Refugee Camps

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

We have schemes for identifying that. Certainly, the noble Baroness is right to identify a major problem, which is that half of those categorised as refugees are not in registered camps. That is often one of the greatest difficulties we have in reaching those people who are in need. The important thing is that the schemes we have committed to in this House are working and delivering benefits. Thousands of people have come to this country, which compares favourably with the EU internal resettlement scheme, which has so far helped only 170.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, repeated Questions to Ministers here have failed to answer this question. I know that local authorities are given additional funding initially, when communities welcome refugees, but the British people who are prepared to accept refugees into their communities need to know that funding will continue for as long as the refugees need extra funds for all the services they use. Will the Minister assure the House that extra funding will continue as long as the need exists?

[Lord Bates]

I can do more than that. One reason it has taken a little time to respond to the amendment to the Immigration Act of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is our requirement to consult local authorities about was needed. So far, 175 local authorities have offered to host refugees and they have people travelling to their regions. They deserve tribute. In recognition of that, we have also announced that the amount they will get per year has increased by an average of 20% over the period to help them to deal with the very needs that the noble Baroness has identified.

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Friday 6th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I appreciate what the noble Countess is saying but the point is central regardless of which “the” the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, intended to remove. This is the sensible debate we should to have.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, I have been listening very carefully but I have yet to hear any justification for the actual amendment that is on the Marshalled List.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

We are trying to have, I hope, a sensible, analytical debate in your Lordships’ House on how we can strengthen this Bill and make it more effective. I have tried to speak to the amendment and I am sorry that the noble Baroness feels that she does not want to hear what I have got to say. However, I do have some important things to say on this matter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

I understood the mover of the amendment to accept that it was not what he intended to achieve. He was corrected by the noble Lord who moved this part of the Bill. It is therefore wrong for people to speak to what they wished the amendment to say rather than what it does say.

[Lord Skelmersdale (Con)]

I wonder whether the noble Baroness was listening when the Lord Speaker put the question. She put it very clearly that what we are discussing is the second “the” and not the first.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

The noble Countess says no. I could go through the whole of the report strengthening the point about targets. I am picking up only headline points. For example:

“The Department added activities at short notice in 2013 which constrained choice … The activities the Department added in 2013 reduced its available budget at the start of 2014, and contributed to the delay of some of its planned activities”.

What that means is that the fact that it had been given a statutory target meant that some people in desperate need around the world had their projects cancelled because of the financial management difficulties imposed by having a target.

The NAO also found:

“The limited flexibility in the target led to the Department rescheduling payments in 2013, first to increase outturn, and then to reduce it … The Department phased its contributions to 2 key multilateral organisations to increase 2013 ODA”.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I am now puzzled. Usually, I can follow the logic of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. The obvious logic, the House may feel, would have been to group together a whole lot of amendments, because that would have led to clarity about what we were discussing.

However, in my experience over the years, all departments and all Governments have set a financial limit for the year. I do not recognise the world that the noble Lord is speaking of, in which projects are not deferred because the department is coming to the end of the financial year without money. I well remember the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, as Secretary of State, allowing youth services to spend money providing that they committed to it within a week. An officer in Lancashire had to follow me down the railway station platform so that I could sign the application. This is managing budgets. The noble Lord must accept that all budgets are fixed and that there are management difficulties at the end of the year with that. I wish that noble Lords who are confusing the issue of how the budget is set—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I apologise to the noble Baroness, but I think that she is making a Second Reading speech with that intervention. I have to ask her whether she has read the report.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

I have.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

No, she has not, because if she had read the report she would not have made that intervention. The problem arises because the target of 0.7% is over a calendar year, so from January to December it is necessary to reach 0.7%, but the department’s budget period runs from April. Therefore, it is trying to manage programmes in respect of one financial year against a target set over a different financial year. The reason for that is because the Government are trying to set an example to other countries by meeting what they believe to be the UN target, which is measured over the calendar year in order to get equivalence.

The effect of that is that the unfortunate civil servants in DfID find themselves having to organise the budget with those two financial years. Even then, it is further complicated by the fact that only 82% of that budget is within the control of the department, because another bit of the budget is spent on environmental measures and another is spent by the Foreign Office, over which it has no control, so the civil servants have to find out what is happening in those other departments. The effect is that they end up shuffling money or writing cheques to multilateral organisations to meet the target when they should be concentrating on using the available resources efficiently and effectively to do the best for people in abject poverty around the world.

I know that the noble Baroness and others think that this is some kind of exercise to try to stop the Bill. I do not wish to stop the Bill, but I wish it to operate in a way that ensures value for money for the taxpayer and that projects around the globe are properly supported, not subject to some last-minute financial juggling in order to meet a ridiculous, but no doubt well intentioned, target in the Bill.

The amendment which my noble friend Lord Lawson was trying to move—the House was very discourteous to him over that—draws attention to that. The very same point was made two years ago by the Economic Affairs Committee unanimously, with all-party support—

Travel to School: Rural Areas

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My noble friend makes a good point. However, I would point him to the local authority guidance, which has just been reissued, because one of the things that local authorities need to do is to analyse what provision is there, what is needed and where the deficits might be.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a former member of Lancashire County Council. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is in the Chamber: we introduced the first education maintenance allowances. Is the noble Baroness aware that I heard with some scepticism her reply that bursaries have replaced EMAs and that EMAs were too generous to young people who did not need it—none of which is true—and is she aware that in Lancashire the staying-on rate in areas such as Skelmersdale at the beginning of the 1980s shot up by 40% and those young people had to attend regularly and work hard?

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Baroness may have misunderstood or misheard what I said. What I emphasised was that the bursaries that are now given are more generous. They are targeted at those who are most vulnerable. She may very well feel that the others who do not now get the EMA may have a need that she identifies, but I am pointing out to her that the bursary is better targeted in that it is focusing on the most vulnerable and it is providing more to them, which I am sure noble Lords would support.

International Development (Gender Equality) Bill

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Friday 7th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House and an apology for standing up too soon, I will speak briefly in the gap. I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, having been present when some women from Haiti came to talk about the danger to women and girls who have to go outside their living area because of the lack of facilities for them, particularly at night. It is extremely important that that is recognised.

We have changed some attitudes in Europe over my lifetime. I remember that it takes time. As chair of education in Lancashire, I heard that a girl who was very good at mathematics was told by the head of mathematics, “Once we get to the fourth year, you will of course decline in your ability because you are female”. That was said only 30 years ago.

I speak as a mother of three sons and a grandmother of three grandsons. Gender equality is not only about ensuring that girls get access, very important though that is in its own right. When I look at pictures—as a grandmother, I am drawn to pictures of small boys who remind me of my grandsons—and see the ones who are in poverty, distress or illness, it occurs to me that they, too, are suffering because of the lack of education for women and girls. That is because women and girls are needed to complement the skills of humanity and they must have the ability to develop not only their own skills but those of their families—boys and girls. It is too late in some ways to change male attitudes if the experience that boys have in growing up is one where most people seem to accept that a girl’s education is unimportant. The world needs all the skills that it can get. The lives of many women are tied up in circumstances where world development can only assist the whole of humanity in the future.

Many people have paid tribute to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, for his work and it is so important that we recognise his words of warning. Tempted though your Lordships may be to add amendments to strengthen or change the Bill, I am sure that the noble Lord’s record calls on us all to avoid that temptation to produce amendments. I wish the noble Lord’s Bill well.

NHS Mandate: Health Inequalities

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

I will write to the right reverend Prelate with numbers, as I have seen them but I do not have them in my brief here. I point out that because health will be far more focused in the local area, it is extremely important for the health and well-being boards, for example, to look at how health is delivered in their area. If there are problems because of a lack of staff, they will need to address that.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, would the noble Baroness care to correct a mistaken idea that she may have put to the House? I listened very carefully to my noble friend Lord Darzi, who said that his general comments about centres of excellence in no way related to the Lewisham situation, on which he was not commenting. Could she correct that, please?

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord commented on the difficulty of reorganising, which is what I have just highlighted, and it was in relation to the controversy over what is happening in south London. He explicitly said, it is true, that he could not comment on that case but it is extremely important in these cases that a strategic overview is taken of where provision is best set. The Department of Health is obviously well aware of what is said about the strength of accident and emergency at Lewisham Hospital. No doubt if that is a proved case, it will be necessary to bear it in mind.