County Lines Drugs Gangs

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord and I go back many years on this issue and we do not disagree. I shall certainly get my noble friend Lord Younger to update him on some of the child protection issues, because if children are staying in unregulated bed and breakfast accommodation, for example, which is something I remember from the past, that situation needs to change. But I will give him an updated position on that.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, I had the privilege of representing a Devon constituency for 18 years and I support the view of the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall on this matter. May I respectfully remind my noble friend that I represented 650 square miles of Devon—a very sparsely populated area? When we look at national solutions, what is very often needed in rural areas is a very different approach from when you are looking at large urban conurbations. There are pockets of deprivation in rural counties that reflect exactly what one sees in inner cities, but they are on such a small scale and so disparate that they never qualify for grants and support. I ask my noble friend to make sure that we do not fall into the one-size-fits-all trap.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend raises two very important points there: the spread-out nature of county areas and the distances people have to travel to get support. I do not know whether she recalls—I recall it only vaguely from two or three years ago—the rural sparsity fund that was designed to address precisely such an issue. Of course, she also brings to mind the fact that county lines are specifically designed to cross from town areas into country areas and vice versa. So she raises the really important point that, wherever children are, their vulnerability is equally important.

Metal Theft

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, it is the job of the police and local authorities to enforce the lawfulness of scrap metal exchanges at scrapyards. As the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, said, the theft of metal from railway lines can be not only a treacherous undertaking but, in many cases, fatal. The deterrent must come from the point of view of protecting both the people who might take those risks and the scrapyards that might receive stolen goods.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, I support the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, as together we piloted the Bill through your Lordships’ House. I appreciate that once an Act of Parliament is on the statute book, it is often left to others to make sure that it works, but I urge my noble friend to pay particular regard to rare earths. The Government must be well aware of the way that metal prices fluctuate. We should be as concerned about what is happening with rare earths and their usage as with any other commodity of which we have limited resources.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank my noble friend and commend her on the part she played in passing the 2013 Act. I agree with everything she said. The British Metals Recycling Association has recently written articles about metal theft being on the rise due to the global rise in metal prices. It is pushing for certain amendments to the 2013 Act to combat this; we are working with it to consider the points it has raised.

Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2018 Grand Committee

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, on bringing this debate to the House today and on the vital role he played in bringing this Act on to the statute book. I remember it very well, and I was very grateful for his support and all the work he did towards it.

I spent a very short time, unfortunately, as a Home Office Minister, but in the list of my personal responsibilities in the department was “scrap metal theft”. I did not have a lot of knowledge about it at the time, but I was soon informed by many people of the problem. I was aware of the difficulties with things such as cabling on railway lines, but the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Chartres, as Bishop of London, soon came knocking on the door and explained very clearly to me how important it was and how it went across many sectors.

My first question to my noble friend is whether there is still a Minister in the Home Office who has personal responsibility for this. I see from the beaming smile that I am receiving that I am talking to the right person. I am delighted to know that, as there is now an Act on the statute book, the Home Office has not just put it in with all the general stuff, but it is still regarded as important enough for a Minister to take responsibility. Moving on from that, as I think I have now established that we are talking to the right person, I appreciate that operational decisions and day-to-day policing must remain with the police and not with Ministers, but this is an area that needs some leadership to keep the momentum going, with all the things that have come out—not just in today’s debate but in the review and the responses to it.

On the question of lead on church roofs, the Government’s response in the review says:

“While the Government cannot commit to further legislation in this area at the present time, the Home Office is keen to work with those who advocate this, to identify whether there is more to be done within the existing legislation to address some or all of these issues”.


I noticed that one response to the review was about changing the smelting regulations for lead. I am not somebody with any particular technical knowledge on this, but changing regulations is not quite the same as asking the Government to find time for primary legislation. If my noble friend does not have the answer to that today, can she look at why that recommendation was made? It could be something to do with the SmartWater—I do not know—but, clearly, somebody who knows a lot more about the smelting of lead than I do can see that the Act would be enhanced, which would particularly bear down on church roofs and, possibly, on some of the appalling accounts that my noble friend Lord Cope has given us today. I find it quite appalling.

I am fortunate enough to live near a cliff top on the south coast, where very often people pass on having looked at the wonderful view. Their relatives then donate a bench for other people to sit on. I regularly sit on those benches myself as I get older. There is usually a little metal plaque on them that says, “Doris enjoyed this view”—all lovingly put there by relatives. There was a period when I noticed that people had unscrewed those tiny pieces of metal. It seemed so petty and so horrible that someone had gone to the lengths of bringing a screwdriver into the open air just to remove little dedications such as that. All that would possibly have been sold on.

I ask my noble friend to encourage leadership on this within the department. For example, we now have police and crime commissioners—who I hope are fully briefed about the importance of metal theft. The department could ensure that they have knowledge of such issues and understand the wonderful result of this legislation in terms of reduction in crime. I notice that the report said that, at the same time as the figures came forward, the Government were aware that an increase was coming. We are now seeing that increase in metal commodity prices. I hope my noble friend will see this as a time to start the ball rolling again and use her good offices to make sure the momentum is maintained.

Incident in Salisbury

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I have said on quite a few occasions this morning, that is jumping the gun as to the conclusion of the police, and I will not do that, as this is an ongoing investigation. I hope the noble Lord will understand that I cannot answer his question fully.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

Will my noble friend, in due course, when more information is available to her, consider the risk of such substances, not so much coming in with a spy through a small port or airport, but coming in on a wide-bodied jet into a major UK airport under diplomatic immunity? If that proves to be a possible route, will she take a very firm look, however inconvenient it might be in terms of reciprocity with other countries, at what might come in through our major airports in that way?

International Women’s Day: Progress on Global Gender Equality

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness and I pay tribute to the work that she has done over her lifetime, from which many people have benefited.

Are men from Mars and women from Venus? I pose it as a question that I will leave hanging in the air because, perhaps as this debate progresses, we can take a decision on it. There are differences. I am not somebody who believes that there are no differences that need to be recognised. The question is how we harmonise the differences that need to be harmonised in order to bring about equality.

Back in the 1980s when I did a proper job, I trained people in business. I recall very much then, particularly in the manufacturing sector, how the change in corporate culture, particularly in management style, was starting to come in, mainly because of things such as the Japanese just-in-time system. I can recall then having long discussions—I looked this up at the weekend—about a chap called Hofstede. We used to talk about whether the cultures in certain countries were masculine or feminine. Hofstede wrote a paper that said a masculine culture was a society that emphasised assertiveness and the acquisition of money and material things, whereas femininity was a cultural dimension describing societies that emphasised relationships, concern for others and the overall quality of life.

At that time—many decades ago—he found that Japan had a masculine quality and the Nordic countries and the Netherlands were the most feminine. I was quite interested to see on the front page of the briefing prepared for this debate by the House of Lords Library that it states:

“Gender disparities continue to exist globally, including in the UK”—


which is something we would all agree with.

“A World Economic Forum analysis of the global gender gap, taking into account economic participation, education, health and political participation, found that weighted by population, the average progress on closing the global gender gap stood at 68 percent in 2017. The UK had a gender gap of 33 percent, and was ranked 15th out of 144 countries for overall gender parity. The top three countries were Iceland, Norway and Finland”—

the very Nordic countries which, all those decades ago, had already identified a culture where the things that were important were to the fore. We are talking here about hard-edged management tools and management approaches of societies that emphasise relationships, concern for others and overall quality of life.

In order to bring about this equality, there needs to be leadership on a global level and on a national level. It is needed in our institutions and in our corporate sector, and it is also—this has been touched on once already today—needed in the home. Mothers particularly can have a huge influence on their sons. You might have thought I was going to say “on their daughters”. Mothers can influence the way in which their sons develop. Many of the issues are not just things that worry us but are effectively criminality, not just nationally but around the globe. If they are to be addressed, the culture has to be changed at all levels.

Again, going back many years—I promise I will not keep harping on about the past, but at my age people tend to—when I was a Minister back in the 1990s I also had the privilege of being the government co-chairman of the Women’s National Commission. It was a very fine body of women. Many people around this Chamber were involved with the WNC. I was very sorry that it was a Conservative Government who decided to dispense with it. I think it did very good work. It was exactly the right group of people to bring women together and to make their views known directly to government.

I attended the 1995 UN conference on women in Beijing. I can see others in the Chamber who were there and who were involved. From that came the platform for action that resulted in a decision to make mainstream throughout government departments legislation and policy being looked at through the prism of how it affects women.

I want to add at this point—it has already been mentioned, I think by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover—something about Sightsavers. Sightsavers is incredibly concerned about the United Nations. Of course it has to be a global leader. If the UN is not the global leader, then which organisation is? However, in terms of the women with disabilities, which Sightsavers has flagged up, it says:

“Our attention is focused on the United Nations where, of the ten United Nations treaty bodies, women are currently underrepresented on seven”,


And, even worse, there is only one woman member on the committee that looks at the rights of persons with disabilities. This is quite disgraceful, and that one person will retire in July. I urge my noble friend on the Front Bench to say that the Government will make representations on that to the United Nations through ministerial communications and through our representatives in the UN.

As has been mentioned, very often there is more than just one discriminatory area—disability is one; we all know what the others are: sex, religion, colour, race and, I would add, class. I want to complete what I am saying today—because it is, I hope, a day of celebration—by saying thank you, particularly to those women who trod the path or sat on the green Benches before those of us who have had the privilege of serving down in another place. When you read what they went through, not just to get there but when they were actually there, it is quite astonishing. I include all of them in that. It is quite interesting that, although we often mention Margaret Thatcher in terms of being the first woman Prime Minister, it was not just because she was a woman that she had to fight. She fought criticism of the class she came from, from men who thought they were far superior to her, because she was a grocer’s daughter. So very often class prejudice—and it goes both ways—adds to what often is a double or sometimes a triple burden.

I would like to finish—it sounds like the Oscars, I know, but I will never get an Oscar—by saying thank you to my mother, my long-deceased mother, I have to say. She was a working mother of three children. I grew up in a household where it never occurred to me that it was not the norm for married women with families to work. She was just a great role model for me. Thank you to all of the people who have spoken in this debate, many of whom should be getting an Oscar for the work they have done for women.

Cannabis-based Medication

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Well, I hope that I made it absolutely clear that we would explore every legal avenue that we could, and that both the Policing Minister and the Home Secretary would look at all legal avenues within the regulatory framework, so I hope that she takes comfort from that.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

Could my noble friend take a look at the history of how controlled drugs have been used for medical purposes? I am not somebody who would support deregulation of drugs but, as a small girl, I was offered the option when a school dentist extracted a tooth of having either gas or cocaine.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Browning]

That was many years ago, but that was the choice. Of course, up and down the country today, hospitals will be dispensing opioid drugs to patients, many of which are derivatives of opium, and I really do not see why, if the legal framework is there to do it, we cannot get on and do it rather quickly.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend makes precisely the point that I perhaps did not make as well, which is that within the legal framework we have to explore the art of the possible to bring such drugs forward that will help people in situations similar to Alfie’s. Before I became a politician, I worked extensively with people who had multiple sclerosis, and I know that Sativex has been produced in aid of alleviating spasticity in suffers of that illness.

Care Services: Abuse of Learning Disabled

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and to have this opportunity to congratulate her on her maiden speech. She has been acclaimed both nationally and internationally as a film-maker, and we must add our congratulations on her choice of subject matter in her maiden speech. We look forward to future contributions from her as the years go by.

I begin by supporting and joining the call from my noble friend Lady Jolly on two points—first, on the registration and structure of care workers in health and social care. I must say to my noble friend on the Front Bench that there is a real body of steam behind this. I know that my noble friend Lord Howe has said that he will keep an open mind on this, but I say to my noble friend that this is not going to go away and the sooner we get on with it, the better. Also, I join my noble friend Lady Jolly on the question of accountability of those upstream owners of private homes and hospitals. Again, complex though this issue may be, I hope that the Government will address it as a matter of urgency.

As my noble friend Lord Touhig—if I may call him that—said, a third of the patients at Winterbourne View had a diagnosis of autism. I am genuinely filled with despair that, after the high profile of the Bournewood case some years ago now, we are still looking at people with a diagnosis of autism being held in a hospital, and the views of parents and carers being dismissed by so-called professionals. I thought we had moved on from there and I am going to ask my noble friend to carry forward a suggestion I made when we had the Statement earlier in the week about the Mental Capacity Act, which I will come to in a moment.

First, I will say something very briefly about autism and challenging behaviour. There is no doubt that there are people with an autistic diagnosis who have comorbidities—they may be learning-disabled or have specifically diagnosed mental illnesses—and they are complex cases. In another place over many years I raised again and again the difficulty for psychiatrists who are dealing—particularly but not exclusively—with adult patients who present with very challenging and disturbing behaviour. However, sometimes when they are seen by psychiatrists with an understanding of and expertise in autism, it is possible to unscramble what appear as perhaps rather obvious mental health symptoms, when in fact those symptoms have an autistic base.

Autism is not a mental illness and very often the challenging behaviour that is presented does not have a psychotic base to it at all. People who work with adults with autism who are challenging will know that, with the right package of support and particularly with the right expertise of the people working with them, all too often you can identify the triggers that create that autistic behaviour. Why? It is actually rather simple: it is because the autistic mind works differently from the way other people think, and rationalisation is a very complex area. I have known of many—and I do mean many—autistic adults who have been held in some form of detention; some voluntarily, some not. When they have been placed in an appropriate setting with professionals who understand what those triggers are and why their often challenging behaviour presents in a certain way, with the right package of support they have been able to live and be supported in the community rather than locked up.

I say to my noble friend, we really cannot keep going round and round in circles, coming back to these high-profile cases where we seem to have learned nothing. I was involved in the Bournewood case with patient P, who was detained in a mental institution, and it was only when his carers went through not just all the courts in this country but to the European Court and got a judgment there that he was allowed to be released—and I use that word deliberately—from his institution when all the expert advice was that he should remain there. We have to do something. This is about fundamental human rights for a group of people who are unable to make the case for themselves. We, as politicians and in this House, have a duty to ensure that the structure is out there for those who represent them—whether they be parents or carers or people professionally appointed as advocates on their behalf—and that those human rights are at the forefront of what happens to them.

As always, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Rix. His work in this field is an exemplar for us all. Today I have written to the chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Dr Hywel Francis MP, because I have had grave concerns for some time that the Mental Capacity Act, on which I sat on both the pre-legislative scrutiny and the Bill committees in another place, is not in practice supporting the people whom Parliament intended it to support.

I say again to my noble friend that the Care Quality Commission needs to be more rigorous—we hope that we will have learnt lessons from this tragic case—and that the Mental Capacity Act is not doing what it should in terms of parents, carers and, in particular, patients. I also suggest that the deprivation of liberty safeguards are too narrowly defined by the courts and that the whole framework needs to be reviewed, taking account of the way in which the courts implement the framework.

I hope that my noble friend will understand the call not just for the Joint Committee on Human Rights but for the Government themselves to completely review the implementation of the Mental Capacity Act—an Act I thoroughly support. We will not get to the bottom of some of the problems that we are discussing today unless we are prepared to do that.