
I am very pleased to hear the Minister adopting such a carefully reasoned approach in his responses so far. May I suggest to him that the reason that he must do that is that increasing sentences excessively, even though they are discretionary, leads to sentencing inflation? With the situation in our prisons today, we cannot afford to have further sentencing inflation. Additionally, juries will not convict if they think that sentences are inappropriate. As the Minister has already accepted, the real thing is to change the culture, as happened with drink-driving.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble and learned Lord is right to inform your Lordships’ House about the importance of our justice system and the pressures on it and the prison system. Returning to an earlier point, we have learned over time—particularly if we look at drink-driving—that informing and educating the public is an important part of ensuring that we eradicate the illegal use of such phones.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
My Lords, have Ministers considered the circumstances in which it might be appropriate to introduce, on a mandatory basis, mobile phone signal jamming equipment? It is currently available on the internet. You can google it. Would it not be wise to consider that kind of product?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Again, the noble Lord makes an important point, and I am sure he would acknowledge that that is being looked at. We all use flight mode, for example, when we board planes. Others in the car may well be using a mobile phone quite legitimately. Of course, when you are travelling great distances, if the driver is not using a mobile phone but others are, that can be a lifeline if certain issues or challenges arise during a trip.
Child Health: Physical Education
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Benjamin
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their long-term plan for physical education as part of a holistic strategy for child health and well being.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare an interest as the co-chair of the All-Party Group on a Fit and Healthy Childhood.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, we want all pupils to be healthy and active and to have the opportunity to engage in sport and physical activity from a young age. That is why PE remains a compulsory subject at all four key stages in the national curriculum. In 2017, we will be doubling the primary PE and sport premium to £320 million a year. A number of initiatives are also under way across government to improve physical activity levels in children.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, Britain has some of the most unfit children in the world. The latest report from the All-Party Group on a Fit and Healthy Childhood shows the urgent need to revise the teaching of PE, which has not changed since the 1940s, if PE is to play a part in children’s well-being. There is no overall strategy for teachers to deliver PE, a subject often sidelined in the curriculum. Will the Government consider establishing a national PE task force to collate examples of good practice and reset training for PE teachers? Will the Minister agree to meet to discuss the recommendations in this constructive PE report?
Lord Nash
I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for her work in co-chairing the all-party parliamentary group and to the other members of it. We will definitely take what they have to say into account, and I would be delighted to meet with her and them. However, we do not think that a new PE task force is necessary. Officials already work closely with partners such as the Association for Physical Education and the Youth Sport Trust, and my colleague Edward Timpson has, for a number of years, chaired a cross-ministerial board to inform the Government’s strategy for PE, working with organisations such as Sport England and county sports partnerships. We have no plans to review the curriculum. It was last reviewed in 2014 and developed with a range of sector experts, and we will be reviewing the activity list again in 2018 following the first exams.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, has not our obsession as a nation with funding excellence in sport led to a dramatic cut in the amount of money available for grass-roots sport? Would it not be better to spend our money there rather than on excellence?
Lord Nash
We have substantially improved the funding for school sport, which has had a dramatic effect on the number of pupils participating in primary schools and on the number of qualified specialist PE teachers in primary schools, which has gone up by 50%. We regard this as very important in all aspects.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)
My Lords, yes, of course physical education is hugely important, but should we not also be thinking of parity of esteem for mental health? If that is to be achieved, how do the Government plan to ensure that schools treat mental well-being on an equal footing with physical well-being?
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness raises a very important issue. We know that mental health is an increasing issue in schools. Last year we funded the PSHE Association’s guidance on how to teach about mental health across all four key stages. A range of training on specific issues is also available through the MindEd website to all professionals who work with young people. We have been testing in a number of places the concept of a single point of contact in schools and CAMHS to improve collaborative working across schools and mental health services.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister said that physical education is compulsory for all children between the ages of four and 16. That is of course correct, but rather at odds with that is the fact that Department for Education guidance merely recommends a minimum of two hours of curricular PE for each pupil each week. I may be anticipating something that the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, is about to say, but independent schools would laugh at the suggestion that there should be only two hours of PE for pupils each week, and the Government should not be prepared to accept anything less in respect of state schools. What proportion of schools meet that DfE recommendation, and what role does the physical education and sport premium for primary schools have in increasing that figure?
Lord Nash
The law specifically prevents the Secretary of State dictating how much time schools should spend on PE or indeed on any other subject; that is entirely a matter for them. I do not believe we have a figure for how many schools are meeting the recommendation, but we anticipate that most of them are. On participation, it is clear that the sport premium has had quite a substantial impact on primary schools. Some 87% are reporting that it has led to a substantial increase in the number of activities engaged in, including extracurricular activities, and there has been a 50% increase in the number of specialist PE teachers teaching in primary schools.
Lord Lexden (Con)
In a recent Written Answer I was told that school playing fields are subject to strong statutory protections. However, have not sales of school playing fields been increasing in recent years? Is that compatible with the strategy for child health and well-being for which the Question asked?
Lord Nash
My noble friend makes an extremely good point. I am the Minister who signs off on playing field disposals, and we feel strongly that this should not happen except where absolutely necessary. We have a very rigorous process in place, and most disposals occur where schools have either closed or merged—a lot of them involve very small bits around playing field land. We are very clear that we will not allow playing fields to be disposed of unless it is absolutely necessary.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, given that only 18% of girls and 21% of boys achieve the Government’s recommended level of physical activity, and in the light of the cuts to local government in recent years, including shrinking sports programmes, do the Government have any plans to expand the range of opportunities not just in schools but in local communities, so that all children can have several opportunities to participate in physical activity?
Lord Nash
I am sure the noble Baroness will be pleased to hear that we fund Sport England to decide how to invest the National Lottery funding, and as part of its strategy its Inspired Facilities scheme has invested over £100 million to allow clubs to make major improvements in more than 2,000 facilities. As part of its strategy towards an active nation it has set aside a new £40 million investment, which it will use to get more families and children active. It has also set up a dedicated fund of £120 million to tackle inactivity over the next four years.
Childcare: Early Years Funding
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are planning to conduct an annual review of early years childcare funding to ensure sustainability and quality.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, there are no plans to conduct a formal annual review. The Government are committed to providing high-quality early education for all children. We are investing an additional £1 billion a year in the early years free entitlements and last week we published the early years national funding formula, which ensures that this funding is allocated fairly and transparently. We will monitor the implementation of the 30 hours of childcare, and are clear that getting the funding right is critical to its successful delivery.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
I thank the Minister for his reply, for the extension of 30 hours’ free childcare to working parents and for the funding thereof. Given the huge benefits to education and cognitive skills that high-quality early years childcare and education bring—they are so important to business and industry, to physical and mental health in adulthood, to remediating poverty and disadvantage for children, including looked-after children, and to productivity—will the Minister listen very carefully to the concerns of the sector that after this year the funding may not be sufficient? His Answer was reassuring to some extent. We should consider that investing in the highest-quality early-years care and education is essential to an infrastructure for successful economic development.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I could not agree more, and that is why we are spending more than £6 billion a year by 2019-20 on early years education and childcare—more than any other Government in this country ever. We know that we need to get the funding right. Our announcement last week of a £4.30 minimum funding rate for local authorities, paid for with additional investment, shows that we are listening to the sector. The cost of childcare review was very thorough—indeed, the National Audit Office said that it was “thorough and wide-ranging”.
Lord Polak (Con)
My Lords, I declare a sort of interest as a relatively new grandfather to Sienna—my daughter-in-law has just gone back to work and I know the costs of childcare and how it affects young couples today. Will my noble friend update the House on the progress of our manifesto commitment to 30 hours of childcare for working parents?
Lord Nash
Yes. I am sure my noble friend will be pleased to hear that we are making good progress. Last week, we confirmed our funding, as I said. We have already put in place legislation, through the Childcare Act 2016, with regulations being laid early last month. We have also awarded a new delivery contract worth £3 million to Childcare Works to support local authorities, and our eight early implementers which are implementing a year early have already delivered more than 3,500 new childcare places.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, following what the noble Earl said, the Family and Childcare Trust argued that the new funding, welcome as it is, does not focus sufficiently on improving quality of provision in the settings most likely used for disadvantaged children who particularly need quality care. What are the Government doing to improve quality of care in such settings to ensure that disadvantaged children get that quality provision?
Lord Nash
I entirely agree with the noble Baroness about the importance of ensuring high quality. Our entire focus is on that, particularly for children with SEND. An additional needs element is factored into the early years funding formula to better target funding towards local authorities with a higher relative proportion of children with additional needs, and our final funding policy confirmed last week includes a new disability access fund worth £615 per child per year to support disabled three and four year-olds, and a requirement for all local authorities to have inclusion funds to channel additional support to children with SEND.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, given that supplying appropriate childcare for children with additional needs is more expensive for the setting itself, and it is also more expensive to train people to be able to recognise children’s special needs and deliver appropriate care, what are the Government doing to make sure that sufficient early years practitioners are being trained to work with these particularly needy children whose needs have been ignored from many, many years?
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, it is widely accepted that investment in early years childcare is one of the most effective means of increasing social mobility, which the Government say is one of their aims. In July 2015, the then Childcare Minister Sam Gyimah announced a consultation on Sure Start centres that was to begin that autumn. We are still waiting for that consultation. Indeed, two weeks ago his successor Caroline Dinenage could only say in a waffling Parliamentary Answer that an announcement would be made “in due course”. The Minister has been there throughout that period. Is he not embarrassed about having to defend a Government who have been reneging on a commitment that is so important for the future of children’s centres?
Lord Nash
I know that the party opposite always raises this point. An independent study made it quite clear that the number of people accessing these centres has remained remarkably consistent over the last few years, even though a number have merged and indeed, a number have closed. The important point is their quality and location. I refer back to the point that no Government in history have ever invested as much in early years and childcare as this one.
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2018
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Berridge
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure the involvement of Commonwealth parliamentarians during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2018, hosted by the United Kingdom, and whether they will use the opportunity provided by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference on 11–17 December to consult Commonwealth parliamentarians in advance of the Heads of Government meeting.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I draw attention to my Commonwealth-related interests in the register.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)
My Lords, in planning the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2018, the department will engage with a full range of Commonwealth stakeholders. Through our high commissioner network, we have regular discussions with parliamentarians across the Commonwealth. I welcome the CPA conference and its focus on a collaborative Commonwealth. Unfortunately, overseas travel commitments prevent my attendance, but I look forward to meeting CPA UK and the CPA in January as part of my engagement with Commonwealth organisations.
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her Answer. Many Commonwealth parliamentarians seek to come to the UK specifically to be trained in a key part of their role, which is how to hold their Governments to account. Can my noble friend please outline what mechanism the UK will model to ensure that parliamentarians can do that and address the assembled Foreign Ministers and Heads of Government while in the United Kingdom, building on CPA UK’s work?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I welcome the idea that my noble friend proposes about how the parliamentarians from overseas may use CHOGM itself. It is important that our colleagues around the Commonwealth—the other 51 countries—are exposed to the views of their own parliamentarians and take note of them but are also exposed to the views of civil society. In my negotiations and my contacts with my colleagues around the Commonwealth, as we talk and consult with them about the agenda, I shall certainly take forward my noble friend’s idea.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the CPA UK executive. Since the Commonwealth consists almost entirely of parliamentary democracies, should not there be much more involvement of Parliaments in CHOGM? There is very little at the moment, and there has been very little. Surely, the fact of it meeting in the United Kingdom provides us with the opportunity to set a very good example.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I hoped that I had just expressed the view that it is important that the parliamentary democracies at CHOGM in the UK in 2018 have a way of communicating with the event. Clearly, as the noble Lord will know from his experience, the agenda itself is agreed by consensus of all members of the Commonwealth. What I have just said is that, after listening to my noble friend and, indeed, to the noble Lord, in discussions with my colleagues around the membership of the Commonwealth about CHOGM, I shall certainly take forward the idea of how best we can ensure that there is parliamentary engagement.
Baroness Northover (LD)
A number of developing countries in the Commonwealth are worried that Brexit may damage their ability to trade into the EU, especially with the removal of the United Kingdom and the protective shield that that has given them. Given that, does not this meeting seem an excellent time to assure them that their interests are being addressed?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
The noble Baroness raises a vital point. Throughout the summer, in my engagement with high commissioners, Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers from around the Commonwealth, I made it very clear that I am listening to their concerns. Although there is no formal consultation process, it is absolutely crucial that, as one of the members of the Commonwealth, we take their views into account and shall continue to do so.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
I declare an interest as president of the Royal Commonwealth Society. My noble friend Lady Berridge is to be congratulated on raising the issue. My noble friend the Minister is Minister for the Commonwealth. Has she read the interesting speech by the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary last Friday—a strategic speech about Britain being at the centre of global networks? I am sure that she did read it; it was in many ways a good speech. But does not she agree that it is rather a pity that at no point in that speech did the Foreign Secretary mention the Commonwealth? He spoke about many Commonwealth countries, but there was no mention of the Commonwealth itself. When she goes back to the office, could she point out to the Foreign Secretary that unfortunate omission?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
I find the Foreign Secretary great to work with, a great team leader, prepared to listen and give as good as you get. Ministerial team meetings are highly productive, and I shall certainly reflect on what my noble friend has said. For the sake of accuracy, I point out that I am Minister for the Commonwealth as an institution and for the Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean directly, but of course other of my honourable and right honourable colleagues in the Foreign Office have geographical responsibilities for individual countries. That is why we are able to engage so consistently and completely with all Commonwealth countries.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
In last Friday’s debate, the most reverend Primate spoke compellingly about the engagement of civil society in changing attitudes. Will the Minister undertake to repeat a round-table exercise about LGBT rights, similar to the one at the last CHOGM, particularly as so many countries in the Commonwealth criminalise LGBT people?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, as I mentioned a moment ago, the agenda is agreed by consensus, but the noble Lord has raised a vital point. Having committed ourselves very closely to combating discrimination and violence against LGBT people throughout the Commonwealth, and having used every opportunity at the last CHOGM to highlight our belief that the Commonwealth must stand up for human rights, including LGBT ones, we are working out our plans to ensure that these important messages are delivered when we host CHOGM in 2018.
Lord Rana (CB)
My Lords, last year in Malta many Commonwealth heads expressed a desire for CHOGM 2018 to be held in the UK but outside London, as there is a concern that the Commonwealth is becoming a London-centric organisation. In the light of this, and Belfast’s expertise in countering violent extremism—the main point on the upcoming agenda—what consideration have the Government given to CHOGM 2018 being held in that city?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, the noble Lord has made a very strong case for the idea that CHOGM should be held outside London on this occasion. I know that strong representations have been made by other parts of the United Kingdom including, for example, Manchester and Birmingham, and Downing Street is considering them all very carefully.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, during the discussions, will the Government put on the agenda the issue of frozen overseas pensions which is really affecting Commonwealth countries, especially the poorer ones, and the overseas territories?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, CHOGM has an agreed agenda but I am sure this is something that other members will wish to raise; they have certainly come forward on these issues before. The voices of the overseas territories were heard very strongly at the recent joint ministerial council in November, when I was pleased that a Minister from DWP was present to listen and respond to their views.
House of Lords: Size
Lord Cormack
To move to resolve that this House believes that its size should be reduced, and methods should be explored by which this could be achieved.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, in moving the Motion, I first thank the Leader of the House, the Government Chief Whip, and all those who have co-operated in the usual channels to ensure that we have a debate on this important subject today. I am extremely grateful to them, as I am to the 59 colleagues who have put their names down to speak in the debate.
In 1984, when the House was even larger than it is at the moment and had an enormous built-in Conservative majority, I sought to introduce a Bill in the other place that would have reduced the number of hereditary Peers to around 150. I begged Mrs Thatcher to give time for this, saying that if that Government did not take the initiative, the day would come when a Labour Government with an equally large, or larger, majority would do so—and that, of course, is what happened in 1999. A lot of water has flowed under Westminster Bridge since then and I am now moving this Motion on behalf of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber. It is a group to which many of your Lordships belong, and of which many noble Lords speaking today are members.
It is, I think, the largest informal group of Members of both Houses dedicated to reform of your Lordships’ House. This is not a reactionary group against reform; it is a positive group that wants reform. We have the support of something like 300 Members drawn from both Houses of Parliament. My noble friend Lord Norton of Louth and I established the group about a year after the 1999 Act came into force. We invited to be members some of those who we knew shared our strong belief in a non-elected second Chamber, complementary to but not in competition with the elected House—and one that would therefore never be able to challenge the unambiguous democratic mandate of the other place.
We must remember that at that time all the major parties were signed up to support the replacement of your Lordships’ House with a wholly or largely elected one. For those of us who gathered in those days, there was no attraction or appeal in either a wholly elected House or in a hybrid House. Among the most enthusiastic trailblazers in that group were the late Lord Dahrendorf—the Liberal and then Cross-Bench Peer—the late Lord Howe of Aberavon, who, until his retirement from this House some 18 months ago, hardly ever missed a meeting, and the first Green to sit in your Lordships’ House, the late Lord Beaumont of Whitley. However, there are others, who I am very glad to say are not late but very much living, and two of them who were in on those early days—the noble Lords, Lord Gordon of Strathblane and Lord Steel of Aikwood—will contribute to this debate.
Within a year of founding that group, we had 100 Peers and Members of the House of Commons signed up. We began to meet regularly and frequently, quizzing Ministers, opposition spokesmen and others, including academics. We like to think that we had some deterrent influence on the Labour Government, because they did not produce any more measures to deal with your Lordships’ House during their remaining period in office.
Then, in 2010, the threat to our existence became more real than apparent. Together with a sizeable group of colleagues from the other place, we helped to frustrate Mr Clegg’s designs. I shall always be very glad that we succeeded in that, and pay great tribute to those in the other place who ensured that that Bill never came before your Lordships’ House. I am very proud to be wearing the tie that they designed to commemorate their endeavours.
We had already had the Steel Bill—I emphasise that we are not opposed to reform—which had sought in a very comprehensive manner to deal with a whole range of matters such as a statutory Appointments Commission, retirement and suspension. This was pre-Clegg. Then, post-Clegg, the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, with the assistance of Mr Dan Byles, then Member of Parliament for North Warwickshire in the other place, managed to get the truncated Steel Bill through, which brought in the retirement scheme.
A year later, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, our former Lord Speaker, picked up another portion of the original Steel Bill and brought in the Bill that allows us to expel—a power that I hope we will never have to use. I say in parentheses that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is particularly sorry not to be with us today as she is performing extremely valuable relief work in Nepal. We wish her a safe return.
In consequence of the introduction of the retirement scheme, a number of colleagues have taken their leave, and many of them are much missed. But, although the scheme is effectively in operation, we have had far more arrivals than departures over the last few years. In 1999, the size of your Lordships’ House was some 680; today, as we all know, it is over 800. In consequence of this, almost every time your Lordships’ House is commented on in the public press and in the media, two remarks are made again and again: that this is the largest second Chamber in the world, and that it is the largest legislative Chamber of any sort in the world after the People’s Republic of China.
The constant reiteration of those facts—unfortunately, they are facts—cumulatively drowns out the recognition of the exact scrutiny we apply to Bills and the quality of our debates. All of us will remember the first debate on the Assisted Dying Bill of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. Whatever line one took on that Bill, one had to be proud to be a Member of this House. The very next day, all the papers had leaders and long reports of the debate which said that this was Parliament at its best. That is the image we wish to present—not that of a bloated House with too many Members in it.
Last autumn, the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber produced a discussion paper that was widely and favourably commented on in the press. We had all signed up to a number of principles. First and foremost was the supremacy of the elected House. Secondly, your Lordships’ House should not be bigger in numbers than the House of Commons. Thirdly, there should always be a minimum of 20% of Cross-Benchers; and, fourthly, no political party should ever be in a position to achieve domination. We are all united on those points.
We went on in the paper to explore some of the means by which your Lordships’ House could be reduced. We also looked at some of the difficulties of those means. For instance, imposing an arbitrary retirement age would bear disproportionally upon the parties. It would affect the two major parties and the Cross Benches significantly but the Liberal Democrats not very much at all. So all these things need to be looked at very carefully.
I hope that today we will not become too preoccupied with how to reduce our numbers but will concentrate on the fact that we must. The question of how is dealt with in the second part of the Motion: “methods should be explored”. Our group would—I think unanimously—favour the establishment of a Select Committee. But, whatever is done, it is essential that all solutions, both in our paper and from colleagues in all parts of the House, are properly examined and assessed before recommendations are made. The time for reform has come, and it is for us to take the initiative and work with government, not for us to wait for government to decide and then to impose. In the last two weeks the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in the other place has decided to conduct an inquiry into the size and composition of your Lordships’ House. Now it is for us to state unequivocally that we believe that our numbers should be reduced, and today we have that opportunity.
This House has a combination of experience and expertise unrivalled by any other Chamber in the world. It adds value to, and does not detract from, our democracy. All of us in this House have the same rights, responsibilities and duties to scrutinise and improve legislation and to comment on the great issues of the day. We are constrained only by the restrictions of the Parliament Act and by the conventions and practices of a responsible, self-regulating House. Many of them are based on the far-sighted Salisbury/Addison agreement, drawn up in the 1945 Parliament when the overwhelming number of Conservatives could so easily have sought to frustrate the designs of the Labour Government, who had an overwhelming mandate from the people.
We must always remember that there is no point or purpose in a second Chamber that gives smooth, unimpeded passage to government proposals no matter how ill prepared they may be. There should be no future for a second Chamber that never seeks to amend, never urges caution or never insists on further consideration, or which flinches from defeating the Government of the day. That is something that we must all bear very much in mind. Tomorrow your Lordships’ House will examine the Higher Education and Research Bill, which desperately needs the expertise and experience that can be brought to bear on it.
Prime Ministers have often regarded us with impatience as an irritant in the body politic. Perhaps they should remember that, without grit in the oyster, no pearl is ever produced. The nation deserves good government and wise counsel. We are in a position to contribute to that—but only if we set our own House in order. This is the moment and the opportunity to begin that process. I beg to move.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, it is a very real privilege for me to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and to be the first to congratulate him on the way he has opened this debate. I am tempted, after listening to his compelling and comprehensive speech, to follow the advice that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, gave me last Thursday. “Just say you agree”, he said, “and then sit down”. But, of course, it is not quite as easy as that, as I am not sure that I agree with everything that the noble Lord has said, although I was at a disadvantage by not being part of his group. There is no time to go into that now, but I should like to endorse what I take to be the two main messages of his speech, with which I most certainly do agree.
The first is the message that this House believes that its size should be reduced. What a significant step forward it would be—if we are unanimous on the point about which there is so much disquiet among us—for the House itself to make that very public declaration. The second is the message which is perhaps even more important than the first—that methods should be explored by us to reduce its size. That is more important because it is a statement that we are taking the matter into our own hands as far as it is possible for us to do so. We would be saying that it was not for others to tell us what to do—this is our House, we know best what makes it work and we are best placed to sort the problem out. Of course, we may need some assistance, as not everything that affects the issues which the noble Lord has addressed is within our control, but this is our initiative, and I hope that we can make a declaration that we intend, in seeking a consensus, to get on with it.
I shall not attempt to offer any solutions as this stage—this is not the moment to do that—but I should like to identify what I see as six assumptions that I suggest might guide us on our way. The first is that there will be no change in the role of the House as an advising and revising Chamber. It is on that assumption that any calculations as to what its size should be should be based, when we compare our numbers with those of the other place.
The second is that we will continue to be unsalaried for what we do. That is quite important because, where there is a salary, there is an obligation to turn up and to do what one is paid for. In our case, we benefit greatly from the freedom that many of us enjoy to keep ourselves informed by maintaining outside interests and commitments. This means that at least some of those who make some of the contributions that we value most are not here all, or even most of, the time. That is a factor to be borne in mind.
The third assumption is that we will continue, at least for the foreseeable future, to be an appointed, not an elected, House. The fourth, which goes with it, is that for this reason our going out cannot be considered without considering our coming in. That really is where the nub of the problem lies. An elected House has two characteristics that we do not have: its numbers are fixed and any vacancies are filled by the election process. In our case, as I think the noble Lord hinted at in the beginning of his address, the going out used to be in the hands of the Almighty and the coming in in the hands of the Prime Minister. Now, we can choose our own time for going out, but the system for coming in has not changed. It is to the question of how that system can best work for a smaller House that we will have to direct our attention, as well as to how our present numbers can be reduced.
The fifth and sixth assumptions are that the Cross-Benchers should continue, as at present, to be about 20% of our membership, and I am grateful for what the noble Lord said about that. Also, the way on to the Cross Benches from outside the House should continue to be as at present. It is worth repeating that there are only two ways in, and they are very tightly controlled. The first is the Prime Minister’s list, limited to 10 for the lifetime of each Parliament, for very senior members of the Civil Service, the Armed Forces and so on. The second is by way of the independent Appointments Commission, limited by the last Prime Minister to only two per year. For obvious reasons, we do not receive any appointments by way of the political list.
Speaking as I am, from and not for these Benches, it seems to me that, with us, the potential for an imbalance between those coming in and those going out does not present as much of a problem as it does for the other groups. There is one other characteristic of our Benches to which I would draw attention also: in comparison with the other groups, a larger proportion of our number arrive here at or about, or even after, the time of retirement. Our age and length of service profile, and our attendance profile, differ in some ways from the other groups. I am speaking only for myself, but these two characteristics suggest to me that, as our coming in is so tightly controlled, there may be something to be said for leaving it to the Cross-Benchers to work out for themselves, if given a target at which to aim, how to arrange the going out for our group. But that detail is for another day, and I am happy to support the Motion.
Lord Wakeham (Con)
My Lords, I feel greatly honoured to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, in his speech. I think it is the nearest I will ever get to addressing the Supreme Court. First, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Cormack on securing this important debate, and on all the work that he and others have done to bring to our attention the very important matter of the future of the House of Lords. It is an important debate, and my noble friend is absolutely right: the House of Lords is too big. It is of course much smaller than it used to be not so many years ago, but nevertheless, it is still too big. I am not of the view that it should be reduced to any size in relation to the House of Commons. This House is a part-time House, and long may it continue to be. Therefore, the total numbers are not necessarily quite so critical.
Having expressed my support to my noble friend, I just wonder whether the Government are likely to agree to any changes if those changes require a government Bill. We need to be realistic. In my mind, there are three reasons why this may not happen very soon, and each one of them is likely to be sufficient to delay matters.
First, there is a clue in the lessons from the royal commission report that I chaired some years ago. The House of Lords was not then, and is not now, in a mood to accept a compromise—some Members are, but not enough. Our report, which is now history, was an attempt at a compromise. Many said how good it was but, in the end, not many would have supported it in the Lobbies if it had been brought before the House in the form of a Bill. They were not prepared for that compromise.
The Liberal Democrats want an elected House. Many on this side of the House would like an appointed House. I do not think that has changed very much. Many members of the Labour Party will say that the first thing that has got to happen is that the Prime Minister has to give up his right of patronage. I doubt very much whether a Labour Government would give up the right of patronage as things are at the moment because that is the one ultimate strength an elected Government in the House of Commons has got if the House of Lords is being extremely difficult. Of course it would be possible to change the system but, at the moment, that is not very likely.
The second reason why there will not be any change is, of course, Brexit. Whether any Government would bring in any legislation until the legislation relating to the European questions is dealt with we have no idea. There would certainly be switches across parties if there is legislation. The business managers would be horrified if it was announced that we were going to find a non-voluntary way for people to leave and we had legislation of that sort.
The third difficulty is a little more subtle. I do not know whether the Government realise that the present situation suits them quite well. Bills come from the Commons, are thoroughly debated in the House of Lords—in very good debates, which are still of the high standards they always used to be—and a number of amendments are passed. The Bills go back to the Commons, which deals with them, and the issue then becomes not the substance of the amendments but the elected House against the non-elected House. They go back a couple of times and then this House decides the elected House has to have sway and the thing ends. That is not the way it used to be done. However, it is the way it is done now. It is not very good but I do not think the Government find it necessarily all that difficult.
I therefore thoroughly support my noble friend’s Motion. The House is too big. We ought to find a way of reducing it but a lot more work needs to be done now. We have to find consensus; we have to get Brexit out of the way; and we have to realise that the Government, at the present time, do not find the existing arrangements too arduous.
Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)
My Lords, I also welcome the debate. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and agree with much of what he has said.
There is general agreement—and has been for some time—that this House is too large and increasing frustration on the part of many Members that nothing has been done before now to address the problem. We need now to think about how we deal with the problem rather than arguing whether or not it is one.
A basic fact that I would put in people’s minds is that, according to the Library, 845 people are entitled to sit in this Chamber. The average attendance in 2015-16 was 497. It is not always the same people, of course, but that gives you some idea that we have people who can contribute regularly and people who cannot.
We can criticise how we got here. We know that there was a surge in the influx of Liberal Peers, and that the former Prime Minister pushed every boundary in terms of appointments. I do not want to go into that—tempting though it is—but a couple points have to be made clear. If we are to take steps to reduce the size of this House, we cannot have a Prime Minister of any Government using that as an excuse for stuffing it with more of their appointments. Secondly, we must maintain the principle that no Government have a right to a majority in this House. That would undermine its purpose.
In June 2014 I had the privilege of introducing a debate on the role of this House. The debate arose out of a report written by a working party of Labour Peers. That debate showed that there was widespread support for taking some action on these problems. I remind the House of the basic concept we put forward in that report: there should be a distinction between working Peers—not full-time, of course, but those who regularly take part in the proceedings of the House, speaking, debating, serving on committees, asking Questions—and those who for whatever reason cannot contribute regularly. No one would suggest that those Peers who do not or only rarely contribute should lose their titles. Indeed, there is a possibility of a formal distinction. Maybe we could use a title such as “Peer emeritus”, but certainly a distinction should be made. The essence of the problem is that we have a lot of people who are appointed as Peers but do not see it as their responsibility to be active Members of this House.
Mention has been made of the appropriate numbers. We have to have sufficient Peers to fulfil all the roles suggested and outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. The doomed Clegg Bill suggested 300, but that was generally thought to be too few. We in our working party suggested that 450 might be sufficient to make sure committees could function properly, but certainly, whatever the figure—there is scope for discussion—this place should not be larger than the House of Commons.
There are other ways of looking at this issue that have not been mentioned. An obvious point would be to support the Bill proposed by my noble friend Lord Grocott and end by-elections for hereditary Peers. Some of us would go further and end hereditary peerages altogether and the Bishops’ Benches, but that would require legislation and is just a personal view.
We could and should look at retirement age. Our working party suggested that we should retire at the general election after we reach the age of 80. There was a suggestion of limits on the length of time we spend in this House—maybe 15 years. It has a disadvantage: it might deter younger people. We thought about whether there should be an attendance requirement. This is not a full-time job, but it may not be unreasonable to suggest that we should attend and contribute 60% of the time the House is sitting.
None of those suggestions deals directly with the problems of ensuring proper political or regional balance, or balance of gender or ethnicity, but none of those problems is insurmountable. There can be solutions if there is a will and determination.
I hope this debate is not simply one to allow Members to let off steam. Unless this House can take steps itself to deal with its own problems, we may face more difficulties in future. It is a critical time in politics. As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, this House has a significant contribution to make, but people will look at what we are doing only if we put our own House in order as well.
Lord Tyler (LD)
My Lords, the position of my party is very straightforward and consistent. This is the one respect in which we agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. We endorse the primacy of the House of Commons.
It is therefore important to remind your Lordships that on 10 July 2012, a clear majority of Conservative MPs—193 to 89—voted for the Second Reading of the coalition Government’s House of Lords Reform Bill, including David Cameron and Theresa May. Great credit is due to the then Sir George Young, now the noble Lord, Lord Young, who led them into the Lobby. An even bigger majority of Labour MPs did so too: 202 to 26, including their then leader and the present one. All the Liberal Democrat MPs supported the Bill, as did a number of minor parties. The result was an overwhelming majority in the other House of 338. As we have been reminded, the other House is supreme.
That was scarcely surprising. The Bill was the product of years of cross-party preparation and careful compromise, building on the Labour Government’s 2008 White Paper and many months of pre-legislative scrutiny by a high-powered Joint Committee.
In the current era of threatened post-truth politics, it is important to remind your Lordships’ House that that Bill was not defeated; instead, it was the victim of a squalid party game played by some Tory Back-Benchers colluding with the then Labour Front Bench to deny the coalition Government an agreement such that time could be allocated to the Bill’s scrutiny in a business-like way. Indeed, the Labour Front Bench would not even suggest a preferred time for its consideration. Had that Bill not been derailed by tribal tactics, we would now be well on the way to dealing with the problems identified in this debate, with an end total membership of 450—here again, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor.
Political appointments would have ceased in 2015 and instead we would have had the first tranche of elected Peers—or perhaps they would have been senators—including, no doubt, several excellent new recruits, among them those who all around the House now come to us in a different capacity. The essential difference would have been that they would have come with democratic legitimacy. For us, the 2012 Bill is still the starting point for a full, comprehensive and democratic response to the frequently reiterated public demand for reform of the composition of your Lordships’ House.
There have been many variations of musical chairs suggested by those who want to tinker with the problem. What they have in common is a denial of surely the first principle of parliamentary democracy: for legislators to be at least predominantly elected. In our view, the suggestion of an upper, or indeed lower, age limit is unacceptably ageist. If the electorate wish to be represented by a 75 year-old or a 25 year-old, that should be up to them. If on the other hand there is the incestuous suggestion that group or party colleagues should select who goes and who stays, that would simply reinforce the public impression that we are a self-serving elite. Any artificial quota on speeches, Questions or days of attendance would be open to blatant mismanagement. If the electorate wished to retain the services of a representative whose busy life outside Parliament gave him or her extra dispassionate, well-informed judgment, it should be entirely up to them and not to the whims of party Whips or group leaders.
Every single one of those devious schemes has major disadvantages. Significantly, when the public are asked to express a preference, there is a much bigger group now demanding total abolition than supporting the present, very unsatisfactory appointments system or any other proposed modifications of it. Those in this House who continue to obstruct real democratic reform risk an increasing public demand for a unicameral Parliament, which my colleagues and I certainly do not support.
In short, the only acceptable method for reducing the size of a House of Parliament in a parliamentary democracy is democracy.
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham
My Lords, I am pleased to be able to contribute to this important debate and am grateful to the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, in which we are allowed to participate from time to time, for bringing it to us today. I am also grateful for the remarks of the noble Lords and noble Baronesses who have already spoken. I have written down that I share their widely shared view that the House is too large, and I shall start on that point.
We have realised in recent debates, particularly those led in the past couple of months by the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Elton, that arriving at a satisfactory mechanism for achieving the best number for and the highest quality of the second Chamber is no easy task. We can and should, as we are doing today, grasp the opportunity to take responsibility ourselves for reducing the size of the House as best we can. We have already heard several suggestions for the best number: the same size as the other place—about 600; the number of 450 proposed by the Labour Party; or even a smaller number. We already have voluntary retirement, but in any new arrangements the reduction of overall numbers by compulsory retirement will also be ineffective unless there is restraint on appointments. This point was already made in some detail.
I am sure that more will be said today about who should make up the composition of your Lordships’ House, in what proportions and how they should be selected and appointed. My main point today is to remind us that the Lords spiritual have been capped by statute since the middle of the 19th century to the number of 26. Also, there is automatic retirement at the moment that a Bishop leaves their see or at the age of 70. Following the excellent reminder from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, the Convenor of the Cross Benches, we are unusual in that we are appointed by the Almighty and dismissed by the Almighty but with time for amendment of life before we have to face the Almighty. Clearly, while we remain in the House we do so with enthusiasm, participating on the basis of our full-time jobs in the regions. In the context of this debate, we fully participate in a sense of proportionality, in that the size of this Bench should be in proportion to the size of your Lordships’ House in future.
Of course, the number is not the only issue. This is particularly important when we remind ourselves, as we have already, that the work of the House is about revising, scrutiny and, sometimes, challenging. To achieve that, it is desirable to have the widest and most skilful and knowledgeable expertise available from all regions of the country participating in support of the democratic process of this legislature. In this, there is a vital contribution from the Cross-Benchers and independent Peers. As has already been pointed out, much of this has been rehearsed as far back as the White Paper of 2001, in the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and—as just mentioned now—the Bill of 2012. A welcome new critique was offered by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza—I look forward to hearing her remarks later in this debate—on not only the effectiveness of some of our arrangements but also the strain on services and administration under the current size of the House.
It is clear that there is no pain-free option, and there is a need for all sides to give a little in order for the upper House to function better. There is in some of the proposals an opportunity for a working group or, as has been mentioned, a Select Committee of all parties to agree a mechanism. The Lords spiritual on this Bench are more than willing to participate in achieving a fully working reform of this House.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, I start by congratulating my noble friends who lead the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber. That group’s discussions and the debate we are having today show that there is a consensus that we must make some changes to the House of Lords so that our important work remains relevant to the modern world. In doing so, we should have an eye to the message of change that many voters rightly associate with the Brexit result.
My message is that we—your Lordships—have all the power we need to make positive change happen. In this debate, the premise is that the size of the House is the problem that needs addressing and that we should explore options to reduce it. But we need to be careful about addressing symptoms before tackling the cause of this perceived problem. We cannot escape the fact that there are 400 fewer of us than there used to be overall, yet more of us attend more frequently. So, before taking steps to reduce the size of the House, we need to consider some basic questions. First, why are more of us attending more often? Secondly, why do we hear disproportionately more often from the same colleagues? Thirdly, how can we ensure that more of our colleagues with current and fresh professional expertise contribute to our work so that we do the best possible job of revising and improving the legislation before us?
This House is at its best when it is not overtly party political and when it works together to find solutions in the public interest. I would like to believe that all of us agree that we owe it to the people we serve to come up with some honest, non-partisan answers to those questions. I think the source of those answers lies in us reaching a consensus and clarity over this House’s purpose. I believe that our purpose is to complement the House of Commons and give people confidence in the laws that Parliament makes. That is why we are doing all this revising and scrutinising. But the fact that I cannot articulate that purpose, or any other, and know for sure that all Members of this House endorse it and are genuinely signed up to it is what will put our future at risk.
It is not by chance that the media now routinely ask how a piece of legislation will fare in this House. I am not seeking to lay blame on any side of the political divide for that—I am not. We all—and I include the Cross-Benchers and the bishops—have to accept some responsibility for the inescapable reality that for the past 15 years or so this House has become more political in its behaviour. Too often one side of the House is frustrating the will of the elected Government because it can; while the Government are so focused on getting their legislative programme through at all costs that they struggle to discern when to stop and listen.
I fear that if we start down a path of change towards a goal marked simply, “smaller House of Lords”, we could compound that problem yet further. Fewer of us attending more frequently would diminish our range of expertise, and using election results to determine the numbers in this House would encourage us to be even more political—with the result that it would be hard to tell us apart from the House of Commons. We would have all the vices without the virtues.
However, if we could reach consensus on what the House of Lords exists for and unite in promoting that purpose, I truly believe that we would become more effective. That is because it would become clear to everyone that the motive of this House collectively, wherever any Peer sits in this Chamber, is to improve—not block or hijack—legislation for the benefit of the people of this country; in other words, it would be clear that all noble Lords believe that the value of this House lies in its important constitutional role, which is different from that of the more political House of Commons. The other place should be more political because only it has the authority that comes from democratic legitimacy.
My noble friend Lord Cormack has expressed the urgency of us taking action. The action I urge is for all noble Lords to encourage my noble friend and distinguished successor the Leader of the House, the Lord Speaker, the other party leaders and the Convenor to seek consensus and clarity over this House’s purpose. That is what we need to be a more effective second Chamber. We hold all the power we need to make change happen. We just need to agree what this House is for and be united in working towards that common public purpose.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
My Lords, realistically there is to my mind only one answer to the central question raised by today’s Motion: yes. Swollen as this House now is, not least through a whole host of new appointments by Mr Cameron over recent years, we are plainly too large and we are widely mocked on that account.
There may be those who say—the noble Baroness our erstwhile Leader, whom it is a great privilege to follow, may be among them—that this is not a real problem; rather, it is a problem only of perception. They say, “Make clear what we do: our valuable work in scrutinising and revising legislation. Indeed, what an advantage it is to have a number of Members who seldom appear, rarely therefore claim allowances or clutter up our facilities, but who contribute usefully on those occasions when their particular expertise is required”, and the problem disappears. If only that were so; I fear that that is cloud-cuckoo-land. Unless we reduce in size, certainly to a number no larger than the Commons, we will continue to be regarded and portrayed as absurdly overweight and our reputation will thereby suffer. We must therefore now explore the methods by which we can achieve such a reduction. Plainly, this is not the debate and today is not the day that we should be committing ourselves to precisely how this can be done and which of us should be culled.
I certainly agree with the views expressed by a number of those in the group of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who wrote a letter published in the Times on Saturday. They said that the Commons must remain supreme as it alone has the democratic mandate; that no single party should command an overall majority in the House; that party strength should “broadly reflect” electoral results—failures as well as successes; and that at least 20% of our membership should be Cross-Benchers and thus independent of any party affiliation. That much seems to me reasonably clear. But how precisely within those basic parameters we should reduce our numbers—with perhaps some transitional arrangements—must be for a smaller body within the House to explore. Given that the recommendations of such a body will need to be as authoritative as possible, surely the best body would be a Select Committee, as already suggested. Indeed, I would go further and say—although he may not forgive my doing so—that it should be a Select Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, who made such a conspicuous success of his committee’s consideration of the tricky questions that arose under the Trade Union Bill.
I add only this. It seems clear that we shall not achieve our ultimate aim of reducing in size unless and until two basic conditions are satisfied. First, the Government will not assist us in our proposed reform unless we ourselves reach a substantial consensus as to how to achieve it—as I say, I hope that will be by a Select Committee. Secondly, there never will be such a consensus unless and until the Prime Minister’s prerogative and powers of patronage to continue flooding us with new appointments is abridged, curtailed or attenuated, call it what you will. That would probably be best achieved by legislating for a cap on our number, perhaps one flexible enough to cater for a limited number of fresh appointments to meet any immediate ministerial requirements.
For now, however, I hope that your Lordships will pass the present Motion with acclaim. The public should know that it is not our fault that the House is so overlarge and that we ourselves wish it were not so. I hope, too, that the House authorities will immediately then appoint a Select Committee to report speedily upon how best to achieve the slimmed-down House that most of us desire.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, I was very proud to be elected earlier this year as chairman of the Association of Conservative Peers. I was then immediately able to endorse and promulgate a discussion paper recently produced by the executive committee of the association, and I congratulate my predecessor and noble friend Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market, who deserves much credit for this sensible, pragmatic and, most important of all, highly practicable piece of work to which he will speak later in the debate.
I hope that colleagues on all sides will recognise that the paper was drafted not from a partisan point of view but because we all want this House to be genuinely effective. In order to meet any useful conclusions at all, it was necessary to begin our work having made five assumptions, which bear repetition. First, this House is presently too large; secondly, the House of Lords should have as an objective a membership no larger than that of the other place; thirdly, the Government of the day should not enjoy an absolute majority; fourthly, Cross-Benchers should comprise at least 20% of the House; and, fifthly and finally, the composition of the House should be responsive to any major changes in support for political parties in general elections.
The very fact that those assumptions could safely be made without any significant demur from any side shows how far we have come in the almost 17 years since the report of the royal commission to which my noble friend Lord Wakeham referred earlier. The ACP paper also draws fully on the very helpful options paper prepared for the subgroup on the size of the House by the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber. The paper acknowledges first and foremost that there is no ideal solution. Instead, it seeks—and I believe succeeds in finding—a judicious balance, a synthesis even, between the various options that have previously been regarded as mutually incompatible. The broad approach recommended is a combination of a retirement age and allocating seats based on party strength in a general election, with both to take effect from the start of the next Parliament. I firmly believe that a cross-party consensus is now a genuine possibility, and I warmly commend the ACP report as a possible basis for such a consensus.
I want to remind the House that six years ago I served as chairman of the Leader’s Group on Members leaving the House. It is perhaps a sombre thought, but Members leaving the House must inevitably be the key to any meaningful reform. Our report was published on 13 January 2011. Much of its spirit was captured in the reforms instituted by the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood. One or two other suggestions in that report are worth revisiting. In particular, I draw the attention of the House to paragraph 63, where we recommended that,
“in future the honour of a life peerage should not automatically entail appointment to membership of the House, which should be reserved to those who are willing to make a significant commitment to public service in Parliament”.
A precedent of sorts has already been set for hereditary Peers who have left the House or who have inherited titles since the reforms of the late 1990s and for those who have taken retirement, and I understand that 52 of our noble colleagues have done so. It seems to me increasingly anachronistic that we have, outside this Chamber with no right to speak or vote here, hundreds of people with inherited titles and a growing number of retired colleagues with life peerages, yet every new peerage necessarily confers on the recipient a parliamentary role. I believe it may now be time to extend that principle of separation to include the creation of new life Peers who have no intention of becoming active parliamentarians. Of course, that echoes much of what has already been recommended.
Rightly, we respect our inheritance, but we have to be sensitive to the changing demands and expectations of modern society. I believe we have within our grasp the possibility of creating a modern, credible, bicameral legislature, well respected by the people, well suited to its real and present role and well equipped to face the considerable challenges of the future.
Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)
My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Baroness the Leader of the House and the Government Chief Whip for providing this debate in government time, which is a big step forward compared with the recent past, and secondly, I strongly support and endorse the Motion moved so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. The reality is that it is a fairly simple Motion on the Order Paper today—one might almost say bland. Since most people recognise that the size of your Lordships’ House is our biggest problem and our greatest vulnerability, it is surprising to hear speeches which suggest that there is nothing for us to be concerned about. I find that quite astonishing. I also found it astonishing to hear people say there is no need for us to take this step. I do not think that view is widely held outside your Lordships’ House.
Of course reducing the numbers in this House will be very difficult and complicated, but we are not here to discuss the details of that today; we are here to decide whether we support this Motion or not and whether we should begin to look at the problem. As I was always told when I was a small boy, the best way to tackle a problem is to begin, and that is what we are being asked to do today. The details of the proposals will best be decided by a Select Committee of this House, which can thoroughly study all the issues, take evidence, listen to witnesses and come to a series of consensual conclusions—I believe this is possible—which protect party and Cross-Bench balance and, I might say, the Lord Bishops too. That is what our aim should be, and it is in the interests of all of us—Parliament and government—that the unnecessarily large number of Peers is reduced.
What we should be doing in this debate today is sending a clear message to the Government and to the people outside that we want to take on this challenge. After all, the people of this country will ask how, if we cannot deal with our own problems, we can expect them to have confidence in us to deal with the manifest problems they face every day of their lives. As I said earlier, the time for us to begin to address this problem is now.
Baroness Boothroyd (CB)
My Lords, I begin by stating the obvious: this is a very complicated and deep-rooted issue. We cannot of course determine it this afternoon, or at any other time in a debate such as we are having today, but I certainly support the call for a Select Committee that was enunciated by the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, to explore all these great matters and to report back to us.
However, I caution your Lordships that the reforms we need will not be easily won and that much will depend on the willingness of party leaders in this House to work together. The parallel inquiry in the House of Commons that has been mentioned is already under way, and I hope that both Houses will exert their joint influence when the two inquiries—ours and theirs, as I hope we will have an inquiry—report.
The last Conservative manifesto commended us for addressing the size of the second Chamber and the retirement of Peers. Sadly, Governments tend to have short memories. David Cameron ignored his manifesto’s reference to our bulging size within three months. He inflated the size of this Chamber and—I believe—tarnished our reputation. In his Dissolution Honours List, 45 new Peers were introduced. The figures are there for all to see. Without the intervention of the Appointments Commission, the damage might have been even worse.
That is one of the reasons why we need an Appointments Commission on a statutory basis with the powers to curb the unrestricted use of patronage that Prime Ministers currently enjoy. We cannot be easily abolished, as Prime Minister Cameron and his deputy, Nick Clegg, found—but Downing Street can swamp us, and it has done so already.
We are in a new era, with a good deal of legislation to face over the coming years. We must be alert, probing and assertive. As has already been said many times, we respect the primacy of the Commons. But that respect must be mutual, and a smaller number of Members would ensure that. The Commons will have 600 MPs after the next election and I believe that our Chamber should match that, with around 400 working Peers. There seems to be a good deal of agreement on the numbers game.
I pay tribute to the work of the Appointments Commission and the thoroughness with which it interviews non-party nominees. But, for the life of me, I cannot comprehend why, when it is interviewing political nominees, it is not allowed to carry out the same rigorous interviews to ensure probity, experience, suitability and devotion to public service. To me, it is an affront when a Peer says that he thought his peerage was a reward for his success as a composer and he did not expect to attend debates and vote on policy issues. Likewise, No. 10 advisers sent here as lobby fodder who cannot speak do us a disservice. The mother of Parliaments is not mute.
Yesterday the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, called for incremental reform. She said in an email circulated by the Constitution Unit that,
“one cannot escape the conclusion that appointments too often reflect Prime Ministers’ personal preferences, which in turn are offered as rewards for support of a financial or non-financial kind”.
I respect her courteous restraint, but I speak as I find. The repeated abuse of Prime Ministers’ powers of privilege is as plain as a pikestaff. To my mind, it betrays arrogance, reeks of hypocrisy and has no place in a parliamentary system. The abolition of their untrammelled power is long overdue. Begone, I say—and I hope Theresa May takes note.
Lord Tebbit (Con)
My Lords, the need to reform the way in which this House is composed and reduce its size is common ground. There has been a growing problem for some years over the size of the House. That was seen very clearly by Mr Cameron when he was Prime Minister; he sensibly declared that there were too many of us and that our membership should broadly reflect the votes cast at the immediately preceding general election. Unhappily, he ignored his own advice. Indeed, in his six years in office he created 245 new Members, a sharp contrast to Baroness Thatcher’s 201 in 11 years. Not only that: he made no UKIP Peers, but made a large number of others with very little electoral support.
We must do better than that. We have a great opportunity, since the Prime Minister at the moment has more than enough urgent matters on her plate and might well welcome a consensus reached here. Of course, if the House was stupid enough to attempt to frustrate the will of the people expressed in the referendum then that would force her to act, so I hope there are not too many kamikaze Peers in this House.
I hope I will be forgiven if I try to say a lot about a complex matter in a very short time. My proposals for reform of the House are based on these considerations. First, it should not be directly elected by the country at large. Secondly, it should be reduced in size to about 600 to 650 Members. Thirdly, the power of the patronage of the Prime Minister should be reduced. Fourthly, the composition of the House should be decided afresh, immediately after the forthcoming general election, and it should reflect the outcome of that election. Fifthly, there should be provision for the Bishops and the Cross-Benchers. Sixthly, the governing party should have about 260 Peers, of whom 20 would be nominated by the Prime Minister, the remainder elected by and from among the Peers of that party or parties. Seventhly, the Opposition should have 240 Peers, 20 nominated by the Leader of the Opposition and the others chosen by election among the sitting Peers of that party or its allies.
The time to institute this change should be immediately after the next election. Those Peers elected would be described as sitting Peers, all others as reserve Peers, who would have no rights except to stand in by-elections and stand and vote in the subsequent election. After the subsequent general election, all Peers—both sitting and reserve—would be able to stand and vote in their respective parties’ elections. There should be provision for the Prime Minister to create up to five Peers a year for the government Front Bench, and others in the Dissolution Honours List, the latter category having the right to stand for election to the post-election House. There should be a similar provision for the Leader of the Opposition.
I am sorry to spill such a bib full of complex proposals in a very short time. Hopefully, when colleagues read the Hansard report of our debate, they will make sense. It is important that we have a concept of how the process could be done, and I am sure that we would be right to take our cue from the way in which the hereditary Peers elect from their own kind to replace Members as they fall by the wayside. I do not think it is that difficult. It can be done, and the sooner we get about doing it, the better.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted to have a chance to take part in this debate, and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for having initiated it. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, who may be disconcerted to find that I have a large measure of agreement with what he said—unusually.
Of course we are too large, of course our functions must influence the size that we end up with, and of course the primacy of the Commons has to be maintained. I had the privilege of serving on the committee led by my noble friend Lady Taylor, and we came up with about 450 Members as the right size, with a number of other suggestions, most of which my noble friend has already iterated. Of course, we also need a bicameral system. I know in the past people have said that the easiest option is just to abolish this House and not replace it. I reject that entirely. I value this House and I feel very privileged to have been Member for some years—some would say for too long.
How do we move forward? I have one suggestion, which is meant seriously although it will be assumed I am not serious. Why do we not establish a position whereby those Members of this House who wish to stay as Members relinquish their titles, but if they leave the House they can retain their titles? I say that in all seriousness because I think it might work. The last time I raised it, people laughed at me, but we will see. I reject the idea that there is a case for appointing Peers for a fixed term of, say, 10 years. That, as my noble friend Lady Taylor said, simply means only older people would do it. The younger ones would not because they would have a career left that they could not easily take up.
I think there are three options. First, we could have an elected House, or at least a 90% elected House. It is still the option I favour, although I agree it is not very popular here. Secondly, as my noble friend’s committee suggested, we should reduce the House according to low levels of participation and high levels of years. That would enable us to get the House to be made smaller, although it would be contentious as to how it could be brought about. We need a constitutional commission to deal with this. A Select Committee has been suggested. Maybe that would work, but a constitutional commission might be better than a Select Committee because we would not be looking after our own.
Of course we must maintain a political balance, so that no one party dominates. At my age, I would be happy to fall on my sword provided that others also did so, or provided we had a clear-out of those who did not conform to the idea that they should be achieving a certain level of participation. On that basis, I would happily go, but others would have to join me as well. The Labour Party in this House is probably older than the other parties, so if we had a percentage reduction, that would hit the Labour Party much harder than other parties, so we have to be aware lest that might happen.
The question is whether the baseline for any change should be the percentage of existing Members here or bear some relationship to the strength in the Commons. I know that the Lib Dems would not be very keen on that, but would it not have some sort of logic? What I do not like—although it has not been suggested specifically—is what I call the Billy Bragg idea. He said that the House should be re-established not just after every election but that we should start again with zero membership and the political parties could appoint their Members. That would be a recipe for a sycophantic House, which is the last thing that we would want. Where would our level of independence go?
However, if we did it as the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, suggested, and simply vote in each party group and on the Cross Benches for who should remain, based on a baseline percentage, I think that would work pretty well. I know that it has been called a circular firing squad, but I think it would not be a bad idea. After all, the hereditary Peers did that, way back in 1999, and it seemed to work quite well. That would be a quick and easy way—it would not deal with the sophistication of my noble friend’s report, but it would be a quick and effective way in which to reduce the size of the House.
Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. I hope that he will not go just yet, because we would lose a huge amount in this House if he did. I am glad to take part briefly in this debate. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, on initiating the debate but also on the work of his group on the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber. The title says it all: our constitution needs a Second Chamber, not to challenge the primacy of the Commons but to revise and improve legislation and hold the Government to account through debates and committees.
As with all organisations, the House’s ability to carry out its task effectively depends in good part on its reputation, and its reputation depends in good part on its size—and not just its size but on the rather haphazard and, to almost everyone outside the House, pretty incomprehensible way in which appointments and retirements are carried out. I agree with those who have said that the House is too large and should be reduced. I agree very much with the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, that 450 is a good size. I shall not pursue that argument further now, although I am attracted by the arguments of the noble Lords, Lord Tebbit and Lord Dubs, on how we might bring that about.
The right way in which to address an issue as important to our constitution as the size of the House is through a properly constituted Select Committee of this House. I do not think that Leader’s groups or other less formal groups would reflect the importance of the task to the House itself or to the constitution of this country. I am reinforced in that view by my five years as chairman of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. Those five years were a huge pleasure and, even more than that, an enormous privilege. But throughout those years, I felt uneasy that a task as important as nominating Cross-Benchers of this House and vetting political appointments for propriety should be carried out by a body that was accountable to the Prime Minister of the day and not accountable to your Lordships’ House. I persuaded the Leader of the House of the day, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, that I should be accountable on behalf of the commission to the Constitution Committee of this House once a year. That was not a natural thing for a former public servant to do, but it was important to do it.
It has been argued that any future appointments commission should be charged, in addition to its present functions, with selecting members of political parties on grounds of suitability, not just propriety. My noble friend Lady Boothroyd spoke very eloquently on that subject. Not only that, but it has sometimes been proposed that a new appointments commission should also decide which Members of the House should be obliged to retire and which might be allowed to stay. It goes without saying that such a commission, which would be not only an appointments commission but, I fear, a disappointments commission, would have to be on a statutory basis. I support those who argue that an effective second Chamber, which is a key element in our constitution, needs to be significantly smaller than today and that the right way to address these complex issues and get to that goal should be through a Select Committee of your Lordships’ House.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Jay, with all his experience. I agree with every word he said. I also echo the thanks that have been expressed to the Leader of the House for making this debate possible. In the debate so far there already seems to be a degree of consensus which many people said did not exist.
The summer before last, I went to a wedding. I did not know many people there and I found myself on a round table for 12. Someone at the far side of the table leaned across and said: “Michael, are you still involved in front-line politics”? I said: “No, not at all, but I do try and do my bit in the House of Lords”. To this, he said: “Oh, I expect you are like all the others: you turn up for five minutes and claim your £300”. I shall not tell you what I responded, but I regret that this is a view which is widely held, not just about me but about every single person in this Chamber. Among the many important things said by the noble Lord, Lord Jay, the most important was that the effectiveness of this House depends upon our reputation: our reputation is at an all-time low. I know that Parliament goes through bad periods. When the other place caught fire, people were in the streets cheering the fact. There is nothing new in Parliament being unpopular, but as my noble friend Lady Stowell said, when she mentioned the impact of Brexit, this should, if nothing else, alert us to the dangers of ignoring the views of people and living in a bubble where you can pretend that things are different from what they are or that they are as you would like them to be.
The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, suggested that some people are so angry that they are in favour of abolition. When there are nine MPs in the other place at the end of the building and 104 Peers sitting on these Benches, I can see why they might be inclined towards abolition. We know that the work done in this place is immensely effective, not just in the Chamber but by the Select Committees. The Economic Affairs Select Committee—I declare an interest because I am on it—produced a brilliant report on the housing problem. I was even persuaded to go along with the fact that we needed to build more council houses. It was based on evidence and consensus. As my noble friend Lord Young said in the debate the other day, many of the ideas will be included in the Government’s forthcoming White Paper. Did it get any publicity? A smidgen. Did anyone take any notice? Hardly any. Notwithstanding the excellent work done by the Information Committee and the officials who work to promote the House, this House really needs to do something about improving our PR and ability to communicate the work which we do here.
Some people say, and I agree, that the House is too large. However, there is absolutely no point in reducing its size if we do not put a limit on it. There is no point in having a limit if we do not do something about appointments. The noble Lord, Lord Jay, is much more tactful than I am. He said that he enjoyed being chairman of the Appointments Commission for five years. I would have found it an absolute nightmare, because that commission is used to justify appointments to this House. The public think that because they have been to the commission, all political appointments have been interviewed. They think they have actually been asked: have you got the time to do the job, are you prepared to make the commitment, what experience have you got? The Government tell people like me, who are appointing people to boards in financial services, that we must look at balance and experience; we must have a proper interview process and avoid any sense of patronage being used. Yet when it comes to the most important body in the land, which is responsible for revising legislation, there is no interview process. I asked a question the other day and my noble friend—I know she did not have a choice—answered that the Government felt it was up to the political parties to be accountable for the appointments that they make. Where is the accountability for some of the appointments that have been made in the past? I believe that the Appointments Commission, like every other organisation, should be able to interview people before they are appointed to this place to see whether they have the necessary qualities.
My noble friend Lady Stowell talked about the importance of the House’s role in revising legislation and helping the Government to achieve the best legislation. However, we are not the Executive’s little helpers; we are here to make sure that they are held to account. I regret to say that I loyally voted with the Government on the tax credits measure. However, when we voted down the secondary legislation on tax credits, we did the Government an enormous favour and saved millions of people in our country from a huge loss of benefits. When the measure went to the other end of the building, what happened? They all woke up to the measure’s consequences, and the Chancellor dropped the proposal entirely because he could not get it through the House of Commons, not because he could not get it through the House of Lords. Therefore, I believe that this House does an excellent job. It needs to be reduced in size. I agree with many of the ideas put forward by my noble friend Lord Tebbit and by my noble friend Lord Cormack in his excellent address. This is not the occasion to work out how we do that but we need to do it now. The Motion does not say how it should be done. There should be a Select Committee to bring forward recommendations so that we are in a position to go into another Parliament with a House that commands the respect that this place deserves for the excellent work which it does.
Southern Rail Services
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given earlier today by my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport to an Urgent Question on Southern Rail services. The Statement is as follows.
“Performance on the Southern network has been affected by a combination of factors over the previous months. These have included trade union action, infrastructure reliability and operator issues. The unions have stepped up their industrial action in the run-up to Christmas, additionally co-ordinating it with action on the Underground network. Let me be clear: this strike action is politically motivated and has affected passengers for far too long. Union leaders have even described the action as ‘carrying on Fidel’s work’. This will be of no comfort to passengers who just want to get to work.
I have a letter here to the Member for Bexhill and Battle from the Director of Railway Safety at the Office of Rail and Road. Responding to the safety concern from the unions, Ian Prosser says, ‘DOO is safe’. So the RMT and ASLEF should not be misleading the public about their dispute with GTR. Once again I can assure the hard-working staff on the GTR franchise. No train staff are losing pay and no one is losing their job.
Passengers want and deserve improvements which is why, in September, the Secretary of State appointed Chris Gibb, a leading railways professional, to work with the operator and Network Rail to identify areas where performance on the network can be improved quickly. Some of these £20 million of interventions are already under way and will be making a significant difference now. However, owing to continued industrial action by RMT, and now the planned action by ASLEF, Southern Rail services are to be subject to delays and alterations now and over the coming weeks.
In recognition of the disruption to services this year, the Secretary of State announced on 2 December a refund package that will compensate season ticket holders with a package equivalent to one free month in acknowledgement of the exceptional issues experienced this year. He also announced that GTR will be the first franchise to introduce Delay Repay 15, starting on 11 December. But compensation is not enough—we have to restore timely, predictable and punctual rail services. That is why the work of Mr Gibb is focusing on reducing the Network Rail faults. It is why we have new safe DOO trains that can cope with the volume of people wanting to use them. It is why I will continue to ensure that the management of the train operating company is doing everything in its power to run improved services. But we also need the union leaders to stop their needless, unreliable and disproportionate politically motivated strike”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
I thank the Minister for repeating the Answer to the Urgent Question that was asked earlier today in the other place. Southern’s poor service record stretches back to mid-2015, so it is not simply related to any current dispute with its staff. Yet passengers face government-sanctioned above-inflation fare increases in just a few weeks.
I have two questions. First, is it the Government’s view that the actions and decisions of both sides have contributed to the current dispute, or do the Government fully support Southern in everything it has done over the last 18 months on quality of service and industrial relations issues? Secondly, what is the total amount of financial support the Government have so far provided or announced that they will provide, as a consequence of the dispute, to GTR, Southern’s owner, either directly or indirectly? Alternatively, will the owner have to bear the full costs of any loss of its revenue, payment of compensation or penalties for any breaches of contract as a result of the impact of the dispute on the level of service being provided and the numbers of passengers travelling? I imagine that the House will take a dim view if the Minister prays in aid commercial confidentiality for not responding to my question about the extent or otherwise of financial support.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his questions. He asked whether the Government are supporting one side over the other. The Government support the need to get this service back on track to get it running for the benefit of those long-suffering passengers. Therefore the short answer is that of course actions and improvements are required from both sides on this dispute. The noble Lord also asked about issues relating to the compensation that has been paid. I will write to him with the specific details.
Lord Snape (Lab)
My Lords, as, I suspect, the only former railway guard who is a Member of your Lordships’ House, I point out that the Government bear some responsibility for this dispute. They insist, to a supposedly privatised railway, that new rolling stock is geared for driver-only operation. They insist, to a supposedly privatised railway, that driver-only operation is perfectly safe. They refuse to listen to ASLEF, the drivers’ union, which points out that on a 12-coach commuter train, the driver—who might stop at 50 different stations during the course of an eight-hour shift—has six television screens to look at each time. Understandably, that union feels that the driver’s concentration is not what it should be at the end of an eight-hour shift. The Government and the train operating companies refuse to acknowledge the fact that the second person on the train does not just collect tickets and check revenue, which is all the train operating companies care about, but help passengers on and off the train, particularly those with disabilities who cannot get on and off it themselves. Finally, will the Minister finally accept that it ill serves all of us to have to listen to the sort of claptrap about Cuba and Fidel that he has just subjected us to?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I will respond to the substantive questions that the noble Lord—
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I always seek to respond to all. The noble Lord obviously speaks from personal experience of the industry, which is always respected in this House. He raised the issue of the dispute. I remind noble Lords that 230 of the 232 who are concerned or involved with this dispute have already signed new contracts for the DOO system. The noble Lord raises, and is right to raise, important issues of health and safety. I assure him that, as I mentioned in the Statement I repeated, Ian Prosser of the ORR specifically wrote to my honourable friend in the other place, the Member for Bexhill and Battle, having looked at all the issues, including those raised by the noble Lord on health and safety, and after all the checks had been conducted he concluded that this service is safe and continues to be safe. In response to the noble Lord’s specific questions, I am happy to share the details of that letter with him. The health and safety issues that he has rightly raised in this House have been addressed by the Government and we have also had discussions about them with the ORR.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, it seems that the regular Christmas rail chaos will be even worse on Southern. We have already had more than 18 months of rail chaos, and in many cases passengers in that area have no alternative but to travel on those trains. Some of them have lost their jobs and some have certainly missed vital appointments. There seems to be stalemate in this dispute, with the economy of the south-east being very seriously damaged by it. The Government appear to be determined to beat the union and the union is equally determined to beat the Government. The Secretary of State said that it was his priority when he came into post, and I ask the Minister whether that remains the case. If so, I dread to think what happens to the things further down his list. He seems to have made no progress on this.
Will the Government consider cancelling the fare rise due to come in at the beginning of next year? It seems greatly unfair for passengers on this line to face higher fares for a lower and lower standard of service. Finally, has the Minister made any progress on the issue that I raised with him earlier—that is, accepting claims for compensation via apps?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble Baroness raises some important points. On the fares increase, the Government have recently announced a substantial compensation package, which reflects the priority that the Secretary of State is giving this issue. The compensation will reflect the challenges—the delays and cancellations—that have impacted on the people using the service.
I have taken back to the department the noble Baroness’s point about the apps. We are looking at what measures can be put in place to ensure that claims for compensation are dealt with effectively and efficiently.
On the question of prioritising this issue, the Secretary of State and my honourable friend the Rail Minister, whose Statement I have repeated, are both dealing directly with this matter. The noble Baroness will be aware that the Rail Minister meets Network Rail and GTR weekly and that I recently held a briefing session for all Peers on this important issue. During that meeting I gave an assurance that the Rail Minister and I will continue to have formal quarterly updates to ensure that the challenges facing commuters, including Members of your Lordships’ House, are prioritised appropriately and that the relevant issues are brought to bear on the railway operator.
Viscount Goschen (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as someone who has attempted to use this service. I thank my noble friend for arranging that extremely helpful briefing meeting with his colleague, the Rail Minister.
Do my noble friend and the Government have confidence in Southern’s ability to deliver an effective rail service? When does he think that this appalling and unacceptable situation, in which a very large area of the country is no longer served by a predictable rail service, will be resolved? Has not the time come for stronger action by the Government? Perhaps my noble friend can also help me and other people who use the railway to understand why the RMT is still on strike when the majority of the conductors have agreed to the new contract.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I assure my noble friend that the Government are looking for this long-standing dispute to be resolved as quickly as possible and have repeatedly called on all sides to come back to the negotiating table. I acknowledge that there are three elements to this issue, as set out in the Statement. First, there is the industrial action, which needs to be resolved. Secondly, why the strike persists when the substantial majority of those impacted—230 out of 232—have signed new contracts is a question for the unions to answer. The third element in the equation is, of course, the issue with Network Rail, which is responsible for the infrastructure. In that regard, the appointment of Chris Gibb to work specifically with both the franchise operator and Network Rail will ensure that we can identify the issues and, more importantly, address them as quickly and efficiently as possible. His report is due with the Secretary of State at the end of this year.
House of Lords: Size
(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, when I was introduced to the House in 1999, there were more than 1,000 Members, and if all the hereditary Peers entitled to claim membership had done so, the size of the House might have been as high as 1,400. There should, therefore, be proper perspective in these debates about the fact that the House now comprises an actual membership of 809, of whom about 500 are active. This figure of active Members is not much higher than the figure of 450 proposed for a reformed House in the 2012 House of Lords Reform Bill. That figure was agreed by a Joint Committee of both Houses as the minimum number in a reformed House that would have enabled the House to function and to provide proper representation of political opinion in the nations and regions of the UK. So how have we got to a point at which the reputation of the House now suffers as its absolute membership has grown from not much more than 600 when most of the hereditary peers departed in 1999 to more than 800 today?
Apart from the obvious failure to achieve fundamental reform of the House, as advocated by my party since the days of Asquith, I would draw attention to two particular issues. The first is the failure to end the process of electing replacement hereditary Peers. I have compared these by-elections before to the fictional by-election called by Edmund Blackadder, in which he was the only elector and his sole vote resulted in the election to Parliament of his servant Baldrick. Ending the embarrassment of these by-elections won the approval of the House of Commons during consideration of the last Labour Government’s Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. However, this sensible measure did not survive the so-called wash-up when the general election was called in 2010.
Subsequent attempts by my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood to end these by-elections were then frustrated by the threat of filibuster. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, will have more success with his Bill. The fact is that Tony Blair may have promised a temporary reprieve for some hereditary Peers pending further reform of the House, but no Prime Minister or Parliament can bind their successors. The ending of the by-elections for hereditary Peers is long overdue and must be at least part of the solution to the issue that we are addressing today.
The second and more significant reason why the House has become so large, as so many Peers have said in this debate, is simply that recent Prime Ministers have made so many appointments. David Cameron was responsible for the creation of 261 Peers, at a rate of 43 per year since 2010. This figure has far exceeded the rate of resignations or deaths, so the size of the House has risen by more than 100 in six years. The problem now is that, save for proper public elections, there is no sensible way to reverse that increase by a significant margin and no real reason to do so if the patronage of Prime Ministers and party leaders simply allows many more people to be appointed instead.
Many arguments would be made about age discrimination if an age limit were proposed. That proposal, in my view, is unlikely to succeed in a body where the average age of Members is 69. Nor do I think that there is an easy remedy to be found in the imposition of party quotas involving internal elections to determine who should remain. That would just lead to a tea-room offensive, in which Peers attempt to arrange who would vote for whom. Successful candidates would generally require just the vote of one other Peer in order to succeed—the kind of election of which Blackadder would have approved. So if we are to reduce our size and increase public credibility for the crucial role that we play, the public must have a proper say in the composition of the House.
Baroness D'Souza (CB)
My Lords, a common comment on the deliberations in this House is that, while everything has been said, not everyone has yet said it. This time, almost everyone is going to say it because we want the message to be heard loud and clear, both within and without the Chamber. It is after all worth advertising the fact that there is now a high degree of consensus, if not on fundamental reform at least on transition, which is a rare thing.
I want to underline the four issues we have all talked about: that the Lords should be no more numerous than the House of Commons, which means, in the context of electoral reform, less than 600; that the independent or Cross-Bench Peers should remain at all times at 20% of the total number of Peers; that the political balance in the House should broadly reflect the average number of votes cast in, say, the last three general elections and that no political grouping has an overall political majority; and, finally, that there be a statutory body in due course to vet both the propriety and potential contribution of nominees.
Given that today’s debate is not, and cannot be, about mechanisms, we request that a Select Committee be set up within the next couple of months to review mechanisms and put forward realistic recommendations to the Government. We ask also that the resulting recommendations be implemented by the time of the next general election.
History shows that the Lords fares best when small, incremental changes are introduced and allowed time to bed down. We have, for example, introduced voluntary retirement, the possibility of expulsion for serious misbehaviour and a host of other procedural changes in the past few years. The reforms most urgently needed now fall well within the category of moderate adjustments.
Quite simply, the House of Lords is unnecessarily inflated. Much work has been done on what might constitute an appropriate size—for example, the thoughtful report by Labour Peers, which suggested that 450 Members would be adequate to fulfil all the functions of the Lords. Other proposals have put the number as low as 300. In this context, the principle that the Chamber’s current size should be reduced by the next general election to no larger than the House of Commons—that is, 600 Peers—is a modest proposal.
It has of course not escaped any of our notice that we are addressing the patronage power of the Prime Minister of the day and also the authority of the royal prerogative. It is the royal prerogative that allows Prime Ministers to appoint Peers. Royal prerogatives may be ancient powers, but that does not mean that they should be treated as sacrosanct. The issue should not be insurmountable. The royal prerogative has, after all, been overridden in the past several times. The constitutional principles that govern our democracy insist that Ministers are constitutionally responsible to Parliament for the discharge of all their functions and the exercise of all their powers. Over time, legislation has limited the extent of the prerogative power, including, in some case, abolishing it: for example, the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 covers a range of situations where previously the royal prerogative might have been used; there is the Fixed-term Parliaments Act; and, although not codified, the power is now constrained by convention in matters concerning the deployment of the Armed Forces. Hence, should Parliament wish to curtail the Prime Minister of the day in his or her exercise of patronage, it could do so.
This House acting together has considerable influence. In the long history of House of Lords reform, our downfall has been, in large part, the disagreements based on party politics and the ever divisive issue of an elected versus appointed House. This debate is not about that. It is about relatively modest, sensible and consensual change to allow this House to be effective and, with luck, to regain a measure of public respect through choosing to reform itself. Both Peers and the Prime Minister should now make a commitment to preserving the integrity and effectiveness of Parliament as a matter of public interest and public duty.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, there are people who think it is quite unnecessary for us to do anything at the present time—not many of them are in this Chamber. There are others in this Chamber who do not recognise the urgency of the situation we find ourselves in. I say that not looking inwards at Parliament, or even narrowly through the pearlised bubble of Westminster at our own electorate, but at the electorates of the western world, who increasingly are changing the question they are asking. In the past it has been, “Is this lot more likely to do me good, or is that lot?”. Now it is already changed into, “Well, none of those is much good, so we must look at people with more extreme views”. It worries me deeply how the centre is weakening in Europe and the extent to which both ends of the political spectrum are getting stronger. Being a little older than some, but not many, in this House, I remember the overtones of the Spanish Civil War. We are going on a dangerous course, and we are in a way affected by it. We realised that with the Brexit vote and the electorate discovering that the parliamentarians did not know what they, the electorate, were thinking.
In those circumstances, we need to analyse a little more what is going on. In this country, the new question that I believe is about to be asked—it is being asked in some places and anticipated on both wings of the political spectrum—is not, “Is democracy working for me?”, but, “Can democracy ever work for me?”. That is fertile ground for extremists, it is fertile ground for intellectuals and it is fertile ground for irresponsible politicians. It puts before the organised ones what they would call a great opportunity to recruit and establish in the public mind a doubt as to the efficacy of democracy and of Parliament, and indeed, where possible, to infiltrate Parliament. Where there is a constituency of a political colour not so bright but of the same of their own, and where there is a weak Executive, the opportunity is plainly there and desirable to them to deselect and get their own man in.
This is not over the horizon yet, but in dangerous times it is as well to be pessimistic so that one is prepared for the worst. I see very dangerous times ahead. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, and my noble friend Lord Forsyth, who echoed his view, that the effectiveness of Parliament—he said of this House—depends on its reputation. Where there is a disaffected majority in the political spectrum of the electorate, it is open to extremists to start teaching it that Parliament is not their refuge but a laughable obstruction on the road to their betterment. Those operators do not believe in democracy at all, but in power on the streets and violence to implement their views.
I know I sound rather extreme in my views, but I have read history and seen what has happened before, and how apparently stable democracies can be rocked to their foundations and even toppled by the most unexpected upsurge of anti-democratic discontent. We do not now have the same population as we had in my youth. We are not so stable in our views; we are not so united as a nation. We have therefore to take great care over where we go next.
The first thing we have to do is to restore the reputation of Parliament. We who are here can restore the reputation only of this House of Parliament and undertake only the simplest step, because of the difficulty of legislation at such a pressured time. We must not absorb too much legislative time, so we need to agree in advance what the legislation shall be. I have tried exactly that on a micro scale as an amateur with a Private Member’s Bill. It is laughable that the first, simplest and most obviously necessary step in reform should be urged by an antediluvian, hereditary Peer washed up on the Back Benches in 1999; it needs to be undertaken with the strength and majesty of the whole House and entrusted to a Select Committee, which should have the remit certainly to deal with size but I hope with more. Size will not be enough; we have to return to being the arbiters of the voice of the nation, the protectors of democracy in this country, and not merely the laughable obstruction which the opposition outside Parliament would like us to be.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, a great deal of what needs to be said has already been said, and repetition is inevitable. It is also quite daunting to come on to the stage after so many star actors have already done their turn, but I shall press on. I do so speaking as a member of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, so ably and consistently led by the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Norton, without whose tireless advocacy I think it is fair to say this debate would not be taking place. We have much to be grateful to them for.
I speak also with experience of membership of the Labour Peers’ Working Group, to which my noble friends Lady Taylor and Lord Dubs referred and whose 2014 report has already been mentioned. I have also been a member of several other informal groups during what is now getting around to being nearly a decade. Over all that time and with all that talking, thinking and writing, the emphases of conclusions may have been different from time to time, but the issue of numbers has been increasingly prominent, especially since 2010.
As has already been said cogently, most recently by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, but also by others who preceded him, we live in dangerous political times, both here and elsewhere. There are huge challenges ahead. It is vital that our institutions are able to meet those challenges robustly. They must be trusted. At the moment, the House of Lords is particularly vulnerable. It is true that the issue of numbers is partly a practical matter, but it is so only partly—although the growing cost of the House is not insignificant. We in the House know what the realities are: probably that no more than 500 of us are regularly active. But the continuing ability of hostile commentators to portray us as bloated, self-serving and unrepresentative—all adjectives which we have already heard today—severely undermines that precious thing, our reputation, and allows the vital scrutiny, committee and other work that we do to be either overlooked or wilfully misrepresented, which happens a great deal.
The Government have made it clear that they have no intention of embarking on parliamentary reform on any scale any time soon—which is no surprise given everything else they have in front of them. However, we should not let this Parliament go by without doing what we can to address the concerns raised here today and elsewhere. I support the aim of this Motion and ask the Leader of the House, when she comes to reply, to support the establishment of a Select Committee as soon as possible to investigate how numbers can be reduced and then capped at a manageable level, taking as a framework the key criteria of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about—as we have heard many times already—the essential primacy of the Commons, this House not being larger than the Commons, the 20% of Cross-Benchers and no one party having an overall majority.
Much work has already been done, including by the Labour Peers’ Working Group and others, that would assist such a Select Committee. It ought not to need to sit for a protracted period. I really hope that by the end of this debate there will be enough support shown—I believe a consensus is building—for it to be obvious to the Leader that she should take that particular project under her wing.
I will say one brief word about a matter that I do not think has yet been raised in this debate, and I do so with a certain amount of trepidation: it is the issue of restoration and renewal. I have been around a few restorations and renewals of iconic buildings, not ever on this scale but some of them with enormous controversy attached. When you undertake a project of that kind, particularly where public money is involved, controversy is almost inevitable. How do you overcome that? You do so by demonstrating through the creation of a better building that you will also create a better institution. Such an opportunity is before us now. I know not everyone agrees with exactly how the restoration and renewal project should be undertaken; indeed, we have not yet had a chance to debate that. However, it is pretty obvious that the building needs it—so does the institution. Let us take this opportunity to get ahead on the institution so that it is in good shape before the building catches up.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for securing this debate and for the indefatigable work of his group, along with the noble Lord, Lord Norton. I add a word of thanks to the Leader for permitting this debate. Her presence here is a very good omen.
Shortly after the last election, David Cameron kindly came to speak to a meeting of Cross-Benchers and I asked him what he thought was the optimal size of the House of Lords. He laughed and said, “A lot smaller than it now is; it is up to you to fix it”. Some of us then pointed out that a bath may still overflow even when the plug is removed if both taps are turned full on. He laughed again—and of course had the last laugh in his Dissolution Honours List, about which my noble friend Lady Boothroyd said all that we need say today.
Mr Cameron was half right: we can fix it. We do not need legislation. It would be good, once we have reform, to have legislation to underpin and consolidate that reform but we can do it ourselves. We can amend our Standing Orders; we can do it by resolution of this House. That is what we must do. I agree with all four principles put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and repeated by my noble friend Lady D’Souza and others. It is clear that we are too big, that we must go on recognising the primacy of the Commons, and that, as a revising Chamber, we need an independent element. It is probably right that we should be no larger than the House of Commons. That is enough as a framework for reform.
I do not think we should attempt today to put forward our own formula or systems for bringing about that change. We need to call for a Select Committee—as others did—and then tell it to get a move on. If I have a quarrel with the Motion, it is that it merely says that “methods should be explored” by which our size should be reduced. We want not just exploration but a recommendation to come forward from the Select Committee—a single recommendation and the one most likely to command consensus in this House.
I strongly support the Motion but would merely add one personal point of my own. We must take care, as we shrink, to leave room for those underrepresented or not represented here. It is not right that UKIP, with all those votes at the last election, should be represented by only three Members in this House. Of course, it is a pity that none of them is taking part in this debate. One would hope that UKIP Members of the House of Lords would not emulate their friends in Brussels and miss most debates and Divisions, as they do in the European Parliament. But it is democratically wrong that there are so few of them here. It is also unfair that we ask so much of the single representative of the Welsh nationalist party—superman though he is, he could do with some reinforcement. Most seriously, the Scottish National Party needs to think very hard about whether it is fair to its voters that its voice should not be heard at all in this Chamber. It is a matter of dogma, but dogma that is self-harming needs ditching.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, notwithstanding the Elton and Grocott Bills that are before us, we have our annual debate on the size of the House. The previous one was in September last year. It seems to be our annual navel-gazing. I was deeply saddened by the way in which my noble friend Lord Cormack introduced the debate because he said that he was speaking on behalf of his campaign group. I hope that none of us here speaks on behalf of a group. We speak for ourselves. The group might agree with us but if we start speaking on behalf of groups we will fundamentally change the reason for us being here.
We are talking again about the size of the House. In overall numbers, which is one way of measuring it, we are down to 64% of the size the House was at its height, some 19 years ago. In actual attendance numbers, we are up about 10% since 1999 but that still makes us about 20% smaller than the House of Commons. Limiting the size of the House will have a detrimental effect on the number of Peers who can come here on a part-time basis. In saying that, I look at history. Your Lordships have only to study what happened to the Scottish Peers after the Acts of Union 1707, when the number of Scottish Peers was reduced to 16. The influence that the Whips and the Governments had immediately after that on the selection process is a lesson that we should take note of. It will be equally relevant to this House. Indeed, the elections in 1999 following the dismissal of most of the hereditary Peers showed that those who were elected were not the part-time ones but the ones who attended on a regular basis. If we believe that working part time is a function of this House, limiting the size is not the way to do it.
If we are going to limit size, we must also limit the power of patronage of the Prime Minister, as the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, and my noble friend Lord Tebbit said. That cannot be allowed to continue unabated. But size is just one of the problems of this House and if we focus on size alone, we will be doing ourselves a disservice. We need to look at the function of the House. We have been told that we need to have a bicameral system in the United Kingdom. That is only partly true. We do not have a bicameral system in the whole United Kingdom. Look at Scotland and Wales: a lot of their legislation is not considered by a bicameral parliament and we do not have a say in it here. The British constitution has adopted a bicameral system but we need to look also at how we function and, indeed, how the House of Commons functions.
We ought to remain a revising Chamber. If we look at what has happened with the Policing and Crime Bill, in the House of Commons there were 112 clauses and 12 schedules; there were amendments to only 25 clauses and five schedules—a quarter of the clauses and fewer than half the schedules. We have important work to do and in order to do that work we need the right composition. My noble friend Lord Elton said how important it was that the reputation of the House was upheld. I believe that a key part of our reputation is our composition.
Is our age structure right? Is it right that the average age in the House is 69, in an unelected Chamber, or that only 26% of the House are women? These are areas of criticism. Is it right that a quarter of those Peers appointed to Parliament since 1999 have been former politicians and that a further 7% have been linked to a party either in senior positions or as working for it? When Members of Parliament are held in such low esteem, perhaps we ought to look at that as well.
On a regional basis, the present House is tilted entirely towards the south-east—here I know that I will get support from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. It is extremely difficult to operate effectively in this House if you live in a remote area of the country. The business of the House and the decisions of the party Whips make it virtually impossible. I repeat that when I lived in the north of Scotland, in order to guarantee being here for a Monday afternoon I had to leave on Sunday evening. That is not an effective system; it is open to abuse and criticism. Let us not believe that solving the size problem is going to solve our reputation. It is not.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, I too thank the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip for allowing this debate in government prime time, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for kicking it off. I have heard all the speeches and the one I really want to applaud is that of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean—if only because he touched on a theme which I want to mention, which has so far not been used to much effect. I accept that the Lords is far too big; so, I have to say, is the Commons, notwithstanding the fact that its membership is to be reduced. However, we need to be clear on our functions and powers.
I always start the Peers in Schools sessions, as I will on Friday in south Bromsgrove, by saying that the Lords is in effect a very large sub-committee of the Commons. We are not equal Houses of Parliament because the Commons can force legislation upon the Lords, but the Lords cannot force legislation upon the Commons. We are the thinking Chamber that thinks for itself and, from time to time, we request the Commons to think again on some issues. The Government’s defeats here are only a request to the Commons to think again. They have the final say; we simply ask them to have another look. We of course need to check on the material sent to us from the Commons because they do not check much of it themselves. I agree that the Lords should be about two-thirds the size of the Commons. This should not be rigid but it should be less than the Commons. By the way, I would not start legislation in the Lords and that way, all Bills would be subject to the Parliament Acts.
I come to what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said and I will make a couple of small points. The Peers in Schools programme needs extending to peers in Whitehall and peers in the Commons. We need to confront the ignorance about our function and powers. From my experience in Whitehall—two departments while in the Commons and four in your Lordships’ House—civil servants are fearful of the Lords. They do not understand the Lords because they are ignorant about it, which causes problems within the departments. Not enough civil servants, even the senior ones, have worked in Lords Ministers’ private offices. There is massive ignorance in those departments about the Lords so they become fearful of us, which need not be the case.
I fully accept that I was ignorant before about this place. When I was in the other place as a Minister, I paid not the slightest attention to my noble friends Lord Donoughue and Lady Hollis when they said at departmental meetings. “I’ve got a Starred Question” or “I have to stay all night”. I never paid any attention to what they said but I soon found out when I came here what they were on about. However, I will never forget the day when I, as a humble Minister of State, went with my noble friend Lord Grocott, who was the government Chief Whip, to attend the senior Cabinet committee in charge of legislation. We were merely explaining the rules and processes here in the Lords but the chair wagged their finger at us and said that we had gone native, based purely on ignorance about what we were trying to explain. So far, that person has not arrived in your Lordships’ House.
Ministers also need the odd information session. This is especially the case—I say this of one in retrospect and the other with experience—for senior Ministers who have never operated at junior level. That was the case in 1997, when I did not pick it up, but in 2010 I certainly did. We are not a threat, but there was something missing in the corporate memory of those Ministers and those teams at that point in time when they had never operated in respect of the Lords. We are here to help.
We are also here to stop an Executive takeover of Parliament—not enough is made of that. I can tell you this: every move that is made across the road is bit by bit seeking to get Executive control of Parliament, and we should stop that. We should insist on the rule of parliamentary law. Sometimes we have to stiffen the backbone of MPs. The example that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, gave was about tax credits. That was a classic example. It should have been a Bill. We all know that if it had been a Bill the Commons and the Government could have had their way because they get the last word, and they were getting around the parliamentary rules. We can carry out our function and exercise our powers a lot better with fewer Peers, and we should get on with it.
Lord Low of Dalston (CB)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, even if it means that my own humble efforts are likely to be put in the shade. I begin by declaring my interests as a member of the House of Lords Appointments Commission, but I make it clear that anything I say today is said in a purely personal capacity.
The size of the House should certainly be reduced. There are three reasons for this. The first has to do with the character of its membership and its relationship to the House of Commons. Its membership is open-ended, uncontrolled and spiralling out of control. From 666 Members in 1999, membership rose by about 50 in the 11 years to 2010. Since then, it has grown by approximately 150 more to more than 800. It is one-third bigger than the Commons and will be more than that when the number in the Commons is reduced to 600. The UK is the only country in the world with a bicameral system where the second Chamber is larger than the first.
Secondly, the rapid rise in numbers has made the House dysfunctional. Has any noble Lord tried getting on the internet lately? The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, spoke of overcrowding, inefficiency and the enormous burden on both the administration and the taxpayer. In the past five years, the average daily attendance has risen from 388 to 483, an increase of 95. That is up to £28,500 a day more in allowances—which, if the House sat for only 100 days a year, would come to nearly £3 million annually.
The third reason concerns the reputation of the House. Newspaper editorials used, on balance, to be positive about the Lords, but they have become increasingly negative of late. During the 2010 to 2015 Parliament, negative editorials outnumbered positive ones by three to one. I think the House of Lords is often respected by the general public as the conscience of the nation for the way it holds the Government to account and mitigates the worst features of legislation. But this good work is increasingly being obscured by stories about excessive appointments, anachronism, cronyism and sleaze. On account of all the good work the House does, I have heard people say that such unfavourable comment is just perception inflamed by our detractors which bears no relation to reality and that we do not need to worry too much about it. But such perceptions from influential quarters, especially if they come to predominate, can easily influence wider perceptions of reality, and the growing size of the House can come to pose a serious threat to its reputation and hence to its effectiveness, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, has said.
I am therefore certainly in favour of the first part of the Motion, that the size of the House should be reduced—I would think by about 250 to something like 550 or 600, so that it is no larger than the House of Commons, even if that body’s numbers are reduced to 600 with the boundary changes. I do not think that this debate can get to the bottom of the question of how, precisely, that is to be achieved. For that, I think we need the Select Committee that so many noble Lords have spoken in favour of—a Select Committee that can go in detail into all the pros and cons of the various methods that have been suggested, such as fixed terms, a retirement age, a minimum attendance requirement, elections in groups, and so on.
The much-respected authority on the House of Lords, Professor Meg Russell of the Constitution Unit at University College London, in a recent blog post, has outlined four key elements which need to be part of any package of measures if it is to succeed. The first is an initial cull to effect the required reduction, using age limits, attendance requirements or elections as deemed appropriate. The second is a cap on the size of the House at somewhere round about the number reached as a result of the cull. That is essential if the initial cull is not to unravel as a result of the Prime Minister’s use of their unfettered power to make new appointments. As Professor Russell wrote in an earlier blog covering her 2015 report, Enough is Enough:
“Because each Prime Minister appoints more of their own, each change in government results in tit-for-tat action by the new Prime Minister to catch up. This has a continuous upward ratchet effect on the size of the chamber”.
Thirdly, and following directly from that, there needs to be a restriction on the number of new appointments that can be made. The Prime Minister would only be able to appoint to fill vacancies. This is the system that prevails in relation to the Canadian Senate. Finally, it will be necessary to have some fair principles covering the sharing out of new appointments between the groups.
We have no time to lose. I said over a year ago that publicity hostile to the Lords had reached a tipping point. It is important that we are seen to be proactive in addressing this question of numbers. We need the Select Committee and we need it soon, with a specified date by which to report.
Lord Goodlad (Con)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the wise remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston. I join other noble Lords in congratulating the Government on making time for this debate today and my noble friend Lord Cormack on securing it and on the content of his remarks, which, as usual, I find myself in substantial agreement with. I salute, too, the work of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, which he and my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, together with others from all sides of both Houses, have worked hard in for a number of years. They have done extremely valuable work, which we are beholden to build on.
The Leader’s Group, chaired by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, set out the various options for reducing the size of the House of Lords. Most noble Lords have their own views on their preferred choice for how that should be achieved, as does almost everybody in the country. They are not of one mind—“quot homines, tot sententiae”. The Second Reading debate on the Bill introduced by my noble friend Lord Elton—a Bill which he imaginatively and wisely designed, after very wide consultation, to be uncontentious, proved beyond peradventure that there is at present no consensus in this House, far less unanimity, on the best way forward. If proof were needed, the remarks of my noble friend and chieftain Lord Caithness would underline that.
As the old saying goes: when in doubt, set up another committee. I do not think that on this occasion there should be a collective sigh of resignation. Select Committees in this House have a record of coming up with recommendations and, as others have said, I hope there will be recommendations that lead to practical outcomes. The basis for such recommendations is already there: a House no more numerous than the other place; no party or grouping to have an overall majority; a substantial proportion of the seats to be Cross-Benchers; and the primacy of the other place to be preserved.
The very welcome decision by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the other place to take evidence and produce a report on this subject suggests that it might be timely to consider setting up not only a Select Committee of this House but a Joint Committee of both Houses to make recommendations about the best way forward, because we have to take the other House with us and it might save time in the end. Still, that is perhaps for another day; I would not expect my noble friend the Leader of the House to respond to that. Either way, a decision to establish a Select Committee of this House or indeed a Joint Committee would have my wholehearted support.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)
My Lords, as a member of his committee, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for his excellent speech and for his kind words about Geoffrey, who I am quite certain is listening intently to all that is said today.
Change is, of course, inevitable in a parliamentary democracy. From what we have all heard so far, we are all clearly of the view that the time for change to downsize the numbers in your Lordships’ House can no longer be ignored. I arrived in 2001 via a new system for selecting Cross-Bench Members, and we brought with us a slightly extended role for Cross-Benchers. At that time there was ample seating for everyone. Today, though, the relentless—I would even say cynical—increase in your Lordships’ numbers by successive Governments to over 800 has become intolerable. Indeed, if you want to be seated in the Chamber for the start of Questions, you must be there for Prayers by 2.15; no doubt this is good recruitment for the Church.
How best can we achieve this universally desired objective, particularly, as stressed by Meg Russell’s analysis, a total membership of your Lordships’ House no bigger than that of the other place? I suspect we all have our own views of the preferred route to achieve this objective but surely that suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—to appoint a Select Committee for this purpose—is the right one, and I fully support it.
I end with an additional suggestion that the Select Committee might consider alongside other proposals. Today, as your Lordships will have noticed, working patterns have changed considerably. In the past, people often worked for just one employer during their working lives and then retired with their well-earned gold watch, but they seldom do this now. Today during their working lives they often work for a range of different employers. I suggest that, for some of them, one of their occupations could be as a Member of your Lordships’ House.
When everyone has spoken tonight, I hope everyone will support the establishment of a Select Committee—as soon as possible, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has said.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, I shall begin with three preliminary remarks. First, I have been debating House of Lords reform in Parliament since 1979. As a consequence, both my expectations and my aspirations have become fairly modest.
Secondly, and differently, I have the minority view here: I believe that the authority of the second Chamber should be commensurate with that of the House of Commons, with powers equal to it. I know full well that that would mean a wholly or largely elected Chamber. That is my belief. I equally know it is not going to happen, at least not in the near future, although it may happen as we move away from a unitary state.
My third point echoes what the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, said: I agree fundamentally about the importance of the bicameral system, for all the reasons that the noble Earl outlined. We do our job very well.
I turn to the reasons advanced in support of the Motion. I agree that this House is too large, but I also happen to think that the principal reasons advanced are second-order reasons. Yes, we are laughed at—the risibility factor, as identified by my noble friend Lord Cormack—and that is bad news. The facilities are overstrained, as identified by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, and the noble Lord, Lord Low. They are right about that too, but that is also a second-order issue. Actually there are some advantages of a very large House: you broaden and indeed deepen the pool of noble Lords here. That is an advantage when it comes to debate, in reports and on committees. I agree again with what the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, said about that. I believe, as does my noble friend Lord Forsyth, that we do our job very well. So there are powerful reasons for reducing the size of the House but they are second-order reasons, and that is important when determining the scope and the depth of what we have in mind.
Before I touch on what I think should happen, I shall say what I think should not and what will not happen. First, on what will not happen, I agree with my noble friend Lord Wakeham—no one knows more about the House of Commons than he does—that the idea of a big bang reforming Bill going through the House of Commons is for the birds. It would have to be conducted on the Floor of the House; it would be a Christmas tree on which any Member could hang his or her favourite bauble; and, incidentally, as you came towards a general election Members of the other place would be looking at their post-election prospects and would rather like to sit here. So that is not going to happen.
What I do not want to happen is the electoral college, notwithstanding the advocacy of my noble friend Lord Tebbit. I fear that the parties would get a grip on those elections and we would end up with the clubbable, the companionable and the compliant. I speak on behalf of the awkward squad: this place without my noble friend Lord Forsyth would be impoverished. We need the awkward squad in this place, and electoral colleges do not do anything for that.
So what should we do? I shall make a few brief suggestions. First, I entirely agree with the Select Committee. Secondly, we need to agree progressively to reduce the size of this House, which means self-restraint by the party leaders—maybe one in for two out, something like that. Thirdly, I think it would be useful if life Peers were nominated for fixed terms. Fourthly, although I touch on this with caution, there is a need for a retirement age. I look back on my own family and know that people can stay here too long. I think 80 may well be appropriate.
Then I favour the resignation of non-participating Peers. I recognise, too, that that could be bad news because the non-participating Peer could change his or her habits and participate overmuch. But there is a case for non-participating Peers to stand down. I appreciate the allegations of humbug and sour grapes that are about to be levelled against me, but I am pretty cautious about by-elections for hereditary Peers, as they are very difficult in principle to justify.
There are powerful reasons for reducing the size of the House, but I think, too, that they are second-order reasons. That being so, we should be cautious about going too fast or too dramatically. In any case, it will not happen because there will not be a Bill. Let us focus on gradual and modest changes, focusing on those matters where it is most difficult to defend the status quo. If the public perceive that we are getting a grip on it, much of the criticism based on size will begin to fall away.
Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)
My Lords, not for the first time this House is indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for his continuing interest in House of Lords reform.
In a country that prides itself on being the standard bearer of democratic institutions, a visitor from Mars would find the size of this House hilarious—not to mention the number of Liberal Democrats, which bears no relation to the democratic last general election. In concentrating on numbers of this House, I fear that the noble Lord is putting the cart before the horse. It is the functions of this House as a component of Parliament that should be determined first, and it is only secondly that we should move on to numbers. We should decide whether this House should be only a reviewing Chamber, or whether its role should be a wider one than this—a full-blooded legislative Chamber. I doubt it—although that may be a minority view.
Governments in the past had no compunction in clipping the wings of this House—in the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949. In the absence of a constitutional convention and a Bill of Rights, I believe that the way forward is a simple amendment to the Parliament Act 1949 to remove altogether the existing, although reduced, power of delaying legislation by this House. If that were done, the only function of this House as regards legislation would be a reviewing one. There would be a time limit for such a review. During that time the House could debate and express its views in the form of amendments. The amended Bill would be returned to the Commons for any second thoughts it might have. If the Commons stood its ground and rejected the Lords amendments, it would be the end of the matter and consideration of legislation here would come to an end. The Commons could send the Bill, unamended, straight to Her Majesty for signature.
This House would have had its opportunity to carry out its reviewing role, which could be important, and it would have offered its views to the Commons for its further consideration—but that would be all. The amendment to the 1949 Parliament Act would be simple, and on the lines that the 1949 Act amended the 1911 Act, but in this case abolishing all powers of delay rather than limiting them. Once our functions had been determined, the question of the number of Peers required would, I believe, be solved more easily. It would be open for discussion how many would be needed in a reviewing-only Chamber—probably in the low or mid-hundreds. I hope they would be appointed for their expertise.
When I was at school, I grappled with the arithmetical problem of working out the time it would take to empty a water tank that was still being filled with water. There is a touch of Alice in Wonderland about a debate on exploring methods of reducing the numbers of this House while at the same time Prime Ministers continue to exercise unlimited powers to make more and more recommendations to reward friends and/or help the Whips to get legislation through, by repeatedly refilling the water tank with more Members.
The machinery for appointments goes to the heart of the problem. I would add that if this House became a reviewing-only Chamber, the case for an elected House would be considerably weakened, if not destroyed, and the paramountcy of the Commons would be reaffirmed. I was in Washington at the time of the colossal gridlock between the House of Representatives and the Senate. I have no wish to encourage a scenario of two elected Houses, horns locked with each other.
Baroness Flather (CB)
My Lords, I have been in the House for 26 years. When I arrived here I was the only Asian in your Lordships’ House, and I had this idea—quite incorrectly, as I realised afterwards—that Mrs Thatcher put me here because she thought I would be useful and that I might be able to help the Conservative Party to make contacts with the community, and so on, as I was very active in the community at that time. I waited and waited, and when the Conservatives lost the election, I realised that that was it—so I started doing things outside. I am pleased to say that I have done something that not many people have been able to do. I have been a catalyst for a memorial to the Indians, Africans and West Indians who supported Britain in two world wars. In that way, I suppose it was good that nobody gave me any work to do here.
I have been thinking a lot and have been listening very carefully, and I totally agree with one of the things that has been said. The noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, referred to the scrutiny of the people who are brought here. When I came here, I was under the impression that even political appointees were put through interviews at least by the Leader of the House, checked out a bit by central office, et cetera—but I do not think that is done any more. If you are a Conservative or a Labour appointee, that is what you are. I could not agree more with the idea that every person who comes to this House should go through scrutiny that is similar to what the Cross-Benchers go through. I totally agree with that and I cannot understand why it is not done
It has been said again and again that every time we speak to anybody they say, “There’s just too many of you”. We know that, and we are talking about it today. They also say another thing, which people are too polite to say—English people are very polite. They say that people in this House have cheated. They have taken money that they should not have done; they have gone to prison, which is disgraceful. Someone working in any company or organisation would not be kept there if they had gone to prison or if they had cheated—not just gone to prison. So I would add that to the list of things that we need to work on to make sure that anybody who cheats even for a small amount should not stay in this House because that ruins the reputation of all of us, not just that person. It is one of my pet peeves that we allow Peers to come back and be Peers again. It is not acceptable to me.
Another idea, mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, was a fixed term. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, was talking to me earlier. He said that when somebody is appointed, we should offer them an age limit and/or a fixed term, so they can choose whether they leave after the fixed term or based on the age they have arrived at, perhaps on the basis of whichever is the earlier. We will have to have an age limit—it is not going to work if we do not.
On that issue, we are not very kind to people who have been here for many years—and they keep coming. Do we know why they keep coming? Do they need help? Do they need financial support? Do we ever ask them how they are doing and how they are managing? Why should people who have given 40 years or something to the House of Lords have to skimp and scrape and then come in here for £300? It is not right. Some element of help for those Peers who need financial help should be put into the system, because that will help people to leave. They will not want to just keep coming because they need the money—because that is the worst reason to come.
I thought that what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, said about commitment was a very good point. People should be asked right at the beginning, “What is your commitment to the work of the House?”. They will obviously say “Yes” at the time, because they will want to come in.
I see that I am running over time, but I shall just bring in one more point that I heard and liked a lot. I am sorry, I have lost it now. I am not in favour of appointed Members. I am sorry, I seem to have lost my point.
Lord Crickhowell (Con)
My Lords, I want one simple message to go out from the House of Lords today—that it wants to reduce its size so that it is no larger than the House of Commons, and it wants that change to take place no later than the beginning of the next Parliament. The Lords are not the obstacle standing in the way of this essential constitutional reform. That is a message that needs to go to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the other place as it starts its inquiry into the size and composition of the House of Lords.
The Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, with its large and broad representation from both Houses, has during the 15 years of its existence effectively acted as a Joint Committee of both Houses, leading to recommendations that could very easily and quickly be used to prepare a draft Bill ready for pre-legislative scrutiny. I personally am firmly of the view that the proposal for a non-elected House with a membership based on a combination of votes cast and seats won in a general election is the best way in which to ensure the widest possible range of expertise in commenting on the great issues of the day, scrutiny and improvement of legislation and preparing Select Committee reports on many important topics, without challenging the unambiguous electoral mandate of the House of Commons. It is also the best way in which to ensure that parties that gain significant support in a general election are not under-represented in this House, while those that lose support are not over-represented.
However, while the campaign group, led so ably by my noble friends Lord Cormack and Lord Norton of Louth, has prepared the ground very thoroughly, we clearly need a more formal mechanism to initiate the next move, and I therefore support the suggestion that we should appoint a Select Committee to consider the options and report by a specified date. The Select Committee should be chosen and put in place before the end of the year with an instruction to report within three or four months. Speed is of the essence, because we will be told that Parliament will be too busy with Brexit to deal with the Lords; but if Brexit is about taking control and restoring democracy, reform of the Lords should be an essential element. I do not completely agree with my noble friend Lord Wakeham that early reform is impossible. I believe that it should be an essential element of Brexit, preferably by legislation; but if that is impossible, then by change in our statutory rules. We can do that quite effectively and quickly.
Finally, I refer to the crucial point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, that we need to resolve the problem of those coming in and coming out. The report produced by the committee so ably led by my noble friends Lord Cormack and Lord Norton of Louth contains an important proposal—that the right to nominate by the Prime Minister and other party leaders should be preserved, but limited to 10% of seats. The report says:
“In the event of any death or retirement during the parliament a one in, one out principle would apply, any new member being nominated by the Prime Minister in consultation with the independent appointments Commission. We would favour that Commission becoming statutory and enjoying the same powers for all new nominations as it currently enjoys for cross bench nominations”.
I warmly support the comments made on that topic by the noble Lord, Lord Jay, with all his experience.
I have one point to make to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who suggested that the Clegg Bill was stopped by unscrupulous action by the political parties in another place. It was not stopped by that—it was stopped because a significant number of Members of the House of Commons realised that, if you had another elected Chamber, you would undermine the authority of the House of Commons. That is the reason for the defeat of the Clegg Bill.
Lord Steel of Aikwood (LD)
My Lords, this country is year by year becoming more federal in character, if not in practice. It is right that the committee in the other place that is going to look at more fundamental reform of the House of Lords should dust down the report of the commission that Prime Minister Asquith appointed after the passage of the Parliament Act, which recommended that a new senate could be elected by the House of Commons. Now that we have all those other legislative bodies in the UK, the opportunity for having a new upper Chamber here on the basis of a democratic election but not threatening the House of Commons is one that I would hope the committee would consider. It could include also the right to elect Members who are not involved in political parties, thus retaining in a new Chamber the Cross Benches, which are so valuable, and severely limiting the number of prime ministerial appointments. But that is for the long term and not for the debate today.
The point that I want the Leader of the House to consider is that the appointment of a Select Committee should lead to quick action because we do not actually need more legislation. Now that we have retirement on the statute book, anything more can be done by a resolution of the House. We are a self-governing House, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, have already mentioned. We can do it ourselves; it does not need more legislation and does not need to take up parliamentary time. I hope that the Select Committee will consider that carefully.
I hesitate to disagree with my dear friends and colleagues my noble friends Lord Tyler and Lord Rennard, but I do not regard an age cut-off as ageist. When you look at life outside, judges after all have to retire at 70, while the police retire, depending on their rank, at 60 or 65. The oldest age group that I know of for retirement are Lord Lieutenants, who have to retire at 75. Let us say that at the end of every Parliament those Peers who have reached the age of 80 or above, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, said earlier, should leave—80 and above is a very generous cut-off point. It is not ageist at all, in my view.
If that were to happen at the next election, 221 Members of this House would disappear, including me. I am therefore able to say, with some conviction, that this is a good idea. Also, since there is a clear-out at the other end of this building at every election, the end of every Parliament could also be the right time for a clear-out here. If you wanted to add to the 221, you could take into account those who appear very rarely. I am told by the Library that, in the previous Session of Parliament last year, 85 Members attended for less than 10% and 51 for less than 5% of the sittings of the House. There is scope for reducing the numbers by resolution of the House and I hope the Select Committee will take that into account. If there is a Select Committee, I would put forward these ideas in greater detail.
It is very rare in this place to be asked to repeat something one has said before, but various Members asked me to retell the story about the difficulty older people have with new technology. I did not make it up, it was actually a letter in the Oldie magazine, and this is what it said:
“I haven’t got a computer, but I was told about Facebook and Twitter and I am trying to make friends outside Facebook and Twitter while applying the same principles. Every day I walk down the street and tell passers-by what I have eaten, how I feel, what I have done the night before and what I will do for the rest of the day. I give them pictures of my wife, my daughter, my dog and me gardening and on holiday. I also listen to their conversations, tell them I ‘like’ them and give them my opinion on every subject that interests me … whether it interests them or not. And it works. I already have four people following me: two police officers, a social worker and a psychiatrist”.
I repeat that only because I believe the time is long overdue when we collectively insert a use-by date on ourselves.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, it is a problem to have to follow that superb story. I put on record my strong support for the work of the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and for the Motion today to promote reform to achieve a reduction in the size of the House. I will speak very briefly, noble Lords will be glad to know, because everything has been said that needs to be said. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, himself said that a little bit of repetition might be helpful on this occasion, but I will keep it brief.
In particular, I support the proposal that this House should not be any larger than the House of Commons—that seems common sense. As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and other noble Lords have said, the public have become all too aware, through the media’s constant reports, that this is the largest second Chamber in the world and they do not like it. We have reached the point where it is very difficult to convey to the public the very useful work done by this House because they think we are a laughing stock. They do not take us seriously because of the size of the House and their image of vastly too many of us in red and ermine gowns. We have to try to retrieve public support and the only way we can do it is by getting on and reducing our own size.
We all know that the root of the problem is that successive Prime Ministers repeatedly appoint far too many new Peers to this House. I am worried about the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, that we can do all this ourselves, without legislation. I am not sure that we can cap the Prime Minister’s powers without legislation; in fact I am jolly sure that we cannot. We need the support of the whole House, and for all parties and their leaders to agree in principle that we shall not appoint more Peers than would be allowed to arrive at the size of the House of Commons. This would, of course, require us first to reduce the size of the House well below 600 so that Prime Ministers can then appoint some Peers year by year.
The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said that there is more support for abolition of this House than there is for any kind of reform. There will continue to be support for abolishing this House until we sort out the size problem. I am not, of course, talking about the need to eliminate Prime Ministers’ patronage. No Head of State has no patronage—they all do—and we would have to respect that, but this needs a cap on it. Otherwise, whatever we do with retirement ages or length of service does not matter: Prime Ministers will simply pile in new Peers and we will have achieved very little. If in this debate we can convey the very strong support of this House for a reduction in the number of Peers entitled to attend it would be an incredibly invaluable message to the public and do a tremendous amount to restore public confidence in this House. However, we have then to follow through on our commitment. I therefore also strongly support the establishment of a Select Committee to consider how best to achieve an appropriate size for your Lordships’ House. I hope that that committee would also address the really tricky issue of Prime Ministers’ patronage and how it could be dealt with so that the rest of the reforms would have meaning.
I also support the three principles which should guide such a committee: that the House should not be any larger than the House of Commons, as I have already said; no one party should have an overall majority; and Cross-Benchers should comprise at least 20% of the membership. There is overwhelming support in this House for the Motion. I hope this will ensure that the committee is set up and progress can be made.
Lord Skelmersdale (Con)
My Lords, this debate has shown that I am not alone among your Lordships in being unable to justify the number of Members of this House. This inability to explain the status quo comes to the fore when speaking publicly, or privately, about our role. However, like the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, I disagree with my noble friend Lord Cormack when, in a typically forceful speech, he said that he felt that the second half of his Motion was the least important although, like all noble Lords, I agree with his analysis of the first half. As we all know, we have made a few tentative steps to restrict our numbers. The possibility of retirement springs to mind, as does the expulsion of Peers who seriously transgress our rules as set out in Standing Orders. This is good, but it is not enough. The time has surely come to be radical and I would like to see an attack from both ends of the spectrum—the ever increasing appointments and the further reduction of existing members—but still limited.
Patronage is, as we know, very powerful and over the last 20 or so years we have seen a constant and very large increase in our numbers. Successive Prime Ministers and, in one instance, a deputy, have had resignation honours, as well as mid-Parliament lists. This is virtually the only way that a senior honour is available to be bestowed, the other being the Companion of Honour, which could perhaps be used more. But—and it is a very big but—this would inevitably devalue it. Like my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, I would like to see newly appointed life Peers not necessarily having a seat in Parliament. There are many for whom it would be appropriate; others for whom perhaps it would not be. There are down sides to this. First, it would need the Queen’s approval; secondly it would need an Act of Parliament which, in this particular case, should only come from the House of Commons. My noble friend, with his customary diplomatic skills, would no doubt be able to square this rather inelegant circle.
It has been suggested to me that a knighthood might suffice, but that would certainly annoy the existing holders. The other day, one of my noble friends said: “What about a baronetcy?”. I do not believe that would wash either, given the current attitude to inherited honours. Prime Ministers could, I suppose, have a self-denying ordinance, limiting their appointments to two or three at a time, normally at the beginning of a new Parliament, to go straight on to the Front Bench. But the Government of the day would very naturally be afraid of losing many more Divisions than they currently do, so taking up a lot of very valuable time in another place. Therefore, I do not believe that will wash.
I rather like the Canadian example given by the noble Lord, Lord Low, although “one in, one out” will not solve the problem before us. The suggestion of my noble friend Lord Hailsham of “one in for two out” would certainly help but both suggestions would be pretty well de minimis in their effect.
At the other end of the spectrum is the idea perpetrated by my noble friend Lord Cormack and others, and, I suspect, is about to be by my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, not forgetting the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, whose Bill we will consider in Committee shortly. There is nothing wrong with using primary legislation to reduce our numbers still further. There is, thanks to the party opposite, a precedent for this in the House of Lords Act.
Much to the annoyance of some of my hereditary colleagues, I have come to the conclusion that by-elections to replace hereditary Peers are no longer appropriate, although when 800-odd were excluded, they obviously were, as some of the good ones were thrown out. The by-elections eased the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999, but they have now become an anomaly—a point which some of my noble friends have been good enough to accept. I am well aware of the deal struck between my noble friend Lord Salisbury—as he is now—and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, that hereditary Peers would remain here in limited numbers until there was a proper reform of the whole system, so pertinent to the thoughts of my noble friend Lord Caithness, although I do not think that he uttered them just now. Indeed, we may soon be voting on the whole matter. Be that as it may, no one has ever explained to my satisfaction what would constitute such a reform—reducing the House to 600 Members overnight perhaps? I hope that we will not see such a sweeping change as we did in 1999 ever again.
Grateful as I both am, and was, to be allowed to retain my seat after 1999, the problem of my, or indeed any of my fellow hereditary Peers’ replacement existed then as it does today, since there has never been any certainty about who will take our seats. Certainly, it has become even more uncertain as the electorate and the candidates have become further and further apart. Given the Government’s current intention, the only way to solve this knotty problem is to do it ourselves. I therefore agree that a Select Committee would be the best way of doing that. I hope that the committee which chooses which sessional Select Committees are picked for our general discussion will take careful note of that item.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, with no disrespect to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who I count as a friend, I fear that this debate is largely a diversion from the real issue of the urgent need for radical reform. I personally favour replacing us with an indirectly elected senate of the nations and regions, which would have the advantage of some democratic legitimacy but without challenging the primacy of the directly elected Chamber. I would like this suggestion to be looked at by a UK constitutional commission. However, realistically, I recognise that that will not happen very soon. Therefore, I accept the need for more immediate reform to modernise the Lords and to make it more acceptable to the public. However, a change in size is only one of the many changes needed. Our archaic procedures need reforming, as does the wearing of robes, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, alluded, the swearing in procedure and the endless ceremonial. All these things make us look ridiculous and need revising.
The debate about size has concentrated on removing some existing Peers. We must agree that the retirement provision has already sensibly achieved a modest reduction. However, as my noble and learned friend Lord Morris and many others have said, before we go any further we need to stem the tide of new appointments or our efforts will have been in vain. The method of appointment needs radical reform and its procedure ought to have greater transparency. The Prime Minister tells us that we are not allowed to know about the procedure, as have previous Prime Ministers. As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said, there need to be clear criteria for appointment. I also argue that power should be transferred to a statutory appointments committee. I do not think that anyone has yet had the courage to make my next suggestion—namely, an end to the automatic appointment of heads of the Civil Service, the Armed Forces and other bodies. That point is conveniently overlooked by the establishment but I do not think that such appointments can be justified given what we do.
Once all that is done, current Members might be more sympathetic to, and agree to, a reduction in our number. In fact, we might make it a prerequisite that these changes should be introduced in advance of any recommendations that we make. However, any changes need to be introduced on the basis of logic, not just simple arithmetic. This second Chamber is here for a purpose. We are part of the legislature. We go through every Bill. As others have said, we all know this but people outside do not. We go through Bills line by line, often in more detail than the House of Commons. Therefore, we need working Peers. We need people to do the job in the House and in committees. As I say, we are here for a purpose. We should therefore argue in favour of keeping working Peers, not those who just covet the title or see it merely as a passport to lucrative appointment to outside bodies. That is why I favour as the main method of cutting existing numbers an assessment of past performance, including attendance, voting record, and service on committees. Like others, I support looking at removing the voting rights of those who fail to attend on an agreed percentage of days over, say, the past two or three years. If one looks at the figures, one sees that some Peers attend less than 10% of the time, a lot of whom I could name. In fact, the worst attenders are the Cross-Benchers and the Bishops. They are hardly ever here compared with others.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Noble Lords should look at the statistics and they will find out that is the case. If we had a criterion of 40% attendance over the past couple of years, that would reduce the number substantially. A criterion of 30% attendance would also reduce the number to well below 600 Members. If we structured the criterion carefully on attendance, we could achieve the requisite number.
It has been suggested that each political group, and the Cross-Benchers, should agree to vote to reduce their numbers by an agreed percentage. I hope that is not taken up by any committee that looks at this issue because it would be both unfair and destabilising. It would cause terrific problems within all our political groups and, I suggest, within the Cross-Bench group as well. If there is to be a group reduction, as the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, rightly predicted, it should be done on the basis of reducing the number for London and the south-east region. In a Chamber of the UK legislature, London and the south-east, with 27% of the population, has now more than 45% of the Members of this House, whereas the east Midlands, with 7% of the population, has only just over 2% of Peers, and the West Midlands and the north-west of England are equally underrepresented.
If we cannot achieve a sufficient reduction with these measures, although I think that we could, I would agree that we should look at a retirement age of 80 at the end of the Parliament in which the relevant Peers turn 80, as proposed by the Labour working party of which I was a member. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, agrees with that. However, I do not think we should look at that initially. There are other more sensible ways in which to reduce our number.
I note from the number of people who regularly attend the meetings of the group of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that he has very cleverly managed to get a momentum going behind his proposals. I hope that noble Lords will excuse the word “momentum”. Some of my colleagues may not excuse it. I do not agree with all of his proposals, although I agree with some of them. It would be unfortunate if a Select Committee was set up which pursued that momentum and kept it going through to the House. I am therefore a bit worried about a Select Committee of like-minded people. However, if our Chief Whip and the Leader of the Opposition were to twist my arm and say, “We really do need one of the awkward squad on this committee”, I might be persuaded.
Lord Lisvane (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to be able to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, that this is not my annual appearance on these Benches. It is also a pleasure to join in the deserved chorus of congratulation to the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Norton of Louth, for their hard work, persistence and determination in bringing this issue before your Lordships’ House. It has been a pleasure to work with them on the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber—if the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, does not regard that as too sinister a remark.
There is a perfectly respectable argument to the effect that reducing the size of the House will be difficult, contentious and may have unforeseen consequences. But we can no longer indulge ourselves in the luxury of that argument, and we cannot ignore the widespread perception that this institution is losing its claim to be an effective part of this sovereign Parliament. That perception is unfair, but powerful. That view is held in the media, it is held by some—possibly too many—Members of the House of Commons, and it is held more widely by many people outside this place who do not know what this House does.
In his book The English Constitution, published in 1867, Walter Bagehot said—or rather, he put the words into the mouth of a stooge—that,
“the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it”.
Nearly 150 years later, we may reasonably amend that to say that the cure for criticising the House of Lords is to go and look at it: to see exacting scrutiny of legislation, not just of primary legislation but crucially, and uniquely, of the huge body of secondary legislation; exploration of subjects that the House of Commons, for very good reasons, does not have the time to debate—the debate initiated by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury on Friday is an excellent example of that—authoritative examination of policies and issues through an energetic and respected Select Committee system; and the ability to ask the House of Commons to think again without challenging the primacy of that House. However, for so many people outside this Chamber, those roles are seen through the prism of size, and the value of those roles is thus obscured or dismissed. We therefore need to deal with this issue, and we need to be seen to be dealing with it ourselves.
This Chamber is not the place to explore the complexities of competing solutions, although I hope that there would be—there certainly seems to be—widespread agreement on the basic principles that have been enunciated. To examine the detailed issues, taking account of a wide range of views and proposing solutions, is a classic task for a Select Committee. I have a strong preference for a formal Select Committee rather than, for example, an informal Leader’s Group. This is not to undervalue the excellent work which Leader’s Groups have done on other issues, but in this case only the transparency and authority of a Select Committee inquiry will answer. Moreover, when a Select Committee reports, there is a more formal expectation that this House will take decisions on its recommendations.
Incidentally, with a thought for the typically wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, I suspect that quite a lot could be done without legislation, although for some heavy-duty things—perhaps a cap on appointments—legislation would be necessary. But legislation can be quite hazardous, because depending on its scope there might be the possibility of Commons amendments arriving here, which would be to an effect that many of us would find unwelcome.
To deal with the size issue is, as several noble Lords have said, only the first step in making the work of this House better understood and so better valued, but it is a vital preliminary. If we do nothing, we shall still be wringing our hands and saying, “Something must be done” a decade hence. The difference may be that the longer the problem goes unsolved, the greater the temptation for others to force possibly unwelcome solutions upon us.
Lord Geddes (Con)
My Lords, I believe I have a reputation as a realist, and I will try to take such an approach this evening. First, I thank my noble friend Lord Cormack and my noble friend the Leader of the House—most particularly the latter, for giving us the time to debate this extremely important subject.
I have put down my pluses, or the things I am in favour of. I very much support the idea of reducing the size of the House but from experience I caution against going too low, not least because of the duties on the committee work of the House and the officers of the House. If we get too low, the committees would find themselves pushed for numbers. The appointment of a Select Committee is an extraordinarily good idea, which I warmly support, and I support the view, which I think was expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, that the functions of the House should not change.
I will put down one or two markers for the Select Committee. I take the point that this is not the occasion to propose one’s views at length, but markers might be helpful. I certainly concur with 20% Cross-Bench representation. Interestingly, of course, that is almost exactly what it is at the moment, so there is no change there. I have to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock—I almost called him my noble friend—on the way to achieve the reduction in numbers. Although the experience of 1999 was hurtful to a number of people, it was extremely practical and worked well, and it is probably the prime way to reduce the numbers group by group. Once one has set a number, one can easily have a vote within each group. However, that raises the problem of “others”, and, as has been raised, the representation of factions that are not represented at the moment: UKIP; the SNP; the Greens, of which we have only one; and the Welsh national party, of which we have only one. Therefore that is a problem area.
I go along with what was said about the non-attendance criteria. That is an important point: those who do not pull their weight in the House should not stay. On retirement age, I disagree with the proposal of, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and other noble Lords. I am not in favour of wisdom and experience going out with the bath-water. That point of age would be covered by the elections within each group, and the group would make the decision whether a person was worth keeping on.
The Liberal Democrat overrepresentation has already been mentioned; that is clearly a major problem area. The hereditaries are also a problem area if the agreement made by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, is to be adhered to. The question for the Select Committee is whether this is the final reform of the House of Lords. I suggest that it is not, in which case that undertaking should be adhered to. On reduction, the inevitability of numbers increasing over the length of a Parliament could be dealt with by having further elections at the beginning of the next Parliament to bring the numbers back down again.
On my final point, I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Hudnall, would steal my thunder. When R&R comes to fruition—I am taking a flyer at 2021—there will be a very large natural attrition of Members of this House. The Select Committee might like to hold on to that.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, cynicism ill becomes me but I note that the last serious reform of this Chamber was in 1999, and I wonder how many of us seriously expect a similar radical change over the next five or even 10 years.
We regularly debate reform—it has become almost a convention of this House—and size has now become the main focus. But today surely there is something of the air of a university debate on the Motion: “the size of the House of Lords has increased, is increasing and should be reduced”. But this is not a university debate; this is about serious politics. The size of the Chamber is becoming increasingly absurd, particularly now that the House of Commons will shortly be reduced to 600 Members—a point made very well by the Lord Speaker when he began his tenure on 5 September.
Perhaps there is little prospect of serious movement. The Government seem determined to block even the smallest change—even things which are eminently sensible, such as the proposal of my noble friend Lord Grocott to remove the by-election system for hereditary Peers, which is to be debated on Friday. Mr Cameron, of course, massively added to the problem.
There is at least, as shown by this debate, one consensus—the House is too large. But, alas, there the consensus ends. There is no consensus on the ways and means of reducing our number—and herein lies the dilemma. If we are to wait indefinitely, will the status quo continue or will the situation get worse with more appointments? There is no shortage of proposals for reform and throughout this debate noble Lords have set out many of them. Perhaps in addition to the principles put forward by the noble Lords, Lord Cormack, Lord Hunt and Lord Tebbit, I may add the following: any movement must be by small steps towards an agreed goal; there must be a transition period; and the party balance must broadly be maintained. Currently, one problem is that the age profile of Labour Peers is higher than that for the other parties.
Controversially—realistically, we must say this—there must be greater incentives for voluntary retirement. There must be a soft landing for those who choose to retire, including club privileges in the House and—wait for it—pace the Daily Mail, cash incentives: a bronze handshake. The Clerk of the Parliaments has demonstrated that such a scheme would pay for itself. Many ingenious schemes have been proposed, including a waiting list, a one out/one in principle, a title as a mark of distinguished public service without carrying the right to sit in your Lordships’ House, a retiring age, which modestly I suggest should always be two years higher than the age I have reached, and membership for a limited number of Parliaments after appointment, and so on. But to those and other proposals there is a well-rehearsed argument—there would be a loss of talent, which comes with any change.
In short, our absurd numbers will increase, following the temptation of all Prime Ministers, unless there are curbs and a cap on numbers, and debates such as this one will be repeated regularly. The eventual report of the House of Commons Committee may trigger a more realistic response by the Government. But, as we all look at the Select Committee, I remind your Lordships that in classical Greek tragedy, at the point where an impasse was reached, what was called a “god out of a machine” was brought on to the stage—a deus ex machina—to solve the relevant problems. Is it for us now to devise a deus ex machina—a Select Committee? Are we confident that any Select Committee will reach a consensus? There could indeed be a minority report. It may be as fanciful a notion as the deus ex machina in classical tragedy. So when we all rush to agree that there should be a Select Committee, let us ponder that it may not be the solution and that the problem may continue.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
My Lords, I fear that I may be about to be branded as awkward but an old joke asks, “What do you call 40 lawyers on the bottom of the ocean?”. The answer, of course, is, “A good start”. You can make the same joke with 400 or 4,000 lawyers because the issue is not the number but the public perception of lawyers. Lawyers—we have them here aplenty—say that they are a useful but simply misunderstood part of our society.
Exactly the same applies to us. There is a silly chattering-classes soundbite going around that compares this House to the National People’s Congress of China, and I am sad to have heard it repeated by Members of this House. It is an absurd point but the cheap jibe is a symptom of the real underlying problem of poor public understanding of what we do here. It is not that we are many but that we are still perceived, including by Members of the House of Commons, as a fuddy-duddy gentlemen’s club for men in ermine drinking port and thwarting democracy. The soundbite about numbers has simply been added to that list.
Organisations that offer expertise, as we do, typically like to boast of the number of people on their books, not get rid of them. Those who know us appreciate that we draw on a great range of people who have successfully dedicated their lives mainly to activities other than winning elections. The public value this depth and breadth in our House.
There is also a suggestion that our numbers should be the same as those in the House of Commons. Why? Where is the logic in that wholly false symmetry? We are different in so many ways and, again, we seem to be concerned with the superficial—the cosmetic. Do we suppose that the public would like us to imitate the Commons? Most people whom I speak to value the very differences between us and the House of Commons.
The thing that I dread most is a gradual remaking of this Chamber into a smaller cadre of semi-professional politicians who can trade soundbites on almost any subject, rather than specialists, a wide group of whom may speak only occasionally but really know their subject. That would be to ape the Commons in a way that would do a disservice to the people and Parliament alike, and it would remove one of the most unique and important contributions of this Chamber.
I have asked proponents of shrinking this House what problems they are seeking to solve and very often I have been surprised by the answers. Rather than office space, cost or crowding—at least, for 30 minutes every day—I have been told that the numbers are indeed a cosmetic issue and that we must cut them as a fear-based PR exercise. Further, I am told that the typical level of participation is around 450—well below the 600 touted as matching the Commons. Most surprising of all is that those apparently targeted for removal are the Peers who seldom turn up—in fact, the very people who make almost no impact on the effective numbers but who in some cases make occasional but very valuable specialist contributions rather than anodyne speeches on almost any issue.
Party balance, reflecting the Commons, has also been raised by a number of speakers today. Are we to have a Peers’ hokey-cokey, where Peers go in and out as elections reconfigure the party balance of the other place? That is just not a workable system—not least determining who goes in and who goes out on each occasion. Symptoms are being muddled with causes. If this House defies rather than advises the other place, which is certainly the greatest bugbear one hears from Members of the Commons, perhaps we need to revisit that—or has the recent announcement put that particular dog back in its basket for now?
Coming back to numbers, I recognise that if ever more Peers are appointed and attend, which not all do, as some have pointed out powerfully tonight, there must be an attendance overload point—not because of silly comparisons with China but for the House to be capable of functioning. I can only echo what others have said about inflow and outflow: if you want to lower the level of your bath-water, there is no point bailing out one end with the taps full on at the other. That is our current situation and a swathe of sackings would achieve only a temporary reduction.
Detailed solutions are for another day, so I am not going to go there. However, to conclude, if only as a dissenting voice in the debate, I believe that we are running scared and addressing the wrong issue. We need to focus on representing ourselves far more effectively, so that both our contribution and our value for money can be properly understood. After all, if people do not understand what we do, how can they possibly know whether we are too many—or, indeed, too few?
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I begin by echoing the congratulations to my noble friends Lord Cormack and Lord Norton on the huge amount of work they have put into this subject. I hope that a Select Committee will be established, bearing very much in mind the words of the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, who I thought made a very good argument as to why it should be a Select Committee.
I have a certain amount of sympathy with the previous speaker. If our daily attendance is around 497, we clearly may have a problem with numbers, but the problem is not that we are far ahead of the House of Commons in numbers—quite clearly we are not.
Mention has been made of a relentless and cynical Prime Minister creating far too many Peers, so I suppose I must own up to being one of them. I happen to be a great admirer of the last Prime Minister. I spent five years converting him to the good points about trade unions, and when he asked me to serve in the House of Lords, he asked me two questions. He said, “Will you be a working Peer?”. I said, “What does that mean?”. He said, “You will have to go at least two-thirds of the time—that is what we expect”. I said, “Fine”. Then he said, “Apart from that, I’m fed up with Labour having all the people who talk about trade unions on their Benches. I think it’s about time we had someone on our Benches defending good, honest trade unionists”. So I came here at least with a partial mission.
I can see that we have a problem, and this is why we need a Select Committee. Today, we have 60 of the solutions on offer. There are probably another 437 from the other Members who regularly attend here. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is not in his seat at the moment, but I have a lot of sympathy with him. There has to be some protection for the awkward squad. There has to be some protection for the small minorities: our one Welsh nat and our one Green Peer and the like. Also, in looking at retirements, I think we have to be very careful. Clearly, there is a need for there to be a reflection of balance between the parties. But we will get nowhere until we first have an agreement from the Prime Minister—indeed, it will have to be an all-party agreement—on creations. People have quite rightly made allusions to bathtubs with the plug out and the taps on. Unless we can have some sort of agreement, we are, frankly, wasting our time. That is my first point.
The second point is that in an age of rising longevity—that is one of my specialities in life—we need to look at time-limited peerages. The good news is that, at the moment, people are living longer and longer; but the bad news is that that means peerages last longer and longer. A limit on serving time, but with a capacity to renew the mandate, would be something that it would be worth the Select Committee looking at. I also take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, made about a “soft landing”. That is also something that the committee needs to look at.
If you construct—and you certainly can—a mathematical model, you could predict what the size of the House would be if you had a certain number of peerages coming in, and the current membership of the House, with a fairly rigorous retirement schedule based on attendance rather than age. I have a few years yet until I get to 80, but we have abolished age discrimination in society and I do not think that it has a place. But what I do think has a place is a combination of time-limited life peerages and strict attendance at the House, combined with retirement and a soft landing, which could give us a package.
I have to say something nice about the Liberals. Let us remember that they did promise in 1911 that they would come forward with a final reform of the House of Lords. We are probably not going to get a “final” reform—it will carry on evolving. But I believe that we can now evolve ourselves forward and take our time. The noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, talked about not being hounded by the press. If it took us two or three Parliaments to get down to the numbers that are right, that would be far better than reacting to the pressure of the press and running scared. Let us make sure that we get it right, rather than get panicked into a solution and then have to say, “Oh dear, we didn’t get it quite right”.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, I start by apologising to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and the House. I arrived five minutes late, but that did not stop me hearing the eloquent and forceful nature of the noble Lord’s introduction, with which he set the tone for the debate. Like most people, I agree with the supremacy of the House of Commons and, as probably everyone has already said, with a smaller House of Lords—I support the number being around 400 or 450. However, I also agree with a number of speakers who say that numbers, by themselves, are not going to solve the issues that many noble Lords have raised in the Chamber tonight. We are talking about a symptom and not the cause of the problem. I agree with a lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, said, in that we need much more radical solutions to the problems that face this House. The issue is not just reputation, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said. The issue is also relevance in a modern democracy. Would a reduction in numbers deal with the real issue of how people not only perceive this House but see it as relevant to their everyday lives? I do not believe that it would—it just scratches the surface.
I have been very disappointed that there has been little discussion about the people outside this House. Some noble Lords mentioned them, but there has been very little discussion about our purpose of serving the people outside this House. There has been a lot of navel-gazing about what the systems and structures of the House could be like with reduced numbers. To be clear, I completely disagree with what a number of noble Lords have said—that somehow the public do not understand us and it is their fault that we have a bad reputation. That is condescending and patronising to the people outside this House who do understand. A lot of people see us as distant, irrelevant and a club. To some degree, we play up to that image. So let us not say that it is people outside who somehow do not understand the workings of this House. They feel that it is like a game of Monopoly, and, to some degree, some of today’s debate has reinforced that: we will shake the dice to decide our own numbers and rules, as if somehow that will solve the problem. In fact, I have been following the conversation on Twitter, where somebody said that, “The Lords tonight are blowing their own trumpet of pomposity”—that is somebody who understands this House.
Let us think about it. What democratic legitimacy do we have to decide whether this House has a majority of government or not? What legitimacy do we have to decide whether the independents have 20% of the seats in the House? Why are the Bishops given a privileged status in this House, given that we are a multicultural country? As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, also said, why is it that former heads of the Civil Service and the military get a place in this House? What relevance does that have in a modern democracy? Many people have spoken about the age issue.
Regardless of what the Select Committee looks at, the democratic deficit is the real issue here. I have been amazed at how many noble Lords talk about this Chamber reflecting the votes at a general election but then would deny the people the vote to decide in reality what the political make-up of this Chamber should be like. We should trust the people to decide whether the House should have 20% of independents or a government majority, rather than some of us deciding in a cosy club what the make-up will be. Those who want to do that will give more power to the political parties. They will decide who sits in here. It will be people who have worked their way up the greasy pole rather than those who have been difficult and have caused ructions within their party.
We can tinker with changing the numbers and of course that would be a first step. However, it would be tinkering. Basically we would be changing the seats on the deck of something that many people do not see as relevant to their everyday lives. We need a thorough root-and-branch change if we are going to be relevant and improve our reputation. That would also mean not only reducing numbers but having elections to this place.
Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, I have written many notes and listened to 39 speeches. I do not know where to begin but I will begin at the beginning. We are bloated. That is not only a matter of public perception but is a fact. Public perception matters nowadays and you ignore it at your peril.
I suggest it can be seen in this way. What is our responsibility? To scrutinise and advise. What is the responsibility of the House of Commons? To legislate; to produce laws subject to listening to us, if it wishes to, and if it does not wish to, to ignore us. Yet for us to perform our function we have about 200 Members more than it has to perform its functions. There is no sense in it, no logic, and we have to address it both as a matter of perception and as a matter of fact and proper governance. We have to recognise the disproportion between our numbers—vast, huge and bloated—and our powers, which are relatively small.
The result of the perception and the fact is that we are commonly derided for the work that we do and for being what we are. If it was understood fully how attentive we are to the interests of the public when we examine legislation, the criticisms might be more moderate. However, we are derided for what we are—a bloated House.
We need a Select Committee. I agree with about 29 of the speeches which have been made so far. If I listed every noble Lord with whose speech I agreed I would take up all my time, so I shall not. We need a Select Committee to look at this to find the mechanics for dealing with the problem which most of us have identified today. With great respect to the Leader of the House, anything less than a Select Committee may convey the impression that we are taking this matter less seriously than we intend to take it and than the majority of the people who have spoken today wish it to be taken.
Once we have got our numbers down to a sensible, common-sense number, we then have to consider input and the appointments system. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, referred to how the influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished. Substitute for those words spoken in 1780 the words “Prime Minister” and you have identified the problem. The influence of the Prime Minister has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished.
The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, reminded me that the creation of Peers is unparalleled since the Scottish King James arrived in England in 1603. He created 60 knights within three months. So munificent was he in his creation of knights that one of those he knighted wrote how the office had been prostituted. He did not tell the King that and he did not refuse the knighthood. In 1611, King James created the great new rank of baronet, which was sold. One hundred people paid £1,000—which was big money in those days—to secure the baronetcy and the inheritance of a title for their family.
We have had a vast increase in the number of Peers created. Why can we not face it? Let me remind your Lordships of what happened to the Stuart kings. When they exercised their prerogative, Parliament stepped in. Ultimately, Parliament has to control the unwise use of prerogative powers. We have to persuade both Houses to do it if we have to. Obviously much better would be a convention and understanding and no suggestion of dividing the two Houses. However, that is the ultimate weapon of control of any prerogative power.
Baroness Hooper (Con)
My Lords, in thanking my noble friend Lord Cormack for introducing this debate, I should make it clear at the outset that I do not agree with the premise of his Motion, or with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who has just spoken. I see the size of the House as a perceived problem and do not therefore agree that we must reduce the numbers.
I am tempted to say, “Hands up anyone who has seen 850 people struggling to sit in this Chamber”—or 750, or 650, or even 550. On an average day, as has been said, we see between 300 and 400 people, and even after much activity in the various Whips’ offices we may see only 500-plus. So in practice we are considerably smaller than the House of Commons. If the overall size were reduced to, say, 300 or 400, would that be in the expectancy of everyone turning up every day or on the expectancy of the experience we have had that only more or less half the numbers turn up on a daily basis? Unless, of course, it is proposed to pay a salary. That may make things different.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and others who have said that there is much ignorance about how this House works. I agree with my noble friend Lord Wakeham and others who have underlined the fact that this is a part-time House, which is part of its value. These facts have to be made clear to those who may criticise its size because they are looking only at the total numbers and do not realise what happens in practice. I agree with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, on this. I may add that I do not seem to meet all of those people who criticise the size of the House of Lords and think we are a laughing stock. If I did I would try to correct the false impression which they have obtained—maybe from the media—and I certainly would not agree with it.
The point about the way in which the House of Lords has evolved over hundreds of years—as a hereditary House and a mixed hereditary and appointed House before becoming an almost entirely appointed House—is that Members attend and participate if they have something useful to say, usually in their own area of expertise. Hence the reputation that your Lordships’ House justifiably holds for serious and informed debate and for rigorous scrutiny of legislation. Do we want to change that?
That we are not paid a salary should be made clear. It seems to surprise people when they learn that, if we do not turn up on a sitting day to claim an attendance fee, it does not cost anyone anything. The taxpayers can relax on that score at least.
When I first entered your Lordships’ House in 1985, there were, I think, some 1,400 people entitled to sit, many of whom never came and many of whom came but rarely. The perception of an in-built Conservative majority was also not justified. Even in those days, a Conservative Government were frequently defeated. In fact, the active Members were roughly similar in number to the numbers I referred to earlier and which apply today. Although it certainly did not seem a cumbersome institution, I suggest it operated effectively and efficiently as a pool of talent, with people participating in the main not as generalists but in their areas of expertise.
In those days, the appointment of life Peers was a mere trickle, not the steady stream of newcomers we see today and which has been referred to. So much has already been said that it does not need repeating, but I certainly agree there is a need for a better, more transparent system for the appointment of new life Peers—rather like the immigration issue, in a way.
I therefore suggest to the powers that be that, instead of moaning about the size, they go out and justify it, and educate the media, if need be, and the general public and that, instead of persuading the valuable and experienced veterans of the House to retire early, they should be encouraged to remain. They certainly should not be made to feel surplus to requirements just because they have reached a certain age.
We should rejoice in the fact we have in the House of Lords an historic and traditional institution that does a great job at relatively low cost. It should not be tampered with or changed unless it is clearly a change for the better. I agree that the setting up of yet another committee to look at the future of the House of Lords may be appropriate, but let us look at the function and composition as a whole, not just at a reduction in size.
Lord Gordon of Strathblane (Lab)
My Lords, I add my thanks to the many already expressed to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for the Motion he has put before us, and a very sincere thank you to the Government, in particular the Leader of the House and the Government Chief Whip, for granting us the time to debate it. I dislike disagreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, but the reality is that we would have a higher reputation if people did not think we had 800 people here on any one day, but thought we had something more appropriate, such as the 550 who actually come. Perception is an important ingredient in modern politics, which, somewhat regrettably, tends to be pretty well instantaneous in its reaction to things.
There is a consensus around this House that we could do with fewer Members. It is not the sole problem we have, nor by any means the biggest, but it is one. I share the analogy used by many other speakers: if I came home one night and found the bath overflowing, the first thing I would make sure is that the taps are turned off. Any settlement we put forward has to be conditional on agreement from the Prime Minister and likely Prime Ministers of the future that they will moderate their appointments to fit in with the overall cap. That in turn depends on everyone reaching agreement on what a fair allocation of seats would be. The only point of consensus seems to be that everyone, with perhaps one exception, thinks 20% for the Cross Benches is a very good idea. I echo that.
Beyond that, it is easy to see where the problem comes. Successive Prime Ministers have sought to replicate the effects on the House of Commons of MPs leaving by simply increasing the numbers in the House of Lords. That inevitably, mathematically certainly, leads to more and more Peers coming each day because there is not a system for removing them. That is what we want the Select Committee to look at.
What system we go for to bring about the cull that will bring us down to a more reasonable number is very much a matter for the Select Committee. I just urge people to beware of solutions that look to be simple and attractive. A year ago, I freely confess, I endorsed the idea put forward by the Labour group of a retirement age of 80. I then realised it would further increase the disproportionately high representation of the Liberal Democrats, which is one of the problems this House faces. It is an embarrassment to defeat the Government at the moment because it is mathematically too easy. If Labour and the Lib Dems line up, the Government are defeated. It is as simple as that. There is a great sense of achievement in defeating the Government of the day—not just the present one—if you do it with the support of the Cross Benches and feel you have won a moral victory. There is no sense of achievement in defeating it by sheer force of inflated numbers.
We have to find a formula. The noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, put forward one. The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, made a sensible suggestion that it should be the average of not just one election, because the electoral pendulum can swing quite violently, particularly at the moment, but maybe the previous three elections. Surely the role of the House of Lords should be to temper and modulate excessive swings of public opinion rather than exaggerate and amplify them. We could go back to what ancient Athens did and do it all by lot. That might give us a result that is not totally unattractive, particularly if you had a manual override where, if somebody clearly had lost out in the raffle, they could be appointed by a committee to ensure that their contribution was not lost.
That would at least stop people electioneering, and that is the great problem about what was referred to as the democratic deficit—there is also the democratic dynamic. That is, if I stand for election, I make promises to people to secure their votes and I will then demand the powers to deliver on those promises. If that conflicts with the House of Commons, so be it. You would end up with gridlock, as you have in quite a lot of other situations.
Above all, the important thing is to leave it to a Select Committee. A Select Committee will command the support of the House, which will be a vital ingredient when we are persuading rather a lot of turkeys to vote for Christmas.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Gordon, who as ever was brimming with logic and wisdom. I too thank the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Norton, who have not only used hard work to get the debate going, but been responsible for educating a very large number of Members of the House in many of the issues around this complex and important problem. I also thank the Leader of the House.
I will make three points. The first concerns numerical facts about the net change in our numbers as supplied by our ever precise Library. I am afraid I do not apologise for repetition because, as others have observed, it is important. In the 16 years between 2000 and 2015 inclusive, the net change was plus 196 in our House in the aggregate, or just over 30% of our House. In the six years between 2010 and 2015 the net change was plus 125 in the aggregate. In other words, about two-thirds of the massive increase in the last 16 complete years has been in the last six. Thus, one could well argue that the rate of growth is accelerating. Certainly there is no evidence from the Prime Minister’s Office to suggest that this is not the case.
My second point concerns the drivers of that growth. Obviously for the Bishops and hereditaries there is no growth. The Appointments Commission, with its wonderful record of success, is now rationed to just two people a year, which is not enough to keep it going. Sixty-two Members have come through that route; people are not going to live long enough. That is a problem. In other words, the Appointments Commission route is in “shrink mode” in the House—something that patronage of Prime Ministers, as so many have observed, is very far from being in. I agree with everyone else about the negative consequences of this enormous growth. I am not going to go into that, but I would ask the Leader of the House, if she were here, whether she might comment on my analysis of the Appointments Commission being in shrink mode.
My third and final point relates to our committee system and builds on a point made earlier by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-Under-Heywood. I had the great benefit of being on the Trade Union Bill committee, so ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. At the beginning of what would be a very intense month, we had, as one can imagine, a room full of strident people with very strong views, covering all three parties, with two of us from the Cross Benches. I could not have been alone in thinking that we would have quite a problematic time in reaching consensus. However, the process over the month was extraordinary. We took lots of evidence and spend a lot of time chatting about things, sometimes in little corners and sometimes as a team of 12.
A month later, we produced a unanimous report. Later, we persuaded the House of the wisdom of that report and, later still, the Government. That report is now, effectively, the law of the land. Accordingly, I feel very confident that a Select Committee of this House can tackle this area successfully. I sincerely hope that such a committee will be formed in 2017.
I had intended to end there, but I was reminded earlier on by another speaker of an old business adage: if your business is evolving less rapidly than the world outside, then you are a dinosaur and you will be extinct. That is a business adage, but it is something that we might ponder successfully.
Lord Hayward (Con)
I echo comments made on many previous occasions in relation to this debate. I do not intend to duplicate them—at least I hope not to—and shall instead pick on two or three points made during this debate, particularly about the numbers. I ask my noble friend Lady Hooper and others who have made such comments to consider how they would react, from a Tory point of view, if the RMT said, “Oh, we’ve got 800 people, but we actually only need 450”, or the Labour side to consider how they would react if a bunch of bosses said, “Well, we’ve got a board of 800, but we only need 450”. It would be laughed out of court. We have to recognise that we are too big to undertake the role that we do. We are not representative. A lot of change could be undertaken in those fields, but we must, as per the British constitution, do things by stages. If we try to do everything at once, we will achieve absolutely nothing.
I welcome the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth and others concerning the Appointments Commission. There is no doubt that there is a need for a change and it has to be made very clear from this House. Associated with that, everybody has talked about taking people out at the top end. The noble Lords, Lord Morris, Lord Whitty, and others are not here today, but they might give consideration to the suggestion of last in, first out. Rather like the noble Lord, Lord Steel, I acknowledge that that affects me—like my noble friend Lord Balfe, I am one of the most recent appointments to the House, but that idea should certainly be given serious consideration. I say that because of one fact in particular: this House serves a great purpose in improving ever worse legislation from the other end by virtue of the expertise that it can offer. If everybody concentrates on taking people out at the top, one loses that expertise from all parts of society.
I welcome the idea of a Select Committee. Like the noble Lord, Lord Steel, I would want it to be time-limited. As the noble Lord, Lord Gordon, said just now, it may not come to agreement. We should give consideration to how one overcomes a lack of agreement on certain elements at the end of a time-limited Select Committee. I proffer—it is merely one idea and I am an inexperienced Member of this House—the suggestion that if the Select Committee fails to come to a conclusion on certain elements, such elements might be put to a group of the leaders of the different groups in this House, chaired by the Speaker, again with a time limit, at which point it would have to respond. The thought of the leaders of each group being locked in a room for four or five days and being obliged to reach a conclusion may not be greeted by them with great pleasure, but it is one solution that I would offer to finding an end to this whole process, because an end to it is absolutely necessary.
I do not believe that an election process is the right route for us to follow. As I said earlier, we are experts in this House in some field or another. We should recognise that and build on it. I must admit that if the Lib Dems wanted to subject themselves to some form of election, I would welcome the almost Macbethian solution proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit:
“If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly”.
That view was echoed by a number of other people. I wonder whether we might in modern parlance go down an “X Factor” route, with the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, competing with the noble Lord, Lord Steel, or others in a vote-off every Saturday night on some channel, but I leave it for them to decide.
We are too big; we have to find a solution. We cannot tackle every constitutional problem all at once, so let us tackle the question of size and send a clear message, very quickly, from this House to the other House, to government, to the leaders of parties and therefore to the public that there is need for change. By doing that, we would no doubt enhance the reputation of this House and of government in general.
Lord Luce (CB)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, that we need to reduce the size of this House. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who is not here at the moment, had the most interesting proposal of all, which is that those who decide to retire should retain their title and those who stay here should lose it. On the basis of that, we would be a totally empty House.
I can hardly think of a more important time for the Lords to rise to the challenge and to take a lead on the question of size, particularly against a background of a growing mistrust of Governments and of Parliament as a whole. We can also acknowledge that Ministers in this Government have given us encouragement by saying that the Lords is too large but that it must be for the Lords themselves to lead the process of reform, provided that there was a consensus, and that they would be prepared to work with Peers to take reasonable measures which could be implemented in this Parliament.
This is a challenge and an opportunity for the House of Lords. I agree with those such as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that there is a sense of urgency about this. At the same time, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, that we are at our best when we are pragmatic and incremental in our approach. There are some who have said that other things should have priority, such as composition of the House—of course, that can be tackled pragmatically as well—but, generally speaking, we have worked on the assumption in this debate that we retain our role in this Chamber, which is to accept the supremacy of the House of Commons and to have a complementary role.
To my mind, the key question is what numbers we need in order to fulfil this role effectively. That needs some coherence. Many say that it is just a problem of perception. I suggest that it is a problem not only of perception but of reality. If we face the fact that this House is steadily getting larger and that, by 2020, on past projections, we would probably reach 1,000 Peers; if we accept the extraordinary imbalances between groups and parties in this House, where UKIP has hardly any representation, the Liberal Democrats are overrepresented and the SNP, of course by its own choice, is not here at all; if we accept that we are the only country with a bicameral Parliament where the second Chamber is larger than the first, that other second Chambers around the world contain fewer Members—Canada has only 105 and the United States Senate only 100—and that there is a growing disparity in size between the House of Commons and House of Lords, all this points to a serious problem that needs to be faced.
Now, I will not repeat the parameters suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and others. They are there and they make absolute sense as the kind of framework to pursue. We clearly need a Select Committee to get into the practicalities and we must accept that whatever idea is pursued as to how to make the reductions—whether retirement at 80, a 15-year term or internal elections, the latter of which I tend to favour on balance—each of those arguments has strengths but also major flaws. This issue requires a will in this Parliament to do something about it, and that in turn requires give and take. If we have that will and the willingness to give and take, a Select Committee can achieve a result which will enable us to say that we have done something to restore public faith in our parliamentary system.
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Luce. I place on record my thanks to my noble friends Lord Cormack and Lord Norton, and to the noble Lord, Lord Steel. To that I add my thanks for the work that Professor Russell has done as an academic.
We should not regret the progress made so far—or indeed forget it. Retirement was a major step forward. Making sure that those guilty of wrongdoing could not attend and will not be able to attend in future is progress. Then, of course, we have challenged the number of those who are on leave of absence. So there has been progress and there were wise words from my noble friend Lord Wakeham earlier that we should recognise that this is not something where you set up a Select Committee and as a result the whole thing is answered. It is not done that way; it is incremental.
In terms of numbers, all I am interested in is how many men and women we need to ensure that we improve performance in terms of the legislative demands that are put on an upper House. That is our primary purpose and what we should be looking at. I will make two points in relation to that. First, on the ill-fated tax credit fiasco, my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, is sitting on the Cross Benches. As she will know, when I was Chairman of Ways and Means I used to have meetings with the Leader of the House to look at a Bill and see whether it was a money Bill. If it was and somebody suggested that it should go to the other place, I would talk it through with the Leader of the House and say, “Why on earth is this going to the Lords?”. We came to an agreement that it should not. I can think of a couple of instances on the margin—yet it is on the margin that people must show leadership. That is what it is about, so that whole fiasco should never have come to your Lordships’ House.
Of course, at this time, looking at the other place, every Bill is guillotined—so is it any wonder that we in this House must work more and try to improve pretty rough, shoddy work on many occasions? I am not surprised that the Liberal Democrats move certain amendments at certain times: if we get shoddy work sent up here, then we have a challenge, so part of the answer to this problem lies in another place.
Secondly, I suggest—as certainly my noble friends will recognise that I was bound to—that we might look at what Cromwell did when he abolished the House of Lords in 1649. He then discovered that actually it was a mistake and he needed to think again. He then decided that it needed replacing so, under the terms of the Humble Petition and Advice in 1657, he started the other House. The number there is interesting: only 61. Yet the range of those 61 is also interesting. Every single one of them, then and thereafter, was a life Peer, so long as that particular House existed. He had a range of experiences there: some hereditary Peers, just there for their lives, and 15 out of the 16 privy counsellors. He had ordinary former MPs and, really interestingly, there was a set mix of people from the regions. We need to think about that and the bias we have at the moment towards the southern half of the United Kingdom.
Those points are absolutely crucial, but the one message coming out to me is that Cromwell set up life Peers who had no Writ of Summons. Someone who had done wonderful work somewhere that justified the award of an honour did not automatically have to come to the House of Lords. They were made a Lord but they had no Writ of Summons. I suggest that if the last Prime Minister, who appointed 261 Peers, had either thought about or seriously considered having Lords without a Writ of Summons, many of our problems would not have arisen.
To conclude, there does need to be a Select Committee. I want a House performing in terms of vetting and improving legislation. But there must be some understanding at the other end, in the other place, that it must reform itself a bit, too. Above all, I—of all people—believe that we must maintain the supremacy of the Commons. The people there are elected, unlike those in your Lordships’ House. I do not want to be the Lord for Northamptonshire; I want to keep my seven Members of Parliament. Finally, I repeat my advice for the Prime Minister: Peers without a Writ of Summons should be seriously thought about.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, a second Chamber of more than 800 is grossly excessive and is seen by the public to be so. The House of Lords needs, I would think, around 500 Peers committed to the work of the House if it is to do its job of holding the Government to account, providing close scrutiny of legislation, debating the great issues of the day and examining policy through its array of committees—in all this complementing the different emphasis of the House of Commons.
Aside from the partial removal of the hereditary Peers in 1999, successive Prime Ministers have casually increased the size of the House while failing to think carefully enough about their appointments. No party leader in my recollection has systematically sought to build a coherent and formidable party group with the range of experience and skills appropriate for a Chamber of the legislature. Why is this?
One reason is that neither the Executive nor the House of Commons wants an effective second Chamber. They seem not to understand that the role of the House of Lords as our constitution has evolved is now only advisory. The House of Lords does not make the law. It seeks to improve policy and proposes amendments—but, after offering its advice, sometimes indeed quite insistently, it always defers to the democratic authority of the elected House. Those at the other end have nothing to be frightened of so long as we do not have an elected second Chamber.
Of course, our advice sometimes extends to saving the Government from themselves and giving them time to think again when they set out to do something really misguided, such as bringing in super-casinos or taking away people’s tax credits. Naturally, Ministers resent having their poor judgment exposed; they get huffy and sometimes lash out, as with the Strathclyde review.
Another reason is confusion between peerages as honours or rewards and peerages as conferring membership of the legislature. When the public are persuaded by the media that a party leader is dishing out peerages just to cronies, courtiers and fat-cat funders, it intensifies cynicism about politics. People view our bloated House in an even more jaundiced light as a facility for giving political favours. However unfairly where individual appointments are concerned, Mr Cameron’s lists might have been designed to bring the House of Lords into terminal derision and disrepute. Some animadversions have also been made on Mr Blair’s lists—I was on one of them. Meanwhile, many former MPs, including senior Ministers, might give very valuable service to this House but, through the caprice of patronage, have not been appointed.
A further factor in the disproportionate growth of the House has been the misconception that the Government are entitled to a majority in the House of Lords. That is to misunderstand the nature and value of this House. The practice of packing the House to stack up party numbers not only compromises the ability of the House to perform its advisory role by passing amendments but leaves only meagre room for appointment of the Cross-Benchers, who give special distinction and independence to the House.
The Government, after barking so futilely up the wrong tree in their attempt to create an elected second Chamber, and with Brexit as well as Scottish nationalism on their hands, now have no appetite for Lords reform. They have, however, given us to understand that, in what they perhaps see as the unlikely event of the Lords reaching consensus on desirable reforms, they will consider them. Let us startle them by reaching that consensus.
How are we to do so? The House has gone round and round in circles for years, agreeing on the easy proposition that its size should be reduced, but all over the place when it comes to specific, painful choices. Should there be a cap on numbers? If so, what should it be? What principles should determine the respective sizes of the parties and other groups within the House? How should departing Peers be identified? Should there be an age limit or a limit on tenure? How do we deal fairly with Peers who joined the House when relatively young, sacrificing another career? Should there be renewable terms? Should we finally end the hereditary principle for membership of the legislature? Over what timescale should the existing membership be reduced? Should new appointments be made in future to two classes of Peers: honorary Peers with the title but not sitting in the House, and legislative or working Peers? Should there be a limitation on prime ministerial patronage? If so, how should it be effected? Should there be a statutory appointments commission? What should be its duties and powers?
We could continue to talk interminably about these and other such difficult questions. In the absence of a government Bill which puts a pistol to our collective head, how can we bring ourselves actually to answer them? I agree that a Select Committee should be set up to examine the issues. This committee should, I suggest, formulate a series of questions about options—precise questions with no wriggle room—to be put to the House. The usual channels should then arrange for debates and votes on all the questions, in government time. In that way, the House could reach its conclusions and could present its consensus—or at least its decisively expressed majority view—to the Government. After that, if the Government do want reform—a big if—and if reform is not seen as threatening by the House of Commons, the Government could introduce legislation. We can do some things ourselves but legislation will be needed—and they could introduce it with a real prospect of carrying it.
The Duke of Somerset (CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, invited me to join his group very soon after my election to these Benches two years ago, and I have become very interested in what I have heard in his meetings, so I am delighted that he has secured this debate for us tonight. Mostly, we seem to concur that this House is far too large in its composition but that the problem lies in how to reduce it. I agree with many that its optimal size should be equal to that of the Commons, or perhaps smaller. I say smaller because, post-Brexit, the need for so many European committees away from the Floor of this House may well vanish, or at least diminish.
What I feel this country really needs of a second Chamber is an efficient mechanism to revise and scrutinise legislation emanating from the other place, while acknowledging its supremacy as the elected Chamber, as so many have said. To my mind, the continuing logic of this, I hope many noble Lords will agree with me, means that we should be thinking in terms of a full-time House that operates along business norms and whose work is carried out by politicians and worldly, experienced men and women appointed to the post. That House should project more strongly the image of what it does—what we do so well at the moment.
Having more than 800 Members is embarrassing but not, I submit, of pressing concern to the people outside, as so many have said. They are more concerned about what we manage to achieve. However, if we were in a position to broadcast a positive story of reform and improvement, I believe that that would be well received. Therefore, I am suggesting that reform could be holistic and all-embracing—the opposite of the gradual and incremental reform put forward by many today, including the Government, I believe. One can think of improvements to many aspects of governance in and beyond this Building—to the Civil Service and to the Privy Council, as well as to the way we conduct our business in this Palace.
The political world is being shaken by seismic shocks, as we well know. We have the ability to head one off by acting soon. We are doing our best, as this debate shows, and we are aware that we need government help. We have heard many solutions offered and perhaps after this debate a consensus will emerge but, for me, not having the experience of a time spent in the other place or from a political party, the obvious difficulty is the patronage of Prime Ministers and their prerogative to appoint any number of Peers for any reason.
To my mind, the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, pointed to the way forward. While I acknowledge the caveats of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, I am still attracted by the notion of holding party electoral colleges immediately after each election. In this scenario, 600 working Peers would be elected by the parties and Cross Benches in proportion to their results in the recent election. Indeed, I would like to see the 20% reserved to the Cross Benches that so many have mentioned. The rest would still be Peers but would not be eligible to take part in proceedings in this House for that Parliament. A statutory appointments commission would produce new Peers, including suggestions from the Prime Minister, who would join the general pool to stand as candidates in future if they wished to be working Peers. This would overcome the Prime Minister’s ability to increase our size but also distinguish the new Peers who had no intention to contribute.
A typical attendance is around 500. However, at normal times the Chamber is populated by many fewer. What are the other 400 doing while they are waiting to vote? They cannot all be researching speeches. Surely this is a waste of the extraordinary talent in our midst. I, for one, feel uncomfortable being here in receipt of an allowance when I am not contributing directly by making a speech—something one cannot do every day. I recognise that my suggestions for a wider reform of governance may be a step too far at this time—as ever. I thoroughly support the Motion and hope it will lead to a Select Committee, not least because so many of today’s contributions have induced second thoughts on preconceived ideas, not least my own.
Lord Higgins (Con)
My Lords, I join all those who have paid tribute to my noble friends Lord Cormack and Lord Norton and the work that the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber has been doing and continues to do. They have set out the parameters within which reform ought to operate; in effect, a manifesto for further incremental change and reform, which to some extent has already been carried through over a number of years.
There seems general agreement that your Lordships’ House is presently too large. This does not result simply in public concern, and to some extent, perhaps, disdain; it has very real problems in terms of costs, the resources available to Members, and so on. One point that has not been made but which is very important is that it also tends to result in a limitation on the length of speeches. The effect of this is that it is virtually impossible to take an intervention. We are not a lecture theatre, we are a debating Chamber and therefore this is a considerable disadvantage.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I agree with everything that the noble Lord has just said.
Lord Higgins
I am most grateful. The noble Lord and I are not always in agreement so it is a happy coincidence that it should be so at this moment.
The situation with regard to reducing the size of the House changed quite radically once the law and the set-up were changed so that Members could retire. As has been pointed out, a considerable number have already retired. However, this is a pointless exercise if, the moment there is a reduction, the Prime Minister goes on filling in with new Members. Almost everyone is agreed on that. The royal prerogative has been heavily criticised in this respect. It is interesting to note that it is not only in this Chamber that the royal prerogative has been challenged today; it is being challenged on the other side of Parliament Square as well. Perhaps we ought to look at this really rather fundamental thing.
Part of the problem, as has also been pointed out, is that the creation of a peerage is both an honour—which of course it is—and a job. We need to distinguish between the two. What has emerged rather clearly is that we are short of a different honour. Perhaps it should be rather the same as it is for those who have retired from this House—an honour could be created which gave people that sort of facility within the Palace of Westminster. The confusion of the two roles which we in this House have is certainly very damaging.
I want to refer to something that I think was mentioned only briefly by my noble friend Lord Goodlad. We have a sudden development at the other end of the Building with regard to the House of Lords. I have always rather understood that we at this end do not interfere in their affairs and they do not interfere in ours. Then suddenly the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in the other place, chaired by Mr Bernard Jenkin, is apparently looking at the very issue we are debating. I view this with mixed feelings because one could say, “If they’re going to do that, we ought to have a committee looking into why the House of Commons introduced programming so that legislation arrives here not properly debated, and why they have abandoned their primary role of legislating”. We need to look at this rather carefully but they may come up with some useful ideas. If so, they will certainly have to take lots of evidence.
I am sure that if we carried out a survey of the membership of that committee at the other end, the number who have ever appeared at the Bar of this House during Question Time would be very small, and still fewer would have stood there through a debate to have some idea of what we are doing. I hope that if they carry out this inquiry, they will jolly well come and find out what it is all about. They will be surprised, as indeed the public at large would be, at the valuable work that we in this House do in improving legislation which, if it has been debated at all, has not been scrutinised as it used to be in previous years.
I must conclude. This debate has been extremely useful and we must carry it further. We have not been dealing with any of the detail and perhaps we should have a further debate after Christmas so that we can set out rather more clearly what the Select Committee should look at. That would give it some form of overall guidance as to what would be appropriate. None the less, we are making progress on this and, if we are to do our job properly, it is very important that further progress should be made.
The Earl of Glasgow (LD)
My Lords, unlike the majority of my fellow Liberal Democrats, I have never believed in an elected second Chamber. However such a Chamber might be constituted, it seems self-evident that two elected Chambers in the Palace of Westminster would be asking for trouble—a guaranteed recipe for conflict. People argue that an elected House of Lords could simply continue to perform the same important role as the existing one, which seems like saying that you are going to exchange your dog for a cat, and that the cat is expected to do exactly what the dog did. It is as fatuous as that.
However, we all accept there are many flaws in a totally—or almost totally—appointed Chamber too, and one of them is the subject of this debate. We have built up a membership a third as large again as that of the House of Commons and there seems no way of making substantial reductions without causing much bitterness and feelings of injustice from those who are unwillingly ejected. The problem of this House’s excessive size is not the result of being an appointed House as opposed to an elected one; the fault lies, as others have mentioned, with the person or persons responsible for doing the appointing. Apart from the Bishops, hereditary Peers like myself and some of the Cross-Benchers, who are chosen by the Appointments Commission, appointments to this House are nearly all made or approved by the Prime Minister alone. He or she hands out peerages to distinguished friends, powerful political supporters and ex-Ministers whom no one else knows what to do with. To justify this, he or she also offers a number of peerages to leaders of the other parties, to deal out as they think fit. There seems no limit to the number of peerages that can be handed out. In this respect, I am in total agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd.
I propose that a powerful new body should be created, responsible not only for appointing new people to the House of Lords but for managing the House’s affairs and regulating the behaviour of its Members. One of its immediate responsibilities would be to reduce the size of the Chamber to something slightly less than that in the House of Commons, and then to maintain it at that level. By limiting the number of new peerages and, possibly, compelling existing Peers to retire at the end of a Parliament if they are over the age of 80, it should be possible to achieve this objective within the life of two Parliaments. That is surely not too long to wait. This proposed body, which I rather clumsily call the House of Lords appointments and regulatory council, would also have the power in special circumstances to extend the term of individual Peers beyond the age of 80, allowing them to remain for another Parliament or perhaps more.
The Prime Minister, and other outgoing Prime Ministers, could still continue to make a limited number of appointments to the Lords, but the vast majority would no longer be in his or her prerogative. This new body would thus not only be responsible for controlling the size of the House; it would also ensure that its appointments represented the widest spectrum of British interests. The most important function of the House of Lords, as now, would be to review and, where appropriate, improve Bills passing through Parliament and to highlight and debate important issues that are not necessarily part of government policy.
The need to balance the House on party-political lines would be less important than now. Here I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell: party politics is the job of the Commons. Although party-political balance must be a consideration when making appointments, the need to fill the House with loyal party Members would be much less necessary than it is deemed at present. Any power or influence that the Lords might have should come from the weight and experience of its Members, and the fact that it represents the largest possible number of professions, regions, classes, sexes, ethnic groups, religions and special interests. I am advised that no present or future Prime Minister would ever willingly agree to relinquish their power of appointments to the House of Lords. Maybe not, but now is a good time to try when everything—constitutions as well as many other things—is up in the air.
The Earl of Sandwich (CB)
My Lords, I extend my thanks to the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Norton, for sustaining the effective second Chamber group, of which I am a keen member. I strongly support the proposals in the title of this debate. Membership of the group also means that I subscribe to all the tenets of the Steel Bill, including making the independent Appointments Commission into a much stronger statutory commission. The noble Lords, Lord Crickhowell, Lord Jay and Lord Forsyth, the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, and many others have emphasised this. The noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, just talked about a similar commission.
I mention this first because the group recognised early on that the Prime Minister’s patronage has to be tackled at some stage of reform. I heard the warning given by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, about legislation. There has always been resentment of royal patronage, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, reminded us, and it is clear that in reducing our numbers to the size of the Commons we will have to have a cap on new appointments.
I am also encouraged by the decision of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee to continue its previous work on reform and ensure that,
“the House of Lords continues to work well by addressing issues such as the size of the chamber”.
This chimes in very well with us. It intends to identify the “unarguable next steps” for Lords reform. What are they? Having read the call for written evidence, I conclude that the committee will focus a strong light on patronage and methods of appointment, and I welcome that as a measure which will certainly command public support.
My old friend the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, used the term “self-restraint”. That might perhaps avoid the need for legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Geddes, made a similar suggestion, and the noble Lord, Lord Gordon, spoke of moderation. Inevitably, the question of honours and rewards should be part of any discussion of future peerages which, in many people’s view, should be firmly separated from appointments to this House. Today’s Peers who have been rewarded may even feel happy to be released from taking part in the legislature when they come in only very occasionally.
I do not support a proportional cull with an election such as happened with Scottish Peers and as I experienced in 1999 with my 89 colleagues. That was all very well with hereditary Peers, most of whom hardly came into the House, but today it would be very divisive and would be influenced, perhaps even monopolised, by Whips and factions.
Naturally, I reassert the requirement for at least 20% of the House to be Cross-Bench Peers. In the past, that figure was 25% or more because of the Law Lords, but it has fallen to 22%. Cross-Bench life Peers are a unique feature in this Parliament. They are highly respected by the public, and I would even say that they are a cornerstone of our current democratic system. I dare to add that it happens that many, if not most, hereditary Peers can also claim similar expertise in various fields.
I have been pondering the special problem of Cross-Bench Peers, which is that they were given different instructions on arrival about attendance. Most independent Peers feel they are obliged to come only for subjects of which they have special knowledge or expertise, while those chosen by the Appointments Commission are required to attend as working Peers.
The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and others spoke about the concept of the working Peer. It may be a good principle, but it has contributed largely to the increase in the visible size of the House. The only reason that attendance has not risen faster—it has actually gone below 500—is that some Peers still do not feel under any obligation to come in regularly and, as experts—the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, spoke of this—they may well have, and should have other, occupations. May that continue. Those Peers include a smaller number among the political parties and those who feel they received a peerage as a reward and an honour. There is a possibility that those Peers, both those rewarded and those making an occasional contribution, could be classified differently in future, but that is a subject for another day.
The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said in a previous debate,
“we must recognise that the gap between our headline size and our average attendance adds to some of the misunderstandings”.—[Official Report, 15/9/15; col. 1749.]
Before that, we must do more about retirement. That will be a little easier for the committee when it is set up. I have long felt that there should not be an age limit, but that Peers approaching 80 should be asked to talk to their Whip or Convenor about their contributions in the future. This might act as a gentle brake and a reminder that Peers cannot go on for ever. Of course, we all know that there are a few exceptions who not only go on for ever but make a real contribution even in their 80s and 90s.
We need to come up to date. It is fairly normal these days for human resources departments to interview and review staff on a regular basis. Most Peers are likely to have some direct experience of that. The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, said there are Peers in need of help and advice. We could appoint a human resources manager to oversee the process while keeping the responsibility within parties and groups. I shall be 74 next birthday. I feel relatively active now, but I am beginning to feel able to forecast my retirement in a few years.
Finally, I repeat that I fully support the principle of a cap on numbers. I strongly recommend that a committee is set up in the new year, not later, under the noble Lord, Lord Burns, I hope, as was mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, to sort out those solutions that will in the end achieve unanimity.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market (Con)
My Lords, it is difficult at this late stage of the debate, when so many have spoken so well and covered the ground so extensively, to say anything new, so I shall make a few comments to add my support to points already made.
First, like others, I pay warm tribute to and thank my noble friend Lord Cormack for the extensive work he has done over the years on this issue and to my noble friend Lord Norton, who has wide academic and forensic experience from which we all have greatly benefited.
Secondly, does it matter that we are so large, larger than the House of Commons, and the largest second Chamber in the world? Some say that it does not because we should take into account the nature of this House and that the daily attendance reflects the fact that many Peers have outside expertise and experience, which is partly why they are appointed and why they come mainly when that knowledge can be put to good use. They say that the daily attendance of just under 500 is the figure to use. My noble friend Lady Hooper mentioned this point. I am afraid I have to say that I disagree with her. I cannot accept that argument. Now that the elected Chamber discussion is not on the agenda, I believe size is a big issue for us. It is easy for the media to attack us and create unfavourable public impressions, which are made even worse when Prime Ministers appoint even more Peers because the Government have far from a working majority in this place, so this is now our most vulnerable point. Moreover, the last Conservative manifesto committed the Government to tackle the size of our Chamber and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in the House of Commons is about to embark on an inquiry, so size is back on the agenda big time. We must make our views known.
Thirdly, my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral referred to the Association of Conservative Peers, of which I was chairman for some years until earlier this year. The executive of the association produced a unanimously agreed paper which was put to the whole ACP at the beginning of this year and certainly seemed to get wide acceptance and support. Some of the main conclusions were that the Lords should have as an objective a membership no larger than the Commons and that the composition of the House should be responsive to any major changes in support for political parties in general elections.
We had two main recommendations: first, we agreed with the proposal of the working group of the Labour group of Peers—the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, spoke about this earlier in the debate—that there should be compulsory retirement at the end of the Parliament in which a Peer reaches 80. That was agreed by all of us. Like me, many of us will be affected by that in this Parliament, but I still believe that it is right, and I would happily accept it. I have always supported the measure that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, introduced about retirement, but the number of Peers who have taken up voluntary retirement does not match the number of new Peers coming in, so it is not a big contribution to the size question, however necessary and desirable it is. We must move on. We hear this proposal criticised on grounds that so-and-so, in his-or-her 80s, still makes a good contribution. But so what? Nearly every other profession has a retirement age at, or more usually well below, 80. One’s experience becomes outdated and mental faculties not always so quick as they used to be. I certainly know that some of my experience of working in industry and other areas, which I gave up three or four years’ ago, has become outdated. I do not think this is a very powerful argument, and unless we have this measure, we will reduce the number of new Members with more recent experience and freshness who can come in. Every vibrant organisation needs to have that, and I believe that quite a consensus, in different parties, is now developing for that proposal.
But here is the rub. As the House stands as present, there would be disproportionate effects between the parties from that age proposal. We wanted to avoid that being addressed by the Prime Minister of the day simply approving new Peers, which is the way of dealing with it at the moment, thus adding to the size problem. So we proposed in our paper a system that would keep the size of the House at 600, assuming the number of Lords spiritual stayed the same, allocating a fixed proportion for Cross-Benchers and—this is the key—allocating the remaining 80% to the political parties, with their share of the seats reflecting general election results. This would be achieved, importantly, by internal party elections.
I will just add one other point on the voluntary retirements of Peers at the moment. There is currently a disincentive under this proposal to retiring for many, particularly in the governing party, because another Peer retired is another vote lost and the threat of more Divisions being lost. That is a disadvantage which causes some of us not to undertake that voluntary retirement.
I conclude on this note. We pride ourselves on being a self-regulating House. If we do not address this issue, others, such the Commons Select Committee, will do it for us. I believe there is a compelling case, and I strongly support setting up our own Select Committee to cover all these issues.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
My Lords, when I became a life Peer, my children told me that being an unelected parliamentarian was a contradiction in terms. This is why outreach is such an important activity for me and for us. I have found that after explaining to schools, universities and other organisations the work that we do in holding Governments to account, in scrutinising and improving legislation, and in protecting the rights and lives of our fellow citizens, as well as our committee work, especially when the primacy of the other place is explained, most people support what we do. They are less concerned that we are unelected, that we have hereditary Peers and that some are part-timers. But the one thing that is not understood is our number and the cost—that rankles, and it tarnishes the work we do. That is why I think that the time is long overdue to do something about it. I welcome the debate and support the Motion.
It is not as if we are short of ideas. We have had a royal commission—in April 1999 I made a submission to it—four White Papers, draft Bills, and reports from Select Committees, academics, think-tanks, our own Clerk of the Parliaments and our own parliamentary groups. Generally, when it comes to numbers, what it boils down to is that we should be no larger than the other place—which is looking to reduce its numbers. Other noble Lords have detailed the mechanics, and I do not need to go through them, but as the noble Lord, Lord Low, and others have said, at the same time as we are reducing our numbers, the Prime Minister and the Appointments Commission must appoint only when there is a vacancy. There has to be a formula fixing the balance between the groups, perhaps relating to the result of the last three elections, but with no political majority and with some 20% to 25% on the Cross Benches. The important thing is that these measures should all happen together.
I too might add that much of the detailed work and analysis has already been done by Professor Meg Russell and her colleagues at the Constitution Unit at University College London. Conceivably, your Lordships could take things into their own hands, for example by introducing new Peers only when we think there is a vacancy. In a way, this happens with the Bishops. In addition, a move to the QEII Centre during R&R could force us to reduce our numbers by virtue of insufficient space.
I agree with other noble Lords that, to preserve our reputation, we have to get our own house in order, otherwise others will do it for us. We know that a large part of our population are discontented with mainstream politics. Some are discontented with us. Even the Prime Minister has called us bloated. Has the Leader googled “bloated House of Lords” recently? It is very instructive: there are pages of entries headed by the Prime Minister’s use of the phrase on 8 August, which can lead to fake news websites and a hashtag #CutTheBloatedLords, directing ridicule towards us. This can only damage our work and our reputation. Is this something that worries noble Lords? It does me. All the more reason why we have to get on with reforming our numbers. Let a Select Committee put a proposal to us, and soon.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, I have a variation to suggest to the incentive proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for Members of your Lordships’ House to retire. If life Peers retire immediately, their Peerages should be converted to hereditary ones carrying no right to a seat in this House. It would cost nothing, and I believe it would be effective.
I will make four brief points. First, I have to say to my noble friend Lord Cromwell and the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, that it really is not sustainable to say that the size of the House does not matter on the grounds that it is a pool from which Members contribute when they have relevant expertise. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, has said, we have substantially more Members than we need to do our job. Not only that, but there is substantial number of Members who do not contribute to the work of the House, whether by attending, speaking in debates or serving on committees. To add to the statistics that the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, gave, I say that well over 100 Members of the House attend fewer than 15% of the sitting days. Others attend only when whipped by their parties to vote. We have a long tail which could substantially be reduced, with benefit to our reputation but without reducing our ability to do our work.
My second point is that the problem of our size is now more urgent than it has been in the past. As the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, said, the opposition political parties in the House now have a substantial majority over the Government, and when they act together they can defeat the Government at will. There are only two ways in which this can be dealt with. One is by the Prime Minister making further appointments to the House on a scale which would damage public perception of the House even further. The second is by the opposition parties showing self-restraint, which, to their credit, they do, at least most of the time. However, this is not a satisfactory basis on which to run a House of Parliament.
Thirdly, I want to deal with the issue of the Prime Minister’s exercise of patronage. When I worked in government, I had the privilege of sitting in on discussions between the then Prime Minister and Leader of this House when appointments were to be made. The Prime Minister would ask the Leader what areas of expertise needed to be reinforced to help this House to fulfil its scrutinising role. That meant people with expertise in science, business, medicine or cultural activities, and many others. With no disrespect to any of those appointed recently, it is difficult to believe that this happens with political appointments today; the main concern appears to have been simply to get the Government’s voting numbers up.
Fourthly, and I say this with great temerity, I venture to be less pessimistic than the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, about the prospect of getting effective action taken, subject to one condition: that any legislation must be introduced first, and debated and passed, in your Lordships’ House. I believe it will pass through this House, even if it does not give the Liberal Democrats what they want, if, however painful, it is fair. If it is passed by this House and does not threaten the position of the House of Commons, I think there is a good chance that it will pass that House as well. So I believe we should go forward with determination and with confidence.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)
My Lords, I entirely agree with a good deal of what the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, said. I believe that an Act of Parliament is ultimately necessary. It is true that we can do quite a lot, but a Select Committee examining this would find that some essential aspects require to be dealt with by an Act of Parliament. The most important of these, of course, is the prerogative of the Prime Minister in appointing Peers to this House.
I entirely agree with the view that, for various reasons, including very irrelevant ones, the size of this House has become an obstacle to the fulfilment of our task with the degree of acceptance in the community that it should have. Our fundamental task is to revise legislation that has been passed by the House of Commons. It is true that, from time to time in the past, and indeed this year it has been so, some Bills have started in this House. That is a perfectly reasonable way of proceeding in some cases. For example, I had responsibility for the embryo Bill that came here, and which was discussed by eminent experts who knew all about these matters, before it went to the House of Commons. I am glad to say that on the essential issue—namely, when embryo research should be allowed—the House of Commons accepted the view that had found favour here. If you go for a completely free vote, as we did on that Bill because of its nature, you are always risking that the House of Commons and the House of Lords might take different views. But that worked extremely well, and it is a very important piece of legislation in an area that is outside the ordinary scope of legislation that we have to pass.
The fundamental job of this House is the revision of legislation, with the exceptions that I have just mentioned. Over the time that I have been here, which is now a long time—I would immediately pass any retirement age that could reasonably be thought of so I would not object to one being suggested, although I think it is for someone else to do so rather than myself—the House of Commons, which I was never in, has found itself more and more subject to very heavy tasks arising in constituencies; so many people have problems that Members have to deal with. One of the results of that, I think, judging from afar, is that they do not have so much time or possibly so much inclination to revise the detail of Bills in Parliament. After all, those of us who do this know that it is not a particularly attractive task; in fact, it is rather a grind. But it is mightily important, because if legislation goes out of here wrong, it can do terrific damage to a lot of people.
I think we have found a way to try to deal with that, and often with quite contentious matters. As I say, I was never in the other place, but there is an atmosphere in this House of trying to get the right answer irrespective of any sort of political consideration. I have relished the atmosphere here since I came here a long time ago, and that atmosphere continues in an attempt to find a satisfactory answer that will do right for all manner of people. Even if we are not judges, we still try to do right to all manner of people in accordance with the usages of this realm. And it seems to me very important that that role is preserved, and that the people who are willing to undertake it, and to do so in a fairly comprehensive use of their time, are here to do it.
My noble friend Lord Caithness talked about coming from a distance. I live in Inverness, which is quite a distance from here, but it is possible if one is devoted to it that one should come and try to carry out one’s responsibilities. When one has a certain amount—a little, maybe—experience in this area, I find it a responsibility to come for as long as I can come: not every day or every week but as often as I possibly can, and certainly to matters which seem to be on something I know about, such as the universities Bill tomorrow. It is extremely important that we should have people here who have that mission, and I believe that a lot of people here do have it. I do not wish to show myself as unwelcoming to the people who have recently come; on the contrary, many of them may be much better than me at doing just that.
I want to mention just at the end that if we are to succeed in reducing the membership of this House we have to have a statutory cap on that membership; that is the only way in which we can control the size after it is reduced. It is one thing to reduce it and another to keep it reduced. I believe that a statutory cap is necessary. Of course there are complications about that, and I think it would be appropriate for a Select Committee to consider them. There are statutory complications: for example, when people in this House change their religions. Occasionally they move from being in the Conservative Party to the Cross Benches—more often, perhaps, from some other parties.
These are difficulties, but I do not think that they should be obstacles to our carrying out this fundamental task of having the House reduced in a permanent way to a size that is accommodating to the important task that has to be undertaken.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure and privilege to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and I respectfully agree with absolutely everything he said. It is very helpful to have this debate today. When I was interviewed as a Cross-Bench candidate, I was asked whether, if I got it, I would attend. I said that of course I would; it was a great privilege to be able to take part in legislation, having been interpreting legislation for the preceding 35 years.
I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, was asked by the Prime Minister whether he would attend. It seems to me that it is a question that should be asked of every possible Peer: otherwise, what on earth is the point of coming here, other than possibly the honour that other noble Lords have referred to, which should be treated in a rather different way? I have to say, remembering what the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said, that I attend nearly every day and I am not alone in that. I bitterly resent what he said about the Cross-Benchers not attending. Most of us attend very regularly and I hope that he might want to retract that, as it really is not a fair comment on the work that we do.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
May I intervene to say that I was certainly not referring to the noble and learned Baroness or to the large number of people who do attend regularly? But if she looks at the figures I got from the Library, she will see that of the three political groups and the Cross-Benchers, the Liberal Democrats have the highest attendance, Labour next, Conservative next and Cross-Benchers least. That is just the statistics of it. There are a number who, perhaps for good reasons, are unable to attend, and I think we should take account of that. I meant no insult whatever to the noble and learned Baroness, for whom I have the greatest respect.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I thank the noble Lord and withdraw what I said, because I understand what the statistics are. However, there is a hard core of Cross-Bench Members who attend very regularly and consider that our duty is to do the work of the House among other Peers.
I have to say that, being now 83, I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Steel and Lord MacGregor, that it would be a very sensible compromise that those who were 80 at the end of a Parliament should go. It would have the effect of immediately reducing the membership to not all that far above 600—so it would be a good idea.
There is, of course, another point: when this House is relocated there will be a lot of retirements, so it may be that by that stage a lot will be done. But this will be in 2022 or whatever it may be, and I entirely agree with other noble Lords that we absolutely have to get on with it now because the suggestion by the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, that 800 does not matter is quite simply not true, as many other noble Lords said. We are seen as ridiculous by many people and the word “bloated”, referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and which others have pointed out, is undoubtedly true.
Consequently, we have to move to the next stage, which obviously is the Select Committee. There is considerable unanimity on that. It should take evidence and make recommendations, and it should be done in months, not years. It should and could consider what steps this House could take by resolutions within our own procedures—but I recognise, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, said, that at some stage there may need to be legislation.
The Select Committee must identify what it is that we cannot do ourselves. Then, as the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, said, acting together we are actually very influential. We should use our influence, so long as this House is unanimous, to put considerable pressure on the other House to deal with patronage, which is an open sore, and other matters that we cannot deal with ourselves. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, and the noble Lord, Lord Butler, that we could get a lot done both in our own work and in persuading the other place that we could have a Bill that would start in this House.
Lord Norton of Louth (Con)
My Lords, this has been a very good debate, and an important one. It is not an exercise in navel-gazing; it matters because this House matters. Addressing size is only part, but a necessary one, of what needs to be done to protect and enhance the role of this House as a valuable—and, I would argue, invaluable—second Chamber. This House adds value and, contrary to what some have said, is justifiable in democratic terms. Democracy—demos kratia—is about how people choose to govern themselves. In a representative democracy, the choice of who is to govern is fundamental. In the United Kingdom, we choose a Government through elections to the House of Commons, a Government who are responsible for a programme of public policy and accountable for that policy to the electors at the next election. There is core accountability. We have the benefit of a second Chamber that fulfils tasks that add value to the political process without challenging that core accountability. As my colleague Professor Colin Tyler, a specialist in democratic theory, put it in evidence to the Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, if you “divide sovereignty within Parliament”, you undermine the capacity of Parliament to give effect to the will of the people.
We have a Chamber that draws on experience and expertise to complement the work of the elected House. By general consent, this House does a good job. Debate about Lords reform focuses primarily on composition, not on functions—there is a general agreement about the functions of a complementary second Chamber. The House of Lords Reform Bill in 2012 was premised on the House continuing to do its existing job. But of course composition and functions are intrinsically linked; who is in the House determines how effectively the functions are fulfilled. We are a legitimate Chamber, but whereas the Commons takes its legitimacy for granted through election, our legitimacy has to be earned through the work that we do. We therefore need to ensure that we are working effectively and efficiently; we need to ensure that the quality of what we do is maintained.
We know from the Ipsos MORI poll of 2007 that electors considered the two most important factors in determining the legitimacy of this House to be trust in the appointments process and in considering legislation carefully and in detail. Seventy-six per cent considered trust in the appointments process to be very important, while 73% thought the same for considering legislation carefully and in detail. Some element of election came way below.
It is three years almost to the day since I initiated a debate on the size of the House. It was clear then that there was a problem; the problem is even greater now. As we have heard, of legislative chambers that meet regularly throughout the year, we are the largest. It is true that the Chinese National People’s Congress has more Members, but it meets for only about two weeks each year. It is true that we have a smaller membership than existed prior to the 1999 Act; the difference is in terms of activity and perception. There is a justified expectation now that those created as Peers should contribute to the work of the House. The level of activity places a burden on the resources of the House, and on the public purse. Any inactivity reflects badly on the House, since we appear to be carrying passengers. So either way there is a problem.
We need to address size, which necessarily entails not only reducing numbers but also, as we have heard, controlling future appointments. That is where public perception becomes important. Some noble Lords appear to say that this is not too important: it is only perception. We do not exist in a vacuum. The more we grow in number, the more the media draw attention to our size, whatever good work we do. Indeed, as we have heard, that coverage masks the work of this House: that is the reality. New creations will be pored over by the media to see if someone has been a party donor. It only takes one for the media to generalise about the whole. Whatever we say, that will remain the case. We therefore need to move from deprecating such activity—or simply ignoring it—to doing something practical about it, hence this Motion and the recognition that action needs to be taken.
It is quite clear from this debate what that action needs to be. We need to establish a Select Committee to address the various options for reducing the size of the House. As has been stressed, we cannot resolve what the precise action is in a single debate such as this. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, seemed to think that the committee may not reach agreement and that was, therefore, an argument for not having a committee. If there is going to be a committee with a majority and minority view, I would rather have that than no committee at all. It can come forward with recommendations. The sooner we get under way and the sooner the committee reports, the better. It need not be a lengthy exercise. It may not succeed, but it is an essential start. I am delighted that my noble friend the Leader of the House is to reply. I trust that she will acknowledge that this is not a parochial issue. It is about ensuring that this nation’s constitutional arrangements benefit it. I end as I began: addressing size is only part of what needs to be done, but it is a necessary part. Let us get on with it and then address what else needs to be done.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I have no difficulty in agreeing with the Motion before your Lordships’ House. I am therefore extremely tempted to follow the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and sit down now. Sadly for him, and for the House, he is not going to be so lucky.
I start with an admission. In a previous incarnation I was responsible, albeit to a modest extent, for increasing the size of your Lordships’ House. When I was chief of staff to Charles Kennedy, we got a proposal from the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, about a very modest increase in the number of Liberal Democrat Peers. We objected to it, on the grounds that it was modest, and we would rather like a few more. We tried to find out what the other parties were getting but were told that that was completely improper and we could not be told. We said that unless we got a few more we were not going to agree to anything. There was a great deal of huffing and puffing but, to cut a long story short, we ended up with 60% more than had been on the original note. This was haggling about the composition of a legislature in one of the world’s largest countries. This process was, and remains, ridiculous and unsustainable in the long term.
As my noble friends Lord Tyler and Lord Rennard have set out, my party has had a long-standing policy to elect people to your Lordships’ House and, in the process, reduce the number of Members. We believe that in a democracy legitimate power and political authority ultimately derive from the people. In the 21st century, and in a modern innovative country such as ours, it is simply wrong that the public never have the opportunity to vote for Members of this House or to hold us to account on our record. Members of this House are, individually and collectively, legislators. It is straightforward that we should be accountable, through elections, to those whom we expect to follow the laws which we enact. A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, have made a point about regional representation in your Lordships’ House which strengthens this argument. As long as we have the current system there will be a predominance of people from London and the south-east in your Lordships’ House. There is a lot of talk about rebalancing the economy and the northern powerhouse, but the northern regions are not fully represented in your Lordships’ House. Until they are, any sense of political rebalancing in terms of the balance of arguments in Parliament simply will not happen. Regional elections would help to redress that balance.
It is also worth pointing out that every other second Chamber in the world, I think, except possibly the Council of Elders in Papua New Guinea, is elected. Although they may all be wrong, and we may be—
Lord Newby
I stand corrected. I had better be careful because the noble Lord will correct what I am about to say, but I believe that many countries have more than one Chamber and that a minority, at best, have a non-elected second Chamber.
Lord Norton of Louth
That is true of wholly elected Chambers; they are in a minority as well. No one model is in an absolute majority.
Lord Newby
One of the great strengths of your Lordships’ House, which would undoubtedly disappear were we all elected, is that this kind of seminar would probably not take place. I stand corrected on the point I made about second Chambers but do not resile from the point that an elected House, or a predominantly elected House, would be superior to the current House. I strongly supported the attempt by my colleague in another place, Nick Clegg, to bring about such a change under the coalition Government. If such a change had been brought about, the exasperation of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, and others over the number of Liberal Democrats in your Lordships’ House would already have been largely assuaged because we would have had elections. We wanted that and we would still like it. We may not always do desperately well in elections but in principle we are happy to contest them.
Much of today’s discussion has concerned the need for consensus as we move forward. There is considerable consensus around the role of your Lordships’ House, notwithstanding some of the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, on this issue. I think there is near consensus, if not total consensus, that there is a strong legitimate role for a second Chamber to scrutinise and revise the Government’s legislative agenda; to hold the Executive to account through Questions, debates and the work of Select Committees; and, from time to time, to ask the House of Commons to think again—in short, to ensure that a sober second thought is built into the process of creating laws in this country.
Collectively, the House takes its role extremely seriously. We spend the vast majority of our time picking over the fine detail of legislation, continually asking the Government, “Have you got this right?”, “Did you consider this different aspect when this policy decision was taken?”, and, “Does it do what you want it to do?”. My experience as a Whip in government was that when the Government lost a vote, it was usually because we had lost the argument. This was a very difficult thing to accept at the time but it was the case. In my view asking the Commons to think again in those circumstances greatly benefited the development of legislation.
Since 1999, the Chamber has become much more professional in the carrying out of its important role and has already taken action to improve itself in a number of ways. We have taken measures to strengthen the Code of Conduct and ensure that the Nolan principles on standards in public life are observed. We have legislated on the initiatives of my noble friend Lord Steel and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, to ensure that those who are convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to more than a year’s imprisonment cease to be Members of the House, and to strengthen our ability to take action when necessary to expel or suspend Members. These changes have been achieved by consensus. There is consensus that the size of the House should be reduced, and on the other principles that a number of noble Lords have mentioned: that it should be smaller than the Commons; that we should retain an element of Cross-Benchers; and that no political party should have a majority. However, here consensus begins to break down, as the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, pointed out in his typically wise speech. This lack of consensus applies to matters great and small, all of which could in theory enhance the credibility and reputation of the House. One such measure, which could be quickly implemented, would be for the House to agree the recommendation in the report of the Committee for Privileges and Conduct entitled Undermining Public Confidence in the House, to strengthen the code of conduct with a “disrepute” provision. However, there is no consensus to do that, so it probably will not happen.
Another measure—it was initially proposed by Lord Avebury in 2006 and was in the initial draft of my noble friend Lord Steel’s Bill—would be to end the system of hereditary by-elections in this House. That has now been taken up by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who can certainly be assured of my support for his Bill. When it was introduced, the by-election system was supposed to be a temporary measure until the then Labour Government’s “second stage” of Lords reform was completed. As a junior Whip on the 1999 Bill, I remember the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, then Leader of the House, at her most imperious, slapping down people who said that the system of by-elections for hereditary Peers with an electorate of under 10 was a nonsense, on the grounds that it might not have been perfect but it would never be enacted because there would be a second phase of reform—so why was anybody worried? We have seen what has happened.
Another measure that could be considered is to reduce significantly the role of patronage in the appointment of Members to the House by giving a stronger role to the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission—the burden of the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Jay—and by ensuring that the commission is placed on a statutory basis. The issue of scrutinising the suitability and commitment of potential Members has near unanimity in your Lordships’ House, and we should go ahead and do that.
All the more substantive proposals put forward clearly have major strengths and weaknesses. I have a lot of sympathy with my noble friend Lord Steel’s proposal on retirement age, although I know that that makes me unpopular with some members of my group, and there is certainly no consensus to do it. I have some sympathy with the suggestion that there should be an automatic retirement if a certain percentage of attendance is not reached in a Session. However, given that a number of noble Lords who make good contributions here are doing things outside and cannot be here all the time, we would have to set the bar significantly lower than the 30% or 40% suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. I do not agree with the other suggestion, that we should have a moratorium on appointments. While the tap should certainly be turned down, it would be a mistake to turn it off, as we would just get an ever-older House.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
On that point about having time to come here, when I was appointed by the Appointments Commission, rather like my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss, I was extremely worried, because I had composing and broadcasting commitments and I felt that I could not give the House what it might need. The chairman at that time, who is sitting here today, said, “If you have a commitment to come, that is what we need”. I cannot come at every moment of the day but I try to come, as with this evening. I was interested to hear that more interventions would be welcomed, because that would mean that people could come and participate even if they could not be here at the beginning of the debate.
Lord Newby
My Lords, the noble Lord makes my point. I realise that my time is virtually up. I conclude, in looking at all the suggestions that have been discussed, that any further work that is undertaken will need to look at both sides of all those suggestions, both the upsides and the downsides. The lack of consensus on just about all the suggestions demonstrates that none of them is unambiguously without problem.
I am a proud Member of your Lordships’ House. I think that it plays a significant and positive role but fully accept that, in the minds of many people, this role is devalued because of the size of the House. I and my colleagues are therefore willing to look at methods by which a change in its size might be achieved short of the elections that we would prefer, but which I recognise we will not get in the foreseeable future. However, after today’s debate, and despite some consensus, we are under no illusions that this will be easy.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, this has certainly been an interesting debate and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for instigating it. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House and the Government Chief Whip for providing government time for it.
Perhaps the most enjoyable part for me was the exchange between the noble Lords, Lord Norton and Lord Newby, on the facts of the issue. I welcomed the comment from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that, despite the inevitable impact that elections would have on his Benches, he would still prefer to go forward on that basis. It was perhaps our first seasonal mention of turkeys voting early for Christmas.
The large number of speakers today reflects not only a concern about this issue but the fact that we are a self-regulating House and that we take that role seriously. We are ourselves seeking solutions and looking at how to move forward—and indeed, many other areas of Lords reform have been initiated in your Lordships’ House. If there are to be changes in how this House operates, including in its size, it will be helpful to proceed if not with consensus then certainly with broad agreement.
Labour Peers have been considering these issues for some time, and noble Lords will have seen our 2014 report. It is perhaps worth noting its title: A Programme for Progress: The Future of the House of Lords and its Place in a Wider Constitution. We have not had much debate tonight about its place in the wider constitution, but that has to be taken into account in areas of reform.
During this debate there have certainly been points with which I have agreed and others with which I have disagreed, and there have been a number of views and suggestions which I think are worthy of serious reflection and consideration. My noble friend Lord Cunningham of Felling, who is very experienced in these matters, said that it is difficult and complicated but that we can make a start. Tonight we have made that start. We have heard differing views on what the problem is and how it can be resolved, but there was broad agreement that we could be a more effective and better-understood Chamber, and perhaps be held in higher regard, if we had fewer Members.
However, the first principle should be that form follows function, and the role of this House has to be the central part of our debate. We have been clear about what we do and how we can best do it. The role of a scrutinising and revising Chamber is, as we have heard from many noble Lords, valuable—but, as we have also heard, it is often misunderstood.
The Canadian Senate has had some similarities with our Chamber, although I appreciate that it is very different at the moment. The first Prime Minister of Canada described the Senate as a Chamber of “sober second thought”. I think that that is a good description of how to approach matters. However, I also have no doubt that Governments have become less tolerant of that sober second thought, and indeed of more independent thought. I do not know whether noble Lords have been following the news today. The current political crisis in Italy started with a referendum on reducing the size and power of the Senate—the second Chamber. The Prime Minister was accused of attempting a power grab by trying to reduce the Senate’s powers, and there was a populist campaign in defence of the second Chamber. We should look at what is happening there.
This Parliament has been difficult for the Government. It is the first time ever that a Conservative Government have not had an automatic majority in your Lordships’ House. Both the Government and the Opposition parties have had to manage that—and, despite some transitional hiccups, I think that as a House we have managed the process well. Being a responsible Opposition does not mean that the Government get their own way every time, but nor does it mean that the Opposition can deny the right of an elected Government to implement the programme on which they were elected. As we have also heard, every Government have tended to appoint more of their own party Peers and fewer opposition Peers. In 1997, when Tony Blair became Prime Minster, there were 477 Conservative Peers and 117 Labour ones. But, even then, it was only after eight years and two electoral landslides that the Labour Party became the largest party in your Lordships’ House in 2005. Yet the pace then, from 2010, certainly gathered. The Conservative Party, despite there being two parties in government—the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats—became the largest party in your Lordships’ House after just three years.
Part of the problem is the short-term decisions that have been taken in recent years and a lack of understanding of the role of your Lordships’ House. David Cameron appointed more Peers per year and at a faster rate than any other Prime Minister since 1958 when life peerages were introduced—and more were from the Government parties and fewer from the Opposition. That then became further complicated because a significant number of those Peers were appointed to the Liberal Democrat Benches—which used to be on the other side of the House—meaning an extra 45% in their number, bringing them up to 104 from 72. However, when they went into opposition on this side of your Lordships’ House, the Prime Minister felt he had to appoint more Conservative Peers to try to balance the numbers—“ratcheting up” was the expression used by some noble Lords—to compensate for his former party of government moving into opposition. That is not the sole reason, but it is part of the reason why the size of the House has grown.
In addressing size, we have to look at two issues. One is reputational and the other is practical. When I first came to your Lordships’ House six years ago, we did not have an overflow seating area for Members of this House who were not able to come into the Chamber during Questions. That is something new that has come about with the increase in the size of the House. We should also recognise the reputational issue. A number of noble Lords commented on the difference between the number of Peers who attend and those who are entitled to attend. However, I do not think it is enough to say, “It’s okay because they don’t turn up very often”. It is almost as though we were suggesting to other Peers who do turn up that we could manage that bit better if they did not turn up very often, either. That is not acceptable. Every Member of your Lordships’ House is an equal and is entitled to be here and to vote. I am sure it was not just me and those in my party who winced when we heard one Member of this House complaining that he was appointed as an honour and did not like being called in so often to vote with the Government. That is not a party embarrassment but an embarrassment for this House.
Although I was interested in a lot of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, I have to say that I disagree with him that this is a part-time House. It is not a part-time House; we often sit longer than the other end. What we do have, however, is the fact that Members of this House do not have to be full-time professional politicians to engage in the work of scrutiny and holding the Government to account.
How do we achieve reducing our size? We can agree that we think there is an issue and we can agree on the principle, but how do we make it happen? The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, very helpfully said that we were talking about principle and not detail—but, inevitably, in talking about principle we have to look at some of the detail. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Newby, although I do not feel quite as negative about it as he does, that every proposal will have its downside. But they will also have benefits, and that needs to be taken into account and looked at.
On the issue of a retirement age, I feel very uncomfortable with my great and noble friend Lord Dubs, who introduced me into this place, sitting behind me. I know he said that he would be happy to go but we would not be happy for him to go. Whatever age we suggest, we can all identify noble Lords of that age or older who make an amazing contribution to this House, and name a few others who are younger than them who do not. I think we would find that, although most noble Lords would favour a retirement age, they will choose an age that is five years above the age they are. Therefore, although I am sure that retirement will be looked at as part of the criteria, we cannot look at that solely. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, made the important point that some Members of this House—not just those on the Cross Benches—come in once they have retired from their profession because they want to use their expertise in the work of this House.
If we were to look just at attendance, it would disproportionately affect the Cross Benches. We should expect a basic level of activity and commitment to this House from all noble Lords. Having said that, we need to recognise the contribution of those who do not attend very regularly, but who, when they do, add experience, expertise and value to the work that we do. It is about getting a balance between those two issues so that we can do justice to our colleagues, whom we want here, but with the expectation that people are here not just as an honour but to play a role in legislation and the work that we do.
Another issue is whether we should in some way tie numbers here to a general election. It needs careful thought. I am totally opposed to using the previous election alone as a marker for numbers and proportions of the different parties and the Cross Benches. We should perhaps look at the trends over three elections, as Professor Meg Russell has said. To have this House bouncing about from one side to the other because of one election result would undermine the very essence of what we are about. We are not a reflection or a mirror of the House of Commons; we are a distinct and separate body. We complement and work with the House of Commons but we are different. The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, made a similar point about three elections. We have to take care about how we look at that.
What are the guiding principles when looking at size? For me, the one that is non-negotiable—this has been mentioned many times—is a cap on numbers. It does not have to be an absolute number; it can be a band of numbers. I have previously been told—the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, will remember the many discussions we had on this matter—that it was totally unacceptable to the Government as the Prime Minister has to have the right to make appointments and cannot be fettered in any way. However, I am not talking about removing the patronage of Prime Ministers—I am not against Prime Ministers having patronage and making appointments to this House of people who have worked for their parties and their Governments—but there are limits. Unless a cap is agreed there will be no value in—and perhaps more importantly there will be no agreement on—reaching a reduction in the size of your Lordships’ House. If over a period of time—perhaps five, 10 or even 20 years—the numbers grow back, that will happen only through more government appointments. I have had colleagues on my side of the House say to me, “I would retire but, if I do, all I do is create a government vacancy”. That is not what this House should be about. I am not talking about an exact number but there should be a band with a top level on it.
Another point I have made before is that form should follow function. The Labour Peers’ report suggested 450—a working number—but the reason they came to that figure is because they looked at the committee work and the scrutiny that this House does. It is not only about legislation. We work on EU legislation and on statutory instruments—which we do so much better than the other place—and with Brexit coming along there may well be increased activity in your Lordships’ House. As we progress through the Brexit process we need to ensure that the Government are given advice by this House and can address all issues.
We agree that, whatever the number is, it is likely to be lower than the size of the Commons. However, relative size to the Commons is not the driver. The work that we do and how we do it should be the driver. However, it is inevitable that we will be smaller than the House of Commons.
I have two final points. Another point made by Professor Meg Russell, which I feel strongly about, is that we have to take into account the political balance of your Lordships’ House. There is an Official Opposition and Government in the other place and in this place and that must be recognised. The 20% or thereabouts that we have talked about for Cross-Bench representation does not seem unreasonable, but we are a political Parliament with an Official Opposition and a role for political parties and that has to be recognised. I would not go down the Canadian route of all Members now being appointed as independents—that would be a step too far—but we want to ensure that political recognition is taken into account.
Finally, if we are reduced in size it is inevitable that a spotlight will be shone on the appointments process and we need greater transparency in how appointments are made. Again, I am not trying to stop Prime Ministers and the leaders of the Opposition and other parties making their political judgments on who they want in here, but there has to be openness about the criteria used. The Appointments Commission has five Peers and two independents. Should we look at a greater role for independents to get a more widespread and diverse approach to how we appoint Peers?
We have made an important start today. I make one further plug to end the absurdity of the elections of hereditary Peers. The whole House recognises that the time has come to do so. That is not in any way to cast aspersions on the hereditary Peers who play a full role in this House, but it should be done to show that we understand and share the public’s concerns. There is an opportunity here. Although there is not a complete consensus there is broad agreement and we want to move forward.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to everyone for their contributions to the debate and to my noble friend Lord Cormack for securing the opportunity for us to discuss this important matter. Today’s debate has shown that across the House there is a strong desire to ensure that we continue and, indeed, improve the way we perform our critical scrutinising and revising role. What has also come across loud and clear is the concern noble Lords have about the public’s perception and understanding of the work of this House. This evening has reinforced to me that many noble Lords believe that the size of this House presents problems on both counts.
As Leader, I want to be clear at the outset that I have heard the strength of feeling on this issue. I also add that I am strongly of the view that any action we might take on the size of the House must at heart enhance our ability to perform our vital role of revision and scrutiny. Any reform cannot and must not be simply about numbers; it must result in this House working better in fulfilling our role effectively, as well as serving the public at large.
What has been encouraging about today’s debate is that there is a strong desire for us to work constructively together across the House to make progress on this issue. Indeed, I am strongly of the view that that is the only way progress can be made. However, as noble Lords will no doubt expect me to say about a topic that has occupied your Lordships’ House for many, many years, this is not something we will be able to make decisions on immediately and implement reforms overnight.
As noble Lords said earlier, today is not the day for me directly to address the merits and demerits of each and every proposal suggested during this interesting and extremely well-informed debate, but I will of course read Hansard and reflect further on the detail of noble Lords’ contributions. What I will do is set out my approach. In doing so, I remind noble Lords that this is a subject I will consider with two different roles to play.
First, as Leader of the whole House, it is my responsibility to ensure we remain able to perform our role as a scrutinising and revising Chamber as effectively as possible, complementing the work of the elected House, and that any changes we make are consistent with that purpose. It is also my role to listen to the concerns raised by noble Lords across the House and to work to see whether solutions can be found to address them. This debate reflects the fact that one of the most frequent issues noble Lords have raised with me since I have become Leader is concern about the negative public perception of this House, and the view that our size is one of the contributing factors to this. I understand these concerns and agree that we must reflect upon how we can better command public confidence in the excellent work we do.
Secondly, I am also Leader in this House of the Government Benches—a Government elected with a manifesto which acknowledged that size is an issue to be addressed, but also made clear that comprehensive reform is not a priority for this Parliament. As a number of noble Lords have acknowledged, that must be right when there are so many pressing legislative priorities to deliver over this Parliament, not least around the UK’s exit from the EU and our ambitious social reform agenda.
I am sure noble Lords will not be surprised that I will not set out a stall at this stage and propose specific changes. I think that today’s debate has, despite consensus, shown there is further work to do to reach a broad consensus on the precise way forward. However, neither am I suggesting that we should simply set ourselves in aspic. It is right that we collectively seek a solution to address concerns about the size of this House raised today while ensuring we continue to refresh and renew our expertise and our outlook so we remain relevant to the Britain of today and the future. Whatever reforms might be implemented, it is essential that this House continues to be able to draw on the invaluable breadth of expertise and experience of Peers as we do today.
Over the past few years, we have shown what progress can be made when we come together to make this House work more effectively, as a number of noble Lords have mentioned—whether in enabling Members to retire from the House, in legislating so that Members are removed when they do not attend at all or in giving this House the power to expel Members for serious misconduct. These may have been incremental changes, but the sum of their parts has been significant and led to tangible changes in the culture of this House. I know that many noble Lords who have spoken today are impatient for more wide-reaching reform, but we should not underestimate the importance of what has already been achieved and the value of taking steps forward together.
In light of today’s debate, I sense that noble Lords want to bring that same spirit to moving forward. While it will not be possible, either practically or politically, to achieve everything that has been raised this evening, I hope that it will be possible for us to examine and consider what ideas might be able to command support across the House in relation to our size. If, in the light of that consideration, there are ideas or proposals that are able to command broad consensus, I would welcome working with noble Lords, both as Leader of the House and as a member of the Government, to explore taking them forward.
Following today’s constructive debate, we have an opportunity to make progress. It is clear that there is strong feeling across all Benches that the size of the House is an issue of concern and that noble Lords want to continue discussions about how we might address this, although I think it is also fair to say that there is not currently clear agreement on what a solution might be. In further discussions about our size, it will be important that we reflect on the work we do and how we can do it more effectively. As I have said, I am clear that any further reform must enhance our role as a Chamber of scrutiny and revision and that we must continue to be able to draw on a wealth of expertise and experience. I will reflect on the comments made this evening and consider how best to take matters forward. I will of course want to speak with my fellow leaders, the Convenor and the Lord Speaker to consider the best approach.
As I have made clear, if we are to make any progress on this issue, we have to do it together as a House. The way forward will not be instigated, led and imposed by government alone. A number of noble Lords have suggested a Select Committee as their preferred way forward. As the House will know, we have a Liaison Committee which oversees Select Committees and is currently seeking submissions for next year’s ad hoc committees. That may well be a route that some of your Lordships wish to pursue. I would also like to consider whether a more immediate, practical step could be taken in convening a small, Back Bench-led consultative group whose work could be overseen, for instance, by the Lord Speaker. Such a group would be well placed early on to look at pragmatic options for progress on this issue, analyse their implications and identify the important questions that need to be resolved so that we can go further. Obviously, I will discuss this further in light of today’s debate, and I will bear in mind the strong desire that noble Lords have expressed for this to be a process led by Members. As the noble Baroness said, for any proposals for reform to have a chance of success, they will have to command broad consensus around the House.
I have heard the clear call from today’s debate and from the broader discussions that I have had in my time as Leader for a renewed momentum to have constructive discussions about our future on this issue. Although I come to this debate afresh, I am struck by the strength of feeling across the House on the need to try to make progress. I am encouraged that the debate today has set us on our way in a welcome spirit of partnership.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, it falls to me, briefly, to wind up this debate having introduced the Motion. I begin by thanking, once again, the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip for making this time available to us. I also very much admired the spirit in which both the Leader and the shadow Leader of the House responded to the debate. The Leader, in particular, showed that she has within her the stuff to make a considerable and perhaps great Leader of the House. She clearly understands what the House is about and what its duties and role are. I was encouraged by what she said.
Two things came through this debate very strongly. First, 49 of the 56 Back-Bench speakers backed the Motion, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Some were totally enthusiastic but only seven did not feel able to associate themselves with the Motion. How you define consensus I know not, but certainly that is an overwhelming majority. Secondly, with regard to the second half of the Motion, to which I attach—in spite of what was said by one colleague—equal importance, there was a desire for a Select Committee.
The Leader, in a very constructive way, acknowledged that. The best thing she said was that she clearly wants to continue discussions. She talked about a possible committee convened by the Lord Speaker, and clearly that idea deserves serious consideration. That does not in any sense rule out a Select Committee referral, nor does it mean that we must creep at a snail’s pace. The other thing that came out of this debate was the sense of urgency in many speeches, most notably in the excellent wind-up speech from the Back Benches by my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, and in the speech of a man who has more experience of the workings of Parliament than perhaps anyone else—the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane. He said that we are in danger of losing the claim to be seen as an effective second Chamber unless we take some action.
Clearly, throughout the House, Members of all parties and across Benches—two of the five Liberal Democrat speakers were warmly in support of the Motion—recognise that size is an impediment to enhancing our reputation and the understanding of our role, and that we have not got an enormous amount of time. We need in the months ahead not a publicly announced but a privately practised self-denying ordinance on the part of the Prime Minister so that we do not see another procession coming to the Box to take the oath. Everyone who has entered this House since I came here has been made as welcome as I was—and that is our duty always. But if we overload the Benches we create problems for everyone. That has come across time and again in the speeches we heard today.
We are fortunate in having a Lord Speaker who, the moment he took office, made his own concerns publicly plain. We welcome that. We have a Leader of the House, supported by a shadow Leader of the House, who recognises the importance of these issues. I hope that this will prove not just to have been a fairly long pre-Christmas day but the beginning of a campaign that will result, in the course of the next year or so, in concrete and positive steps being taken.
We must show that we have the collective will to take the initiative here. We do not want to have a solution imposed upon us. We do not want a House in which so many of us take great pride to be in any way endangered. I have great confidence in what the Leader of the House has said. In conclusion, I thank everyone who has taken part in a very constructive debate—and it is remarkable that we have got through 61 speeches and it is still only a quarter past nine.