Queen’s Speech
Baroness Andrews Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Andrews (Lab)
My Lords, this year, even more than most years, we expected and deserved a better Queen’s Speech than the one we got. Today’s debate does include some welcome Bills, including the mental health Bill, but the Speech falls far short of what we should have expected in meeting the risks and challenges that our public services face. In today’s debate, we have an opportunity to identify some of those risks and to raise some questions: what value do we put on public services, and what do we have the right to expect from them?
In the short term, some of the risks were totally predicable: the impact of Brexit on health, care and construction skills. Some were of course much less predictable: the impact of the war and of the pandemic on living costs. Nevertheless, these come after years of underfunding. It is not surprising, therefore, that people are beginning to falter in their conviction that public services are fit for purpose. An exemplar of this is the meltdown we saw in the Passport Office. What is really painful about this is missing the opportunity that the pandemic created to revalue and rebuild our public services, and to recognise the vital role that the care sector and care economy play in supporting the entire economic life of the nation. In fact, what this Queen’s Speech does, as many noble Lords have said, is to flag up the absence of policies which are capable of addressing the long-term infrastructure problems in education, health and social services, and the continuing and grave failure to plan for the skills of the future so that we can manage the existential problems destabilising the whole of our society and economy: an ageing society, artificial intelligence and climate change.
Many noble Lords—notably my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley—have spoken powerfully about the crisis in adult social care and the doubling of the number of people waiting for an assessment or a review for care to begin. The number has grown to 500,000 this year. A bounceback in the service has not happened because those people feel that they are not valued. Some 170,000 hours of care were lost last year and there is now unrelenting pressure on families and unpaid carers, who themselves could contribute so much more if they were seen as skilled workers and as key partners within the triangle of care. We are simply not valuing or mobilising the assets we hold as a country. We have a vicious, not a virtuous, circle. Perhaps the Minister can give us some assurances this evening that adult social care will get a bigger share of the health and social care levy. Without that, there is no way that the NHS is going to meet the backlog of care, let alone its other ambitions. This is because the NHS, as we have heard again across the House, is short by 110,000 staff, and this includes one in 10 nursing posts. The last health workforce strategy was in 2003. Can the Minister tell me when the next will come?
Where does the education service fit into this? My noble friend Lady Morris gave a wonderful speech on this issue this evening. Despite the optimism of the Minister, whom I respect very much, there is nothing in this Queen’s Speech or in the policy which will close the attainment gap between poor children and the rest. School funding levels have simply returned to the levels they were at in 2010. However, the crucial failure is not to have put in place measures to strengthen and stabilise the early years and childcare sector. The costs of childcare in this country are horrendous; the sector is increasingly fragile. We predicted this with the childcare Act of 2017, and I am sad to say that we were right. It bears down hugely on families, who are now facing horrendous cost of living issues. All that is offered is a review of childcare ratios—it is shocking. Can the Minister explain how this is going to improve access to high-quality care or help for poor children?
One solution the Government have offered is to cut civil servant numbers by a fifth because of Brexit. The Times demolished that assertion on Saturday, saying that
“many of the new jobs were driven by the longer term demands of Brexit”
and that
“departments expanded to take on regulatory functions previously carried out by the EU. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs … has trebled in size.”
In plant health, Defra has had to create 20 committees to replace the EU regulatory framework. Brexit is going to be a burden on the public and Civil Service for years to come. We need a new social contract between the public services and public servants in this country to ensure that, in the future, we have the public services that we need and deserve.
British Council
Baroness Andrews Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, again, I am a Minister in Her Majesty’s Government and I would argue that we remain very strong in the area of soft power, including through our work in the British Council. I would draw the noble Lord’s attention to the fact that the UK ranks consistently well ahead of many other leading countries when it comes to soft power assessments; indeed, we are second in the Portland Soft Power 30 index, second in the Anholt Ipsos Nation Brands Index and third in the Brand Finance Global Soft Power Index. These are assessments of our capacity in soft power around the world.
Baroness Andrews (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I am sure the Minister understands that it is difficult to believe in the Government’s commitment to being a soft power superpower while we are committing these cuts to development aid and the British Council. He may have to write to me, and I accept that, but can he assure me that the unique work that the British Council is doing through the cultural protection fund to repair the heritage of countries that have been so devastated by war will be placed on a sustainable footing? Does he agree with me that this is an absolutely critical and highly innovative way in which to maintain soft power where it really counts?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
The British Council’s specific budgets will be finalised, but of course I will write to the noble Baroness in that respect. It also plays an important role with other organisations, such as UNESCO, with regard to protecting world heritage sites, and it will continue to co-ordinate in that way.
Outcome of the European Union Referendum
Baroness Andrews Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Baroness Andrews (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish of Furness, will understand that I cannot agree with most of what he says, but I appreciate that he feels the sense of loss among those who voted remain—that is a good sign. It hardly seems possible that just over a week ago our world was turned upside down by a gamble that was never meant to come off. I have believed in the European Union all my life as a force for progress. I join the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, in what he said: the case was hardly heard during the referendum.
It is shaming to think that this week, when we remember the Somme—the war that was intended to end all wars but led to the threshold of another war—we have to acknowledge that we failed to remind people what inspired the European Union: not trade, not profit, but the hope and reality of lasting peace and greater tolerance along with greater prosperity. Nor did we show—the noble Lord was quite right in what he said—how Europe has helped our country to become smarter, more innovative, cleaner and safer. It is a home for the brightest ideas and the brightest Europeans, who are such an asset to the country. I join all noble Lords who insist that they should now be given immediate assurance that their status is secure, irrespective of future negotiations.
The referendum campaign failed the national interest. In particular, the toxicity of the leave campaign came as a genuine shock. The degree of mendacity and sheer flippancy was breath-taking, but not as shameful as the sight of the same shabby leaders fleeing the battlefield away from the fears that they had stoked up and the chaos that they had created. If by what we have done we have energised the fascist right across Europe, we will indeed have a great deal to answer for in the future. The self-inflicted risks that we are taking are, in a quiet but crystalline way, beginning to emerge. We are already a nation on the defensive, shoring up the pound. Today, for example, we were seeking reassurance from Europe that our scientists will have access to collaborative projects.
One change we can welcome is the Chancellor’s swerve to end austerity, but it comes too late to help the poorest communities such as the ones I know best in post-industrial south Wales which have borne the cuts and closures of austerity. They are not impressed or frightened by the talk of risks to the money markets or risks to the London property market. They live with risk every day, but it is the risk of not being able to pay their bills. Of course they lost trust in the political class, but they still believed what they were told about immigration, in particular, by mendacious national newspapers. Our popular press is an enemy to the truth—the people deserve better in every way.
I was told in places such as Merthyr Tydfil that this was not about money and it was not about Europe. If anything, it was a demand, however inchoate, for change. The utter tragedy is that these are the communities that will now be worse off. In due course there will be no more European investment for the new colleges and the new roads. The things that have happened in the past decades which have made the most significant differences have been funded by European money.
All these risks have been taken for the most opportunistic reasons—narrow personal reasons and narrow party-political reasons. History may well conclude that the battle for our place in Europe was lost on the playing fields of Eton.
Some humility may now be in order as we step back and try to think collectively about how we secure our national interest. First, let us have an end to slippery language. No matter what the Leader of the House says, the referendum was not an instruction to Parliament; it was advisory. My argument is that faced with a national crisis of this magnitude we have to take the wisest and the safest course. We must fall back on what identifies us and gives us strength: the sovereignty of Parliament. Only Parliament can act now on behalf of citizens—those who voted to remain as well as those who voted to leave, and those who did not vote at all. This is not an event where the winner takes all. There is a great debate to be had about the role of Parliament.
I could not decide whether to be pleased or alarmed that I am speaking after the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane—it would not have been a good position in either event. However, I was relieved that after his dissection of the legalities, he has come to the same conclusion as me. In his quite brilliant and clarifying speech yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, confirmed my instinct that in voting to leave Europe we have volunteered for an experiment where there are no templates and no precedents. That suggests to me that there is an opportunity to act creatively if we are given some space and time to act with care, and constitutionally. We must not be rushed into triggering Article 50.
The emerging debate over whether there needs to be a vote in Parliament on Article 50 is clearly contestable, and I wish that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, were in his place this evening to take issue—as I think he would—with the analysis the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, has given us. I am not a lawyer but it seems to me that the argument turns on what has been clear for 400 years: that rights which are protected by statute—which now include, for example, all the rights conferred under the ECA and countless other Acts—can only be removed by another Act of Parliament. However, I will leave that debate to the House and to the Government for another time.
Whatever the technicalities of the legal argument, it seems to me that the essential principle is the bedrock of parliamentary sovereignty, which suggests that we have to secure some parliamentary process at whatever stages we can as we go through the process of achieving a new settlement outside the European Union. This is not to challenge the result of the referendum but to give legitimacy and consensus to the massive changes which will follow from negotiation. That is where the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, and I agree.
We are extremely fortunate to have the expertise and wisdom of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, to hand. From what he has already said about Article 50, it seems that even if it is not legally required, Parliament could still have a role in determining it. This is the crucial question—it would be very good if we knew the Government’s view. I echo the questions put by my noble friend yesterday to the Leader of the House.
Since in this perfect storm of change we have no compass, the same question surely applies to both the framework and the negotiation itself: what will be the role for Parliament? The framework will set out the future principles and the national interests. Surely there must be some parliamentary procedure to reassure the country that we have secured what we need to go into the detailed negotiations. When we come to the negotiations themselves, no matter whether the process of Article 50 is irrevocable or not—and we have two opinions in this House about that—I stand with the noble Lord, Lord Butler, in his argument that there should be democratic assent to the details, once they are known, and the final agreement, either by way of another referendum, an election, or parliamentary process. No doubt the Constitution Committee will look at some of these questions.
I make this case, as other noble Lords have done, because we are on the tide of history, and the risks around us—not just to individuals and communities but to the very shape and integrity of our country—cannot be underestimated. We have got so much wrong and we have failed so many people, especially our young people. Let us try now, for the sake of our children and our neighbours at home and abroad, to find the right, constitutional and democratic way forward.
European Union (Referendum) Bill
Baroness Andrews Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Andrews) (Lab)
My Lords, I should point out that this amendment was in a previous group. Amendments 42B and 42C to 42E have been grouped previously and should have been debated.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
Yes, Amendment 42B was grouped with the fourth group, with Amendment 4, and Amendments 42C to 42E were grouped in the fifth group.
Older People: Their Place and Contribution in Society
Baroness Andrews Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Andrews
My Lords, it is a privilege to take part in such a profound debate which covers one of the great transformational changes of our time. It was introduced by the most reverend Primate on his last appearance. I hope that it is a temporary au revoir and that we will have the privilege of seeing him in another guise in another part of the House before too long because we would sorely miss his wisdom and his joy in the House itself. When I was a very junior Minister standing at the Dispatch Box, the most reverend Primate arrived for his first day in the House of Lords. I took it upon myself to welcome him on behalf of the entire House and said what a great gift Wales had given to the nation—and so it has proved over the past decade. This is a wonderful way for him to conclude this part of his great adventure in the House.
Three hundred years ago Jonathan Swift wrote that,
“every man desires to live long; but no man would be old”.
That reflection is the more poignant because he would not have recognised a society in which a third of life is lived after 50 or where pensioners outnumber children. But then, neither would our grandparents. I grew up in the famously matriarchal society of South Wales, much like my noble friend Lord Griffiths and perhaps the most reverend Primate himself. My grandmothers and my aunties, like Bertie Wooster’s aunties, ruled imperiously. If anyone had questioned their contribution to society they would have been told in no uncertain terms, “Well, we just keep the place going”. How right they were.
It is interesting that since the 1960s and the changes in demography, public health and health care, we seem to have been overwhelmed by the negative. I do not quite know the answer as to why there has been this loss of confidence. It is an interesting cultural question as well as a demographic issue. It took until 2005 for any Government to face up to this in any strategic sense. The policy document Opportunity Age challenged what by then was the stereotype and called for action to explode the myth that,
“ageing is a barrier to positive contribution to the economy and society through work and through active engagement in the community”.
We are seven years on and, despite the overwhelming evidence of the productivity, wealth and contribution of older people catalogued in this House today—and also, for example, in the WRVS report on “gold age”—the argument is still on the defensive.
I completely agree with the most reverend Primate that there is not a coherent picture. We seem to have, at last, a definition of where old age starts but we do not have a coherent language around the concept of ageing, the transfer between the third and the fourth age and so on. Paradoxically, it is undisputable that the contribution of older people to our economy and society has never been greater. I am not surprised by that because the generation that is now growing old and living through this revolution in demographics is used to having its own way. We have been a lucky generation. We had free education, jobs, cheap housing, generous pensions, investment in research and medicine and the National Health Service, and that has brought us the extraordinary gift of longer life. Now we are approaching the biblical definition of “time’s up” we are not ready to sign off.
That is just as well because we have fewer choices. We are being asked to work longer—and the next generation will work even longer. We have heard powerfully about the role of grandparents and older people. When they are not doing those kinds of key services they are providing the unpaid voluntary force which keeps our civic and civil society going. Putting on my English Heritage hat and declaring an interest, 50% of our volunteers are in retirement. They keep our gardens looking lovely and keep our rare books clean—we could not do without them. They find it as fulfilling as we do useful, as does the National Trust.
However, we are a lucky generation, too. We have the power of the internet in our hands; we can plague our children to death wherever they are in the world. We can broadcast our opinions; we can mobilise our friends and our causes; and we can influence the market in a way that no generation has been able to do before. Older people can be the change makers, as we heard from my noble friend Lord Glasman.
Under the previous Government, the new deal for communities was so successful so often in many of the most deprived parts of the community because older people—often women—provided the vision, leadership and the confidence to tackle the most stubborn and difficult of problems in their neighbourhood. Now they man the barricades against horrible local development and they demand better services.
It is an inspiring story that should be celebrated but it is only half—perhaps not even half—of the story. The inequalities of opportunities, health and life chances which that generation also suffered are now deepening. This is predictable, too. When economic and social policy is driven by a crippling programme of austerity, it is bound to bear down on those who use services most—those in poor health and those in need of care—and it is older people who will bear the brunt of cuts in capacity, services and skills.
The most reverend Primate asked how the Government can recognise and liberate the role of older people. Leadership takes many forms, not least in finding the right language for policy. I am not sure that leadership can be effectively vested or contained in a Minister for older people. I am not certain but I think a commissioner for older people might have something to offer by way of powerful advocacy—and, again, it would be another gift from Wales. When we had an identified Minister in the past, it merely revealed the fact that one Minister cannot speak for the entire diverse population of older people because they have an annoying habit of being affected by everything. Funny that, isn’t it? It could be that we are just ourselves growing older.
More useful would be to have a set of consistent and explicit principles built into the design and delivery of services based on values which reflect and impact upon older people. I refer to principles which confirm that prevention is better than improvisation or crisis management; that integration is more humane and cost effective than isolation and loneliness; that inclusion in a community keeps people active and healthy rather than dependent—principles which, in practice, remove the barriers that stop people being active, fully engaged and happy.
In conclusion, I want to talk briefly about housing, which often gets left out of the social equality equation. So much of what we are and can be is determined by whether we are living in the right place at the right time. There is nothing more important for the older person than to know that they can be independent and well cared for in their own home, which is where they want to be. That is why the smaller things matter; that is why handy-person services matter; that is why putting in insulation or a grab rail, which costs £80 as opposed to a hip operation once you have fallen over which costs £8,000, is part of the policy. The other policy is building those homes for the future which can last a lifetime, because they are flexible and adaptable. The other element is building homes which change as needs change. The previous Government had a policy for housing and ageing and this Government have continued with it. But this is where we need more than ever political will, because we are running out of time and working in the worst circumstances.
This has been a profound debate in many ways. It has revealed that, much more important than the quantification of economic benefit from older people, is, as my noble friend Lord Griffiths and the most reverend Primate himself said, the enduring sense we share of what is really important, not just in old age but throughout our lives—love, understanding, empathy, and respect.
Let us not underestimate the role of creativity. Verdi wrote Falstaff when he was over 80 and the great final self-portrait of Rembrandt in his eighties reveals the man behind the painter. I am sure that the most reverend Primate in his new academic career will go on writing the sort of things that change us and our society for as long as we live.
Antarctica: Centenary of Scott Expedition
Baroness Andrews Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Andrews
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, for introducing a debate that is as important to our scientific future as it is to our heritage. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Willis, will forgive me if I do not follow him specifically on the question of NERC. I shall come to that at the end of my speech.
I am speaking not with my English Heritage hat on, for once, but out of a personal conviction for the importance of polar heritage and polar science. I want to talk about a specific aspect. The extraordinary history of British Antarctic exploration—and it was British until 1914—involves the great race to the South Pole. The imagery of Scott’s fatal expedition of 1910-12 continues to haunt our imagination. Of all the images we have of that expedition, so well captured in the exhibition in the Natural History Museum, none are more evocative or poignant than the pictures of the interior of the prefabricated expedition hut—to which Scott and his companions did not return.
In 2002, under the leadership of the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust, the Ross Sea Heritage Restoration Project was begun, to care for the four surviving huts in the region and their artefacts. I recently spoke to Dr Nigel Watson of the trust about the progress that has been made on conserving the huts, which has lessons for science and conservation around the world.
Working with heritage specialists from around the world, including our own UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, a four-year programme of work on Ernest Skackleton’s only Antarctic base has been completed with more than 6,000 objects conserved, and a five-year programme to save Captain Scott’s last expedition building is completed. A programme of conservation of the collection continues with more than 7,000 objects from the site conserved—everything from Tate sugar cubes to tomato ketchup, books, newspapers and scientific instruments.
This is the science of conservation under extraordinary conditions. Last winter, for example, the Bowers Annex, made up of provision boxes, was excavated from underneath an estimated 100 cubic metres of ice and snow. Sixty-five metres of ice has been removed from beneath the main floor. The internal space of the original bulkhead has been revealed and a more historically accurate layout clearly shows the division between the officers, the scientists and the men. Even in cramped conditions on the other side of the world, British naval social structures were maintained. Therefore, we have social as well as scientific history on show, and Captain Oates’s bunk has been restored. In a recent blog, one conservator wrote:
“Stepping into the hut is always a powerful moment: it is quite dark inside at this time of year … A prescient silence also fills the hut, and there is a great sense of stillness”.
Others have spoken of a tangible feeling of sadness.
Why does all this matter? These huts are not tourist opportunities. They are not even for Antarctic tourists. We do it because these fragile buildings are not just a lasting witness to the human spirit; they represent enduring values of courage and the restless search for knowledge and the universality of science.
Thanks to the efforts of the New Zealand Government in providing and raising funding, 80% of the £8 million needed has been found, much of it from British sources, but another £1.5 million is needed. English Heritage has no power, unlike some of our counterparts overseas, to invest in the conservation of monuments which lie outside our physical boundaries; nor, I understand, does the Heritage Lottery Fund. The World Monuments Fund has, however, provided welcome support. The Norwegian Government have recently pledged funding for the Norwegian hut at Cape Adare, as have the Australian Government for Mawson’s huts at Cape Denison commemorating the Australian expedition of 1911-13. There is therefore an international commitment to a scientific legacy which belongs to everyone—to a continent of knowledge which, uniquely, is governed by international treaty in the interests of the whole world and whose heritage belongs to the whole world.
A few years ago, my intrepid predecessor at English Heritage, Sir Neil Cossons, persuaded the then Government, following a visit to the huts, to provide a very modest £250,000 to support the conservation of the British huts. I am now asking this Minister to persuade her colleagues in the Treasury to do what other countries have done to care for their scientific heritage and to provide a small contribution, in this year of all years, as a lasting memorial to complete the conservation of the huts. This is the year to do it and I am sure that noble Lords will support me in that.
The scientific legacy of polar exploration, so well described by my noble friend Lady Worthington and the noble Lord, Lord Willis, cannot be overestimated. It could not be more salient. I am sure that the Minister will listen very hard to the case that is being made for Antarctic and polar research not to be compromised. The Antarctic is literally the frontier of knowledge. It is there that we will learn most and earliest about the fate of the climate and of the globe. The BAS is at the forefront of that research and its work must not be put at risk. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will listen very hard and give some reassurances about the implications of doing so.
I conclude by again thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, for the comprehensive way in which she introduced the debate and for the opportunity that we have had to recognise, celebrate and think ahead about what we expect from the scientific research.