Civil Service Impartiality
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I agree that it is both unusual and without precedent, and I agree that Ministers must be able to speak to their officials from a position of trust. As the Cabinet Office Minister, I have worked closely with Ms Gray two or three times a week. My noble friend is right and asks a legitimate question.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
Does the Minister accept that people like me worked with Sue Gray in government, and that she knew a lot about our Government, but that did not stop her acting impartially when the election brought in a different Government? The Minister cannot continue to imply that, because people are prepared to work for the leader of the Opposition, they suddenly lose their integrity and are unable to act impartially. Will she now admit to the number of people who have left the Civil Service because their impartiality has been impugned, and particularly how a past Prime Minister behaved towards them and the House of Commons in particular?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
That is a completely different scenario. Ms Gray will work for the leader of the Opposition, which is a political post that she is moving straight into from the very top of Whitehall. That is why we have rules and guidance. I am surprised by the response from the party opposite: I would have thought that it would want to get on and explain what she talked about with the leader of the Opposition and what else she was doing at the same time. This seems to me to be quite different from some of the other cases that have been mentioned.
Public Services: Workforce (Public Services Committee Report)
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top
That this House takes note of the Report from the Public Services Committee Fit for the future? Rethinking the public services workforce (1st Report, HL Paper 48).
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to talk about this today. I hope I get through it without losing my voice, and I apologise to the House for having a cold.
This is the third report from the Public Services Committee and continues our previous work focused on making sure that public services across the board can be fit for the future. The public services workforce—teachers, nurses, social workers and others—is really facing a crisis. Demand for services is going up and the number of people available to deliver them is going down. This is an inescapable demographic fact, and it will get worse. People are overstretched, underpaid and unable to deliver what is asked of them. We received compelling evidence that those in our valued workforce really do not feel valued at all and are voting with their feet, leaving the jobs they have loved to work elsewhere. Staff who remain are expected to deliver more and more. This has a real effect on us all—on the public. We can clearly see this in recent daily reports of crises in the health service: delays, waiting lists and patients in danger. This is not a new story.
Here are two examples, although the problem goes throughout the public sector. The NHS and social care have more than 100,000 vacancies, and the Government missed the recruitment target for teachers in STEM subjects by 46% this year. So the staff who are in post are not having a good time of it. We heard that staff across public services were suffering, exhausted and overstretched, facing unmanageable workloads. Many feel disempowered and unrecognised.
We heard far too many reports of bullying and discrimination towards women, people with disabilities and people from ethnic minorities working in the public services. We also heard from some of them who wanted to work in a public service, but the service was simply not able to adapt to employing them. In the report we call for much more flexibility in how services are organised and therefore delivered.
We know the workforce is in crisis, but it is not unsolvable. What is required is for the Government to really get a grip of the situation. Recruitment targets are all very well, but we need to see action to boost staff numbers and make sure that people stay in those jobs.
The Government’s response to our report was not quite as quick as I was hearing in the previous debate, but we eventually got it and I thank the Government for that. Although the Government agreed with “all the Committee’s recommendations”, they did not indicate the step change we were arguing for in thinking about how the workforce for the future in the public sector is developed. The response set out activity in individual departments. While some actions may very well prove valuable—I hope they do—there seems to be little co-ordination between departments.
One potential place for a more cross-cutting set of actions that the Government’s response did highlight was the employment Bill. The response stated that this was due in 2022. I suspect we are not going to see it in 2022, and I would be grateful if the Minister could give us an update on the progress of that Bill.
Our report includes an action plan, which sets out our priorities for securing the sustainability of the workforce. I cannot possibly speak to everything in our plan today, but I will focus on some key points. The first is prioritising preventive services to reduce demand and improve outcomes for the public, for patients in health, for children and young people in education, and so on. Another is taking more flexible approaches to recruiting, training and employing public services staff. We learned a lot about this during Covid and we should not forget some of those lessons. The other points are improving retention through addressing career progression and training issues and thinking more imaginatively about how staff can be empowered and deployed more effectively. I also stress that the response to this crisis needs to be strategic and across government.
Putting more time and more money into preventive services is essential. It means that we can nip problems in the bud before they become too large, complex and entrenched. This not only will reduce demand for public services but is in many cases what public services staff actually want to do. I have seen examples around the country where local authorities have worked in a different way with their staff, giving them much more authority over tackling a problem rather than meeting a set of criteria. That has absolutely transformed their commitment and the outcomes for the public. We know that it also reduces distress and pressure on the people experiencing the service, as well as the people delivering it. Despite this, we see that preventive services are being cut. The Health Foundation reports that the public health grant, for example, has been cut by 24% on a real-terms per person basis since 2015-16, and that this has been greater in more deprived areas.
Of course, people have to want to come and work in the public sector. Perhaps the less we say on advertising and branding the better. We had an extraordinary evidence session, with people giving different examples of how they recruited in the public and private sectors. We heard that in the public sector it was “unappealing” and “stale”, and that job applications could take up to six months. It took people a long time to complete the application forms. There are other ways of doing this and the public sector has to get up to speed. These are easy fixes, but on which no commitments have been made.
Fundamentally, though, we have to offer more: more flexibility, more opportunities, and a better work/life balance. We also have to make sure that we are not closing ourselves off to talented candidates who cannot afford the training. Multiyear degree requirements, which land people thousands of pounds in debt, are no longer sustainable for our key workers. This is often a hard message for the professional organisations but it is one that must be given.
Our best way round this—apprenticeships—is underutilised in the public services. Apprentices make up an average of only 1.7% of staff in large public sector employers. Although there has been some welcome progress, the Government have not reinstated the apprenticeship target, asked employers about difficulties in hiring them, or begun to sort out the funding for them in a sustainable way.
We were struck by local examples of how to address these problems. Camden Council actively targets people who volunteered during the pandemic—people who worked in food banks, for example, and volunteers in libraries and other public services. It developed a talent pool, signposts people to roles, offers appropriate courses for them to do basic training and helps them with their CVs to make sure that the workforce of tomorrow is more reflective of its local community, resilient, and representative. We called for significant investment and leadership to replicate this elsewhere, but the Government’s response made no commitments on this.
Alongside recruiting new workers, we need to make sure that we keep the excellent people we already have in the public service workforce. This is not currently the reality. There are many reasons for poor retention in public services, but we also know that pay is a perennial issue. As the country faces a cost of living crisis, the Government need to accept the simple reality that if public services workers cannot afford to feed their families or keep their homes warm, they will leave. The current swathe of strikes has affected this debate. Several of my committee members are unable to be here as they needed to get back to where they come from. The train strike prevented them speaking today, so this is the appropriate time to give their apologies.
The Trussell Trust recently reported that nurses and teaching assistants now rely on food banks to stay afloat, and during our inquiry we heard that care workers were moving to work for supermarkets, Amazon or whatever to get better pay. As I said, the ongoing strikes demonstrate that this is a serious issue.
However, this is not just about pay. We heard about struggles to develop careers in public services. Health Education England told us that staff too often feel like
“‘rota fodder’, rather than a future resource to be nurtured.”
In a jobs market where people increasingly move around to get different experience and develop “portfolio careers”, we need to make sure that public service employers are supporting staff to grow and develop, instead of the situation where training is not funded or prioritised in services.
One area where this was particularly stark was social care. We heard that care staff in particular struggled to get their skills and experience recognised. The Government are in the process of developing a “knowledge and skills framework” to address this. I hope the Minister can provide an update on how that is progressing.
Alongside efforts to boost recruitment and retention, to address the crisis in the public services workforce we need creative and innovative thinking about how services can be delivered and staff deployed. During the pandemic, Wigan council gave its workers the opportunity to do some work on the front line. That transformed their idea about what the job was about, what they could do and how they could do it. It boosted the retention and involvement of workers. I know that some NHS trusts are supporting staff to develop skills through secondments and so on. We need to take the long view that that sort of work will help staff stay in public services, rather than just the specific job they were recruited for.
We also heard all sorts of examples of the untapped potential of public services staff needing to be used. We met a physician associate. They have to have a degree and then do three years of training, but they are still not allowed to do things such as prescribing, if they work in a GP practice. They are not allowed to do a whole round of things, nor are they allowed to transfer to be a doctor; they would have to start again. This is nonsense. The Government need to take on the restrictive practices of professional bodies and, with regulators, help change that sort of thing.
There were other things I wanted to say, but my voice is going and my time is up. I thank everyone who gave evidence and all the members of the committee. I thank the staff of the committee for their work on the inquiry: Tom Burke, Claire Coast-Smith, Sam Kenny, Daphné Leprince-Ringuet, Aimal Fatima Nadeem and Tristan Stubbs. They all worked really hard, with the team changing over in the middle. We thank them all.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, I thank everyone for their contributions. Anyone listening to the debate today will know that, across the piece, this House understands that public services are central to the lives of people in this country. Whoever we are, whatever our age or culture, they are essential to our safety, our education, our opportunities for skill development. Public services are important across the piece and, therefore, how we view their main part—the workforce—is critical.
The report makes it clear that there has to be a step change in how the Government approach that overall. Members today have made some very telling points about individual aspects of public service, but they have also said that, overall, unless we value, give opportunity and are creative and flexible, we will not be able to offer the public service that the population of this country not only need but are saying they want.
I hope this report can be taken up by the Government. We were very disappointed that a Cabinet committee on public service reform, set up in the Cabinet Office at the beginning of the 2019 Government—that seems a long time ago now—met only once; it is certainly not there any more. Without that sort of attention, the Government will not be able to answer the questions that this committee has raised. I was not able to raise all of them, but thankfully, other people have helped me out today: on the importance of civil society, of lived experience and of using that in both the design and delivery of services. I was not able to answer a whole range of other things, but they are in the report.
I hope that Members who were not part of the debate today will none the less take the opportunity to look at the report and that all of us will make sure that we do our bit to produce a public service workforce that is fit for the future.
Beyond Brexit: Institutional Framework (EUC Report)
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, I left the EU Committee in July 2019. I am speaking today largely because the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, who is chair the EU Goods Sub-Committee, asked me to. I think she did so largely for continuity, because the reports that you see today are built on work that has been going on for many years, in this House and in the EU Committee. A lot has happened since 2019. However, much that was done then needs to inform how we assess the work we are looking at today. In some senses, I feel that the loss of the EU Committee may well end up being a little premature. Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Jay, has reinforced that view.
The committees have been a significant means of scrutiny, initially of EU legislation and activity, which included the UK’s role in the EU. As we have heard today, there is still not that settled body of institutions and processes that enable effective scrutiny and accountability. I know there is widespread concern about that among Members of this House.
I put on record my thanks to everyone concerned with the committee. They treated me enormously well and kindly when I was on it, even when I was not participating that much because I was ill. I learned an enormous amount from them and from what was going on in the committee and in the EU, which I hope has served me well in my activities in this House.
The report before us on trade in goods recognises that its conclusions are inevitably “preliminary” and that
“the nature, causes and longevity”
of the issues
“are likely to become clearer over the coming months and years.”
That is another reason why I say that scrutiny and accountability in future will be exceptionally important.
The issues in this report reflect much of the evidence we heard some two and a half years ago and form the basis of the concerns of the business community and others today. As the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, has said to me, complex processes and the consequential paperwork have remained significant issues for many businesses, particularly small businesses. It is therefore very important that the Government seek to ensure that, in working with the EU on the implementation of what they are agreeing, they try to reduce the complexity and paperwork for the trade of goods.
The recent crisis in the ability to move goods was a salutary lesson to us all. It demonstrated that the haulage industry faces incredible challenges—not just shortages of labour and drivers but the shortage and poor quality of facilities for those moving goods. I do not know about others here, but I was severely embarrassed to hear the stories of what those workers have to put up with when they transport goods and are stuck on motorways or in car parks, unable properly to use services to look after themselves, let alone the goods they are seeking to move. The problems of the haulage industry also demonstrated to us just how reliant we are on the ability to move goods just in time, as they say in modern manufacturing, where the intricate co-ordination of the supply chain really has to come together.
We have been incredibly unfortunate to have a global pandemic at the same time as leaving the EU. However, the EU remains our largest and nearest partner for trade in goods, and we have to be able to come out of the pandemic in the best possible position to develop trade in goods and services.
I am sorry to keep going on about it but, as many will know, I come from the north-east—the region of England that has the highest proportion of its economy per head of population based on manufacturing. Therefore, it trades with the EU more per head of population than any other region. I have a particular interest in ensuring that all that is talked about in this report works. Unfortunately, in this year, the latest figures for the north-east show an 11% decline in trade with the EU. Unless that is halted, it will have a medium to long-term effect on not only wages but the whole economy—on levels of poverty, levels of disadvantage and so on. I am sure that is not what the Government want. If they want levelling-up, they must address this issue with urgency and have in mind the longer-term effects of decisions that they take today.
Much that the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, my noble friend Lady Donaghy and the noble Lord, Lord Jay, have said about institutions and how we develop our relationship with the EU is extremely relevant to this debate. We spent a lot of time and energy on the nature of that relationship before the final outcome, with the agreement signed in December 2019. I remain of the view that we will be far more successful in negotiations if we act as grown-ups, treating each other with respect and as we would wish to be treated ourselves, while keeping our word and acting with integrity. However, there is sometimes a view that if we work in that way we will be seen to be rolling over in negotiations. That is absolute nonsense; if I was being really difficult, I would say it reflects old-time male attitudes.
Let us grow up and treat our partners as real partners who are able to contribute to the development and success of our country as well. We can contribute to countries across Europe being successful and they can contribute to our success. If we think that in today’s world, we can do it all without them or that sort of relationship, then we are living in cloud-cuckoo-land. The people of this country have the right to demand that we deal honestly and fairly with them, which also means dealing with the EU in that manner.
Covid-19 (Public Services Committee Report)
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top
That this House takes note of the Report from the Public Services Committee A critical juncture for public services: lessons from COVID-19 (1st Report, Session 2019–21, HL Paper 167).
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the report is the Public Services Committee’s first. The committee was established in February 2020 and is the first in this House to hold the Government to account on a range of issues that cut across public services and on policy areas that are the responsibility of multiple departments and so, too often, are the priority of none. It is a Standing Committee, so will continue to work for many years, I hope. I have the enormous privilege of being the first chair and am working with an outstanding group of Members from across the House, who have all worked with energy, commitment and challenge throughout. We have also been served by similarly outstanding officials, and I want to say thank you to all involved.
The establishment of the committee coincided with Covid-19 and it soon became clear that the pandemic was the most testing experience that our public service model had faced for several generations. It would reveal its strengths and weaknesses, and would be an opportunity, some might say a critical juncture, for reform. This became the focus of our first report.
We heard from 165 organisations and individuals, and I am enormously grateful to them. Unfortunately, no government Minister found it appropriate to come and talk to the committee. However, much of what we heard has informed our follow-up work on commissioning and data sharing, as well as our current inquiry on child vulnerability. How public services are organised, how they are funded and how effectively that funding is spent, how different services work together and, most importantly, how services are experienced by the people and communities that use and need them are the priorities for the committee.
Covid-19 has been a national tragedy for the United Kingdom. We have lost more than 130,000 people to the virus and Covid-related pressures have pushed many families to crisis point. After 18 months of tireless service, our front-line workers are exhausted and their well-being is at an all-time low.
However, the inquiry also gave us cause for hope. Amid all this despair were incredible innovation and civic action, often at local level, to support communities to stay resilient under unprecedented pressure. Decisions that before the pandemic took months or even years were made in minutes. National government worked with councils to accommodate 15,000 rough sleepers. Many of those had access to addiction and mental health services for the first time.
We were inspired by the surge in voluntary action: there are now more than 4,000 mutual aid groups across the UK. Innovative local authorities played a key role in co-ordinating volunteers to support hard-to-reach groups. For example, Agatha Anywio, 76 years old from London, relied on her local Age UK group to support her during the first lockdown. A few weeks ago the committee heard from her again. She told us that she was still getting support from the local voluntary sector to connect her to her local community. Age UK even organises two virtual exercise classes a week, which she participates in and loves.
We also saw how digital technology was used more widely and more successfully than ever before. Changing Lives, a charity working with vulnerable adults, moved many of its addiction recovery services online during the pandemic. This gave service users greater flexibility and responsibility. They were not given daily scripts by the NHS, but weekly ones instead. This meant that they were more empowered. It was risky, but, actually, it resulted in increased engagement with services, a reduction in the relapse rate and, ultimately, fewer drug- related deaths.
However, while these innovations are impressive, unless government acts urgently to lock in such changes, this good work will be lost, and we heard evidence that this is already happening. Shay Flaherty is recovering from addiction and now volunteers in Birmingham with the charity Revolving Doors. At a follow-up evidence session last month, he warned us that much of the good work with rough sleepers during the early stages of the pandemic had already been undermined. He said that, once people had been moved out of temporary accommodation, their point of contact with mental health and addiction workers was often lost. Many have relapsed and returned to the streets.
Moreover, Covid-19 revealed how innovation and community resilience are too often undermined by fundamental weaknesses in the way we deliver public services in this country. Going into the crisis, the national Government too often did not take local expertise seriously. This played out with disastrous consequences. Jessica Studdert, who is the deputy chief executive of the New Local Government Network, told us that, during Covid’s early stages, too many local authorities did not get the information that they needed from the NHS about shielded groups, even though it was the local authorities’ responsibility to deliver food and essential supplies.
We found that our poorest communities went into the pandemic with incredibly low levels of resilience. Witnesses told us that the funding of preventive and early intervention services had not been a priority in the years preceding Covid-19. This had placed greater pressures on the NHS and increased costs to the state through poorer education, employment and justice outcomes for the most vulnerable.
Sir Michael Marmot reported to the committee that cuts to local authorities’ public health grants had fallen disproportionately on the most deprived areas. Since 2014, England as a whole has seen a cut in public health budgets of £13.20 per person: in the Midlands, it was £16.70 per person; in the north, it was £15.20; and the north-east has been worst affected, with cuts of £23.24 per person in the public health budget. Witnesses told us that the upshot of those cuts was that obesity and associated diseases such as diabetes were concentrated in our very poorest communities and among our most marginalised groups. That made them extra vulnerable.
Covid-19 mortality rates in the most deprived areas were almost twice as high as those in the least deprived. Diabetes was mentioned on 21% of death certificates where Covid was also mentioned. The proportion was 43% among Asian people and 45% among black people. It was higher in all BAME groups than in the white British population.
Pre-existing inequalities have only deepened during the last 18 months. Sir Kevan Collins, who resigned as a government adviser over school catch-up funding, recently told the committee that disadvantaged children had fallen even further behind their better-off peers as a result of lost school time. His resignation should be a wake-up call to the Government that such disparities cannot be left unaddressed.
The pandemic influenced innovative local areas to break down long-standing barriers between the NHS, local authorities and other services, but in much of the country we found that collaboration between agencies was wanting. Many did not share crucial data on people’s needs. During the crisis, the lack of integration and parity of esteem between health and care saw patients discharged from hospitals into care settings without testing, resulting—we believe—in thousands of unnecessary deaths. The proposals in the Future of Health and Care White Paper and the subsequent legislation to strengthen co-ordination between the two services are welcome and necessary. True integration will depend on delivering real parity of esteem between the NHS and social care. It is deeply disappointing that the legislation to put adult social care on a secure financial footing has been delayed yet again—until, we are now told, later this year. Can the Government confirm whether the forthcoming legislation will include proposals for the reform and integration of social care, alongside any new funding settlement, to increase the resilience of the sector?
To address fundamental weaknesses in public services, strengthen the resilience of our communities to future crises and ensure that the innovations from the pandemic are not lost, the committee called for a national programme of reform. In carrying out this essential task, we asked that the Government should be guided by eight key principles. These included the Government and public service providers recognising the vital role of preventive services and early intervention.
In its response to the report, the Government said that they were committed to levelling up life expectancy. They have not yet set out how they will invest in preventive services in order to meet their 2019 general election manifesto commitment to extend healthy life expectancy by 2035, and to narrow the gap between the richest and the poorest. Health prevention and early intervention in education were not a focus of the March 2021 Budget. To date, levelling-up announcements have largely focused on physical infrastructure and skills. How will the Government address this in the forthcoming spending review? The role of charities, community groups, volunteers and the private sector as key public service providers must also be recognised. They must be given appropriate support and encouragement.
Witnesses told us that the procurement guidance, introduced by the Cabinet Office in response to the pandemic, granted local public service commissioners greater flexibility to award long-term funding and contracts based on social value, rather than just the lowest cost. We were disappointed that the Transforming Public Procurement Green Paper failed to embed those flexibilities. It did not differentiate between the commercial purchasing of goods from the private sector and the commissioning of services for people, whether delivered by the voluntary sector or by other organisations to meet the needs of the local community. In recent letters to the Government, we have urged them to work with the voluntary sector and with commissioning experts to ensure that the procurement Bill promotes social value and delivers long-term funding agreements for charities delivering services. Can the Minister update us on progress in engaging the voluntary sector on this issue?
Another principle is that public services require a fundamentally different, vastly more flexible approach to data sharing. The Information Commissioner wrote to us as part of our current inquiry on children’s vulnerability. In her letter, she acknowledged that the current threshold for sharing data on children was too high and that her office would be working with the Department for Education to update its data-sharing guidance. Can the Minister tell us how this important work is progressing?
We argue that integrating services to meet the diverse needs of individuals and communities is best achieved by public service providers working together at local level. This should be supported by joined-up working across government departments at national level. I welcome the establishment of a Cabinet committee. Will the Minister set out how this committee will co-ordinate government activity to improve data sharing and integration? Local services and front-line workers must be given the resources and autonomy to improve, and innovate in, the delivery of services. How will the Government use the forthcoming levelling-up and devolution White Papers to achieve this?
People themselves are best placed to understand how services should meet their needs, strengthen their resilience and support them to thrive. I am running out of time, so I cannot go into this in detail. It is critical that the government strategy for public service reform takes this as its core in the months and years ahead. If people and places are to be resilient in the face of future crises, services must have political and financial support, as well as autonomy, to be truly preventive and integrated around the needs of their local area and people. They must have the places and the people they serve at their heart. I beg to move.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I thank everyone for their contribution to today’s debate. I said at the beginning how privileged I was to chair this committee, and I know that the speeches that its members have made will have reinforced for noble Lords their quality, expertise and enthusiasm. I thank them again for the contribution that they have made in the past and today. I thank everyone else who contributed too; everyone brought something specific to the debate that meant it reflected the work of the committee and the work that went into its first report.
Running through the speeches today, I was very pleased to hear, was a thread that reinforced that the report offers practical ways forward—through decentralisation of power, longer-term investment in early intervention and preventive work, more effective activity across services; and by the involvement of the voluntary sector, the community sector, civil society and the private sector in helping to make places work for people, wherever they live.
Of course, we also heard from lots of Members today about the importance of hearing the voices of people with lived experience. This is a really important issue for the House, as well as the Government. We had enormous support from the teams in the House to engage people with lived experience and the organisations that they often work with to bring them to the committee to give evidence. My colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned Debra from Wigan, who has cerebral palsy and is very much a community activist in Wigan but has really struggled. Her words give us a real call to action. She said that, from her experience of the NHS and social services in the past 16 months, services were delivered at her rather than with her, and, when she attempted to discuss her needs, she felt belittled, patronised and ignored. That should be a wake-up call to all of us.
I thank the Minister for his response. I think he knows that the committee worked in a very cross-party way, and we look forward to engaging with him and other Ministers on how we can properly prioritise what is needed in public services so that they work for Debra and others. I look forward to making sure that we establish good relationships with him and his colleagues so that we can all take this work forward. There is a lot to do, and we all have a responsibility to play our part in making sure it happens. I commend the report to the House.
UK-EU Future Relationship Negotiations and Transition Period
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the continuing Covid emergency is obviously a problem, although I am sure that the noble Viscount will join me in welcoming the wonderful news of the first vaccination happening today. We continue to keep the impact of coronavirus on the delivery of the transition programme, as well as the potential for disruption, under review. We are considering, as we always do, what mitigations may be needed as the situation evolves.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]
My Lords, it is clear that, in any trade deal, there must be some compromise on sovereignty. The Government need to be clear with us where they are prepared to compromise. I hope that the Minister will press on the Prime Minister the importance of those regions where the economy relies on manufacturing. The north-east recovered from the closure of its basic industries—mining, steelworks and shipyards—by developing manufacturing, much of which has thrived through exports to the EU. It makes up a higher proportion of the economy in the north-east than it does anywhere else in this country. Companies do not know the rules or the price structure that they will have to work from in less than a month. Even at this late stage, can the Minister assure us that they are not forgotten and that manufacturing companies in the north-east will be able to continue to trade with the EU without massively increased bureaucracy or, indeed, increased costs that will drive them out of business?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I underline totally the importance of a manufacturing sector to this country. It is absolutely central to this Government’s strategy and policy of levelling up. So far as the negotiations are concerned, a huge amount of progress has been made but the UK’s position has been absolutely clear from the outset. A negotiation needs each of the two partners to understand the position of the other.
David Frost
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord True
My Lords, there were a number of questions there; I am not sure I remembered them all by the end. The post of National Security Adviser has only existed since 2010 and it is an evolving role. Mr Frost is a career diplomat of 25 years’ distinguished service to this country. He is perfectly capable of giving dispassionate and wise advice. His role as an outstanding negotiator with the EU will continue as now. He will be ready to appear before your Lordships’ Select Committees, as he has already.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the politicisation of this and other posts at the top of government is a significant change in the constitutional settlement of this country. When and how will the Government seek democratic approval for this decision?
Universal Credit
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, I draw the attention of Members to my interests in the register. I also congratulate my colleague and noble friend Lady Hollis on getting this debate. I want to raise two practical problems that I know, from my experience, are already happening with early claimants of universal credit.
First, I echo the points made by my noble friend Lady Drake about the problems arising with the two-child limit and its effect on kinship carers. I hope that the Minister has been well briefed on the debates that we had in this House on the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, when we were told that kinship carers would be exempt from the two-child rule. Unfortunately, the regulations subsequently issued have left a loophole, which my noble friend Lady Drake explained well. A kinship carer is unable to claim child tax credit for any baby to which they give birth if there are already two or more children in the household—even if they are looking after those children because the natural parents are not able to do so. This is not in the spirit of the debates that we had during the passage of the Bill or in the spirit of the speech—the gracious speech, I might say—made by the Minister in conceding on this issue. I hope that this is a mistake and that the Minister will be able to reassure those of us who were active around this issue that the regulations will be corrected to get back to the promise made. Children from the extended family whose natural parents are not able to care for them should not be part of the two-child rule in any circumstances.
I ask the Government to link this to the knowledge that, other than in some boroughs in London, the north-east has the highest proportion of kinship carers in the country, as well as having among the lowest wage rates in the country and the highest number of children in poverty. These things come together and the Government need to pay attention to these people, who really have been left behind.
Secondly, I chair a charity called Changing Lives, which is based in the north-east but also works across Yorkshire, in Merseyside, in other parts of the north-west and in the West Midlands. We work with people with multiple and complex needs—women as well as men. We run the Fulfilling Lives project, funded by the Big Lottery, in Newcastle and Gateshead. It is a long-term project, working with service deliverers on seeking a more holistic response for people with complex needs. Newcastle was nominated as a “test and learn” city for the rollout of universal credit. That means we have been helping some of our clients navigate their way through the new system. For the most vulnerable clients, universal credit is a real problem. In the Fulfilling Lives programme we use a navigator, who works one-to-one with individual service users.
The whole programme is proving exceptionally difficult. Many of the people we are working with are still a long way away from the labour market. As an organisation, Changing Lives has an unrivalled record in getting many of our clients work-fit and into work, but it is often a very long and difficult process. With the most vulnerable, universal credit is, ironically, making it more difficult, not more straightforward, to get them job-ready and into whatever jobs are available. I do not have time to raise the case studies today, but if the Minister would find it useful, I will send her more details.
In the main charity, we have been innovative both with Housing First and with bringing empty properties back into use for homeless people. We have done more than any other organisation in the country on these programmes. In Newcastle, with full rollout of universal credit, we are now seeing arrears of 23% compared to arrears in the rest of the country, in programmes that we are working with, of only 6%. Every universal credit claimant whom we are working with is in arrears. The level of arrears for the charity from universal credit claimants is £51,620.13 as of yesterday. In Home Life, 22 out of 27 tenancies have arrears of over £1,000. People who fall into arrears generally do not get back out. We as a charity are having to budget for increased arrears as universal credit is rolled out. I simply ask the Minister to reflect on this and to consider the devastating effect on those individuals who are trying to put their lives back together.
Lord Young of Cookham
My Lords, the five-minute margin that we had in the bank has already been eroded. I urge noble Lords to try to stick within the five-minute limit.
Kids Company
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, I should like to say first that obviously the noble Baroness speaks with a great deal of experience of the sector, so I take great note of what she is saying. She needs no reminding, but I would like to stress that it is ultimately the legal responsibility of a charity’s trustees to protect the charity and its assets. The Charity Commission has neither the legal authority nor the ability to assess the financial health of the more than 160,000 registered charities; that is the job of each charity’s trustees. However, I hear what the noble Baroness is saying. As I have mentioned, the Charity Commission will be conducting a statutory inquiry into Kids Company, and I am sure that it will wish to consider what lessons the sector as a whole and the commission itself might learn from this episode.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register, as I am involved with a number of charities. I hope the Minister recognises that the sector is highly regulated, and that it is largely well regulated. The vast majority of charities pay attention to good governance, make sure that they have reserves and fully accept that they are accountable to those who fund them. Will the Minister and the Government relook at what they can do to encourage the many rich people we have in this country to take up philanthropy? One of the possible consequences of the panic and concerns around Kids Company is that charities which are struggling will actually continue to lose money when really they need to be supported.
Lord Bridges of Headley
I entirely agree with the noble Baroness that the large majority of charities do a very good job and that we need to tread with extreme care and caution. I also entirely agree that charities need to be able to raise funds and donations in a way that is not overly burdensome when it comes to regulation. I am sure that my right honourable friend the Chancellor will heed what she has to say about encouraging giving. I would note only that there has been a considerable amount of public donations to a number of the causes that have asked for money, especially the Nepalese earthquake and, of course, the Syrian refugees in the last few months.
Soft Power and the UK’s Influence (Select Committee Report)
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, as a member of the committee, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howell, for his chairmanship. It was a very enjoyable committee, which I felt privileged to be a member of, and much of that was down to his chairing. The number of noble Lords who are down to speak in the debate today is real testament to the work of the committee and the report, and to the importance of this topic. In a world that gives us so much confusion and anxiety today, it is important that we consider the challenges of how we are able to influence the rest of the world in a way that is beneficial to the citizens of this country. The balance of power around the world is shifting, and we therefore have to be much clearer about the sort of influence that we want, how we maintain it and, indeed, how we use it, now that less direct methods of influence are more and more important.
I was taken by the words of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, about how we have to be clear about the vision for the country and take the British people with us. The willingness and ability to intervene militarily remains an important element of influence around the world, but it is not sufficient to defend the nation’s interests. There is not the time—nor, I suspect, is this the occasion—to examine our current anxiety regarding any military intervention, but that means that how we gain respect as a nation, and are attractive for investment for all sorts of other reasons, is ever more important. This means that we have to be more aware of how to both develop and communicate the attributes, values and successes of the UK. This is important for the UK population but also, of course, for people living in other parts of the world and for how they regard us.
We have a bit of a tradition of being, to put it mildly, sceptical about many institutions in this country. We sometimes say that it is a British trait. Healthy scepticism of the BBC seems to be okay, mainly, for politicians, but we recognised during the committee’s deliberations that that scepticism must be tempered with recognition that the BBC, with its World Service, is probably the most useful and effective soft power and foreign policy asset that we have, and that we trash it at our peril.
Our diversity is another real strength that was expressed by many witnesses who came to see us—the values that both uphold and come from a diverse population. Apart from anything else, that means that many communities around the world know about Britain through their friends or relatives. I remember that one of our strengths in promoting our bid for the Olympic Games was that we could say, “We will have someone from every country that is competing able to welcome every team that comes to our Olympics from around the world”.
We seem to recognise that diversity is a great asset—but, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said, witness after witness talked about the real problem with our visa system and policy. It is not simply a policy issue; it is the impression that the policy leaves, and that the rhetoric around the policy leaves, with people around the world, that is very damaging to our influence and persuasion. In my view, the evidence that we had from Ministers on this was at best unconvincing.
We will all express our personal commitments today, will we not? One way in which our diversity and values are expressed is through those people who volunteer to work in the developing world. I have met Ministers and many other leaders who are happy to tell me that they were taught by VSO, they were looked after in hospital by VSO, VSO trained their local A&E staff, or whatever.
I was in Kenya with Voluntary Service Overseas during the recent Recess, and I met a group of 20 young African leaders who had been brought together from around the continent to Nairobi for a rights-based training course. They had all come together because of their involvement as team leaders in the International Citizen Service programme, which is a British Government programme which I suspect that most noble Lords have never heard of. It is hosted by VSO with about another 10 NGOs involved in delivery in 30 countries around the world. Young people from this country volunteer to go with people from the host country—national volunteers who move within their own country —to work on a development programme together.
Those young people were team leaders from the ICS programme. They were an absolute inspiration. Their commitment to using what they had learnt both in ICS and now in the training programme to change their community was inspirational. They asked me to make sure that the British Government understand how much different countries in Africa and the rest of the world are learning through the ICS programme. They said, “The Government are going to continue it, aren’t they?”. I had to say, “We don’t know yet”. Perhaps the Minister can reassure them and me that the Government will proceed with it.
The report has given lots of ideas for how we can move forward. Government have to get the balance right between supporting institutions and organisations, and controlling them. If they control them, as previous speakers said, that will undermine the whole effort. Soft power works only if it is not seen as the straightforward arm of government. However, there is much for government to do to ensure that the right infrastructure is there to support the security of this country and the well-being of its population. We cannot pretend that the rest of the world is not there. We cannot believe that we can live within this country and that nothing else will affect us. I hope that this report has given the Government and others ideas for activity, and that we will be able to strengthen the Government’s commitment to those institutions, values and organisations that will help enhance Britain’s role in the world in the coming years.
Voter Registration: Students
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, that is a different question. However, as the noble Lord knows, I strongly support that and have worked to support it in government. I point out that young people are increasingly online. One of the things that government and local authorities are doing is to provide links to registration when you go into GOV.UK. For example, we have links for those inquiring about student jobs or paying tax, those looking for higher education courses who need to find and apply, those looking for tenancy deposit protection, a careers helpline for teenagers and so on to make registering to vote easier and to nudge people into thinking about it.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister realise that in many areas of the country his answers will seem very complacent? Much of the problem arises because for many young people it is the first time that they are registering. I will give another example, involving, admittedly, not a young person but my husband. Having moved, he was asked to go to the town hall with his passport to prove who he was before he was registered. Most people will never do that, and that is one of the reasons why individual registration is proving very taxing in some areas.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am extremely sorry to hear about the difficulties of the noble Baroness’s husband in having to demonstrate that he existed, and I look forward to hearing more offline. In the last two or three weeks, the number of people registering has risen considerably. Part of that has clearly been due to the extra publicity around National Voter Registration Day, and I give credit to those who organised it. However, all of us have to help in raising the level of interest. For example, I took part with candidates and spokesmen of other parties in a packed meeting at the University of York on Friday evening. Some students came up at the end and said, “We had not been thinking about voting so far, but now perhaps we will”. We all need to get out there to encourage young people.