Medical Innovation Bill [HL]

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Friday 12th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Turnberg (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased that many of the amendments that I and others proposed in Committee have now appeared in one form or another in the amendments before us. I presume that they are acceptable to the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi—many are in his name—and to the Government. May I also say how much I appreciated Daniel Greenberg’s efforts in trying to draft acceptable wording in many of the amendments?

There was considerable correspondence in the media after Committee stage and quite a bit of opposition voiced by the 100 oncologists who wrote to the Times expressing their concern. This was followed by a robust response by the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, in which he accused them of being reactionary, failing to accept innovations and not wanting to move with the times. Considering that these doctors are among the most forward-looking and innovative researchers in cancer treatment, that was somewhat unfortunate and inappropriate. Their worries, and those of the BMA, the Medical Defence Union, the Medical Protection Society, the BioIndustry Association and the Academy of Medical Sciences, were about whether the Bill was really necessary, suggesting that the barriers to innovation—of which there are many—do not include a fear of litigation. Perhaps more importantly, they were worried about its safety.

These amendments go some way to help on the safety issues, even if they do not make it a necessary Bill—I will not go into that today. In this group, I am glad to see in Amendments 8 and 9 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, that attention has been paid to the need to clarify that the Bill will not interfere with any research or clinical trials. I am very supportive of that. There was a worry that research might be inhibited by the Bill. There is now provision in Amendment 14 to ensure that the Bill will not cut across the need to innovate in an emergency.

Amendment 1 in the name of my noble friend Lord Winston achieves a similar intent and expands on it. His amendment is excellent because it points out how it is important, in an emergency, to be able to innovate without going through this process. I believe that the clarity my noble friend Lord Winston seeks in Amendment 6 by defining “innovation” is very helpful. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, will see it as a helpful clarification and accept it.

Amendment 15 seems to suggest that a doctor will not be legally liable if he or she does not innovate. If it says that then I am strongly in favour of it. I hope that it does. However, there are a number of other issues that require further work. I will raise those points for clarification in a later group. They are concerned with increasing the safety of the Bill.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, I do not really understand the proceedings, in so far as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, spoke only to two of his amendments. These are all grouped together. I have just consulted with the clerk, but they should really have all been covered. I do not know whether he intends to find some way of coming back to it, but I thought we could speak only once on these things on Report. I am particularly interested in the exact meaning of his Amendment 13. I seek information on this as I read it: would Amendment 13 possibly prevent people using new innovative stem cell treatments, for example? What is the intention of Amendment 13? As he did not speak to either Amendment 12 or Amendment 13, I feel that the House should be informed as to what he means by those amendments, as this is the only opportunity to discuss the group that has been put together.

[Lord Winston]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, I wanted, for clarity, to speak to two amendments at a time. I will speak to Amendment 13 in due course and say exactly what I meant. If the noble Baroness wishes me to speak to those amendments now I will do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My understanding of the groupings system is that those who have views on the amendments should take the opportunity to speak when the relevant group is first dealt with, but it does not preclude a noble Lord who has tabled an amendment speaking when the amendment is called in the ordinary course of events. As your Lordships know, following a debate an amendment is often called as being not moved, but the person who tabled the amendment has the option to move it at that point. Therefore, in that sense there are two opportunities to speak. However, in order to try to make the procedure as economical as possible, the general idea of the groupings system is to enable a group of amendments to be considered as a whole on the basis that, rightly or wrongly, such consideration is facilitated in that way.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

Perhaps I may raise a point. When you table an amendment, you are usually sent a draft list of the groupings. You are asked whether you are happy with that or whether you want your amendment to be grouped separately. I wonder why that has not happened in this case.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I thank my noble and learned friend for his suggestion. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Winston, suggested moving Amendment 13 into the group which begins with Amendment 5 but leaving Amendments 11 and 12 in this group. If we proceed on that basis, then, as my noble and learned friend said, when Amendments 11 and 12 are called, he will have the opportunity to speak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Winston]

I am now totally confused but, if I may say so with great politeness, it sounds as if I may not be the only person in the House who is confused. The key thing here, which applies to both these amendments, is the question of patient safety. Amendment 2 argues that wherever “responsible medical opinion” regards that patient safety might be compromised, that needs to be considered in the Bill. That is an important issue and would certainly include the use of stem cells in particular, for the reasons that I have stated.

I was going to refer to a few medical examples where in fact innovations have been done without proper scrutiny. For example, Dr Smith felt that she could inject tuberculin into the spinal cord; the result was in fact disastrous for those patients. The noble Lord, Lord Walton, thought that this was a very good example. What was reported was that the tuberculin recipient had constitutional illness with meningitis, more alarming complications from their nervous system, vomiting, retention of urine, dysphagia, dysarthria, and a whole range of other symptoms which were actually made worse. It was a scandal at the time and a very good example of where, if you have innovation which is not properly controlled, there is serious risk.

I found it quite amusing, by the way, that the lady at Oxford, Dr Honor Smith, was the daughter of a Member of this House. She was the daughter of a Baron—so, technically, she was the honourable Honor Smith. However, I do not think that she ever used that title.

This came up again in the House of Lords later on when the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, supported a quack treatment in 1995 of a Dr William Crofton, which was also for neurological disorders and used something rather similar. One of the problems was that people with these neurological disorders, which as we know are terrifying and untreatable, flock to practitioners in the hope that they may have an unsuccessful condition successfully treated. That is still a real issue for us all in this House.

In response to the honourable Sarah Wollaston, the Member for Totnes, in the other place this week, the Under-Secretary of State for Life Sciences at BIS, who was replying on behalf of the Government, mentioned that the Government were determined—let me get the exact quotation for the record, if I can find it in Hansard. In answer to the debate on this Bill, he said:

“I reassure the House that the Government are committed in all this work to putting patient safety first and developing a landscape of evidence-based medicine”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/12/14; col. 850.]

I suggest to your Lordships that the Bill does the reverse. It tends to risk patient safety in certain cases where patients are desperate for a treatment. It will also reduce the chance of evidence-based medicine.

I thought about this long and hard last night. I must tell the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, that I did not sleep last night. I woke at about 1 am, having gone to bed at 12.30 am, and could not sleep for thinking about the Bill. I understand that he has been extraordinarily courteous and very gentle in introducing the Bill. He has also been very helpful in trying to ensure that the Bill is as safe as possible and very good at listening to our concerns. I understand, too, that he has had a great tragedy that has made him feel very strongly about this issue. I fully understand and deeply respect that, and I wanted to tell him something about myself, which he may not know.

When I was not yet nine, my wonderful, amazing, chess-playing, musical instrument-playing, polymath craftsman father died. He had a minor infection that was treated by an innovative antibiotic which was quite inadequate. He then had an innovative removal of a chest drain too early, so that he developed an abscess in the pleural cavity. Finally, within six months he had an innovative operation, which was not evidence-based, in which his brain was opened and an abscess removed. This man of 42 died, leaving my mother desperate and financially destitute. I was the eldest of three children; I had a sister aged four and a brother aged three. My mother was amazingly in love with my father, so I know something of the tragedy of seeing what happens when somebody is destroyed in front of you. I do not take this as an issue that leads me to oppose the Bill—that is not the case at all—but I am very concerned that we should not use innovation where we might compromise patient safety.

One of my concerns is that we often think of the National Health Service as a football. I take strong objection to my own side when it says that it is the only side that wants to support and protect the health service. That is nonsense; we all want to protect the health service and to see a health service that is efficient. Unfortunately—and I say “unfortunately” because I mean it—at the next election, I know that the health service is bound to be something of a political football. These issues are going to come up and therefore I want to make certain that we have the chance to innovate in a responsible way. Ultimately, I am not convinced by the arguments that the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, has put forward. There are cases where treatment that is authentic and should be offered will be compromised in response to patients who are so desperate that they are prepared to try anything which has not been fully, or even partially, tested. For that reason, I beg to move Amendment 2—and I have spoken also to Amendment 13.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, I was particularly keen to hear the explanation of this amendment because the more I read it, the less I understood it. I would appreciate clarification from the noble Lord because I did not, and still do not, understand whether by putting this clause in on this sort of thing, we might be preventing treatment for that man who has just walked in Poland and the people who can suddenly see again because of the treatments for their eyes. If we tend to bottle this up completely, it would mean that all the marvellous advances which have changed people’s lives completely might be slowed down by this amendment. Now, if I am wrong in that, that is a different matter.

The noble Lord, Lord Winston, spoke very movingly about his own personal circumstances. However, where I disagree with him is when he talks about these desperate people who will try anything. That is one of the issues that the Bill is designed to help with. It covers only the cases of people who are already in a terminal condition. The one thing that many of these people do not have is any hope of progress, and in most cases they are willing—certainly in the cases requesting this sort of innovative treatment—to take the risk with what is only a very short piece of life remaining, in the hope that either the treatment might cure them or it might do something to advance research at a faster rate and therefore help other people in the future.

Reading this amendment, I was not clear whether it was pro-advance or anti-advance. As I say, I am still not clear. As it stands, I have grave doubts about supporting it; I think it would take away hope, which is about the last thing that remains for a lot of people.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I intervene very briefly. In Committee, we heard a very moving speech from my noble friend Lord Blencathra, who is not here this morning. He made it quite plain why he was supporting the Bill. As I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Winston, for whom we all have enormous respect in every possible way, I could not help but think that there really is not much difference between his aims and objectives and those of my noble friend Lord Saatchi. They are far closer together than his moving speech gave credit for.

In response to the earlier amendments that the noble Lord moved, my noble friend Lord Saatchi indicated that he was more than happy to accept the suggestion of a meeting before Third Reading. That is essential, and the points to which the noble Lord, Lord Winston, has alluded in addressing his Amendments 2 and 13 could clearly be on the agenda for such a meeting. If we can move forward in that way and not seek to divide the House this morning, we will be serving a very noble purpose.

Banks: Bridging Finance

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to encourage banks to provide bridging finance to asset-rich, cash-poor homeowners who wish to downsize, regardless of age.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, the Government are keen to encourage all those wishing to downsize, of whatever age, to do so. In the vast majority of cases, bridging finance should not be necessary. For older people, the major constraint to downsizing is often the lack of appropriate alternative accommodation. We are committed to increasing the flow of such housing on to the market, for example through the care and support specialised housing fund.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, but I do not agree with it. Older people are having major problems because where, years ago, bridging finance would have been available to anyone—particularly if they had big equity in a house and were moving to a less expensive house—there is now a strict age limit. It was 75 when I quoted it last time to someone in the Treasury; I checked it again, and it has gone to 70 now. In some cases, some of the banks I rang said it is 65. Does the Minister not think that there is a bit of age discrimination in this?

Medical Innovation Bill [HL]

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Friday 27th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support the Bill because I am convinced that it offers hope, and I think that that is one of the most important things in life. Many years ago, when I was on the Greater London Council, our Chief Whip, a very nice woman, was in the Royal Marsden and in a terminal condition. She said to me, “It has been marvellous to have my colleagues come in, except for that one”—he happened to be a doctor—“who came in and said, ‘Oh well, that’s it, Billie, you’re finished and on your way’”. She said, “That was the one thing I did not want to hear. I wanted hope and the feeling that there was some hope”.

I had not remembered that until I met Les Halpin, of whom I am sure many noble Lords have heard. In 2011 he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. The Daily Mail, which I do not often quote, described him as a maths genius confined to bed—this was towards the end—with a new aim: becoming a guinea pig for the experimental drugs which could save his life. That is the very important thing. My godson in Australia died not long ago from motor neurone disease, and it is a horrible condition. Les would certainly have been in a position to give informed consent. Various letters of opposition that we have received say that informed consent will be impossible to get. He was quite clear. When I first met him, he was quite fit, and he explained in great detail that he wanted to have these new drugs tried and was prepared to be self-funding at that stage because he thought it might benefit others.

It is quite by coincidence that I have held this view for some time; it is not just because I happened to be sitting next to my noble friend Lord Saatchi on the day that we had the First Reading of the Bill. At the time, I had a Question along the same lines. I met Les when he was quite fit, and then just a year, or a little more, later he was totally tied to bed and unable to do anything. The one thing that he had been deprived of was the hope that something might have helped him. It is more important than that; it is both hope and research, a double value. If it helps the person who has the innovative treatment, that is good in itself—but if, on the other hand, it helps people who follow and is just one element in a chain of tests for something, that will be hugely valuable to others. It is surprising how many people who are very ill would like to be able to help those who follow.

Les set up a charity called Empower: Access to Medicine. I understand that an application has been made to the Charities Commission for registration, but that process takes a fair time. So although he did not get acceptance for the type of treatment he wanted during his lifetime, his work is continuing, and today’s Bill is important and, I believe, very much in the interests of patients. I have received many briefing papers from many groups, most of which seemed pretty self-interested or self-protective. The point has been made how valuable it is for practitioners to have a means of protection, but I was reassured completely by listening to my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern that the protections are there in the Bill and that reasonable treatment is what we are talking about. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, made other points. I rarely disagree with my noble friend Lady Masham, but on this occasion I do disagree with her. I understand her views, but I think that the Bill is more important and I do not think that she will find that there is a lack of the necessary protection there. I strongly support the Bill.

Care Sector: Minimum Wage

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, in addition to the naming and shaming, the noble Lord will have heard the Prime Minister announce today that the maximum fine payable under the law will be increased fourfold. However, the work that is done with key stakeholders is a very important element of ensuring that the law is enforced and indeed understood. The Government work very closely in this sector with the UK Home Care Association and the trade union enforcement group, of which UNISON is the principal member.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware—I have mentioned this to the House before—that self-employed carers are often paid as little as £3 per hour, and that there is no control whatever over the self-employed? People who work officially for care sources are paid the minimum wage per hour but get nothing for the travel time between jobs. It could be that for every hour they work as a carer there is another unpaid hour, which surely makes a nonsense of saying that they are getting that amount per hour. What does the Minister believe can be done to improve the situation, because the care service is very important?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, if people are paid the minimum wage for hours when they are working and not being paid for travelling time between periods of work, that brings down the average amount paid per time at work to below the minimum wage. Therefore, employers are acting illegally. One of the principal findings in the study, which is the subject of this Question, is that the travelling time of people working in domiciliary care is one of the main reasons for people being paid below the minimum wage. HMRC operates under a contract from BIS to manage this process. The system has remained essentially unaltered since the minimum wage was introduced some 15 years ago, and the resources made available to it have been protected during the period of this Parliament.

Taxation: Avoidance

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I think the Government are a global leader in this area. We are taking a lead at the G8, and have taken the lead in the OECD to get the international tax rules changed. However, the other component that we are also taking a lead in is helping poorer countries to develop their own tax collection abilities. For example, work that HMRC has done in Ethiopia resulted in a sevenfold rise in the amount of tax collected in that country in the nine years from 2002.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

Can the Minister tell me why, on the Inland Revenue tax return that one has to complete, one is asked to specify if one belongs to any approved tax-avoidance scheme? Can he tell me how a tax-avoidance scheme gets to be an approved tax-avoidance scheme, and what exactly that means on your Inland Revenue tax return?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, there is something called DOTAS—the disclosure of tax avoidance schemes—which was introduced in, I think, 2004 and requires people who have come up with a tax wheeze to consult HMRC. If HMRC believes that it is a legal scheme, it gives it a number. That is the number you are supposed to put on your tax return if you subscribe to that scheme.

Taxation: Income Tax

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the Government do not think that a reduction in the VAT rate makes any sense at this point. A 1% reduction in the VAT rate costs about £12 billion. If we were to reduce the VAT rate, we would have to find that £12 billion from somewhere else—so we do not propose to reduce it.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

Is any thought being given to rates of pay for the self-employed? We have heard about the living wage, which is great, and even the basic wage is something, but I meet so many people in caring jobs who are earning less than £2 an hour. How can they live on that? The employer, who is usually employing them directly, has no obligation whatever to pay any more than that. These people are often a bit intimidated but they continue to work for that sort of miserable amount because they really care about the person.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness knows, we have minimum wage legislation. That is the route to ensuring that people are paid a decent minimum wage.

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, it has been a very wide-ranging debate, and many different aspects have been developed by different speakers. I start by taking issue with the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for saying that we on this side have tried to make this a battle between the deserving and the undeserving. I do not think that there should be moral judgments like that, and I do not believe that our party is making them. I will start with the noble Lord’s speech because it was the previous one and therefore it is fresh in my mind. It is important to realise that housing benefit has been a great problem. He says that we need to address it. Of course we do. One way to address it is to restrict it, and that is what has had to be done.

I have seen people living in properties who have been getting housing benefit of about £80,000 a year. That is just the benefit. It is not their living costs or anything else. People in employment might be earning £20,000 a year in the same area. It is pretty hard to watch that happen. When I was chairman of social services on Westminster Council, many years ago, we discovered that housing in London was terribly expensive even then, and that there was plenty of space and lots of unoccupied properties in, I think, Liverpool. It was somewhere quite remote.

We gave all those people who had no housing rights at all the right to go there. We provided transport and everything else, and Liverpool was willing to provide the accommodation. One-third of those people arrived there. The other two-thirds vanished into the blue. They went off our housing list, but they never appeared anywhere else. Evidently they would rather do anything than leave London. When we now see these people living in a little shed in a back garden in Acton or somewhere, it is terrible that people so desperately want to stay in London, where housing is, I would say, at the top of the range in price, and the least available. We had terrible trouble then because all the bed and breakfast hotel accommodation, which is so widely used now, was taken up by tourists or new arrivals to the country. Even to get a bed and breakfast space we at Westminster Council had gradually to move out wider and wider. It got to the point where no one in London had any bed and breakfast space available.

I feel for councils now that have nothing to offer people. This problem has not arisen in five minutes. It goes back a long, long way. When I was on the Greater London Council, I remember that we had a Conservative housing chairman and a Labour Government at that time. The chairman said, “This is the time when we could solve the housing problem, because I know what we need in London and the Labour Government have good ideas on what they could do”. However, it never happened because each of those authorities changed. The Government and the council changed, so the whole scenario changed.

Housing is a major problem. What is very bad is the continuing increase in utility bills and fuel rises. People in council blocks have recently told me that they can manage to pay the rent—they were renting from people who had bought their leasehold because that was all that was available—but they could not afford to warm the flat because the fuel bill is so high. That is worrying, because we were told that every effort would be made to see that fuel bills came down to a level where a card payment at a prepayment meter, which most of those people have to use because it is the only practical way for them to budget, would not be more expensive than having a quarterly bill. Yet only last week someone told me that it is still 10% more. Of course, it is going up all the time. That would be something—there are many things—that could be done to help people. The housing issue is not such a battle now. It has been addressed by putting a ceiling on housing benefit.

I heard the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, talk about Wales and the shortage of work there. Surely a lot of those people who cannot get anywhere else to live in the country could go to Wales. If you are living on a benefit, it does not matter where you are living if it is fully paid for by someone else. I do not understand that position.

[Lord Wigley]

I am listening carefully to what the noble Baroness says. Surely she would not uproot families—families with children in schools and with support mechanisms around them in south-east England—and move them to Merthyr Tydfil or Middlesbrough, where they have no links at all.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

I do not know that I agree. I arrived in this country and knew nothing about it. I had no job or anything else. Particularly if you have come from another country, it really does not much matter where you settle provided that you have the school that you want. Wales has always had a marvellous reputation for literacy, and I am quite sure that the schools would be good there. You want to be able to live in a safe, clean environment. Again, Wales is a beautiful country. I am a New South Welshman myself.

I do not want to be frivolous in this very serious debate. The one thing that we all have in common in this Chamber tonight is that none of us wants to see restrictions on anything. However, we just have to be realistic and look at the common sense of it. If we do not have the money to afford things, we cannot attempt to do it. It is all very well to think that you can do everything for everyone. I read in the statistics, which I think someone else quoted, that there was a 60% welfare increase under the previous Government between 2003 and 2010. Every household had to pay more than £3,000 a year to meet that extra increase of 60%, and the fact that we went too far and spent too much then is of course catching up with us now. It would be lovely if these things did not happen. However, this has happened and we have to try to put a stop on it, at least to be sure that we do not go on for ever.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, spoke early on about how we denigrate people as being workshy. Again, when I was in dental practice we had only a very poor catchment area near us because the only way people could get to work was by bus. There was absolute overemployment in the country, but we would go to the jobcentre and get nice young people to come and start work. We made the mistake originally of giving them keys to the surgery. That was a big mistake because most of them did not last a week. Then you would phone and say, “Where is Joanie? We were expecting her at work”, and someone would say, “Oh no, she never gets out of bed before midday. We can’t do anything with her”. So this is not a new problem. There have always been people who did not want to work, but there are others who do. That is the tragedy today; plenty of people desperately want to work but cannot find the work, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, suggested about Wales. It really is a major problem.

However, the more difficult the world and the more difficult these situations, the more we have to address them. We cannot go on believing that it will all work out all right in the end, just keep your fingers crossed. I was very impressed with the speech by the noble Lord, Lord German. I have never heard him speak before, but he clearly understands all the technical terminology, which I cannot claim to understand at all. The noble Lord said that at the moment all these taxes hit the richest hardest. That is true, because they are paying the biggest bit. Someone else, who I think was on the other side—no, it was that marvellous noble Lord in the back row here. I cannot pronounce his name; it is a bit too difficult for me—

[Lord Adebowale]

It is Adebowale, an old Yorkshire name meaning Adebowale.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

Thank you very much. The noble Lord said that some are hit harder than others and that to be hit hard if you are rich is not nearly as difficult as if you are poor. Every one of us would agree with that statement, so these things are not simple.

There was talk about food banks. The other day we had a question about food banks, which are a good idea. It is a disappointment that you might have to use a food bank but at least there is something there. When people talk about the difficulty of having to choose whether to warm the house or feed their children, surely food banks are better than leaving your child hungry. I can see someone disagreeing with me, but whatever I say, someone will disagree with me because there are two definite views on this. However, we have to be realistic.

I noticed that the right Reverend Prelate—was it the same Lord Bishop who is in his place? No, I think it was the previous one—the Bishop of Leicester said that it was just a short-term saving and that people were having to pay some element of council tax for the first time. Again, I think that council tax is perhaps one of the better forms of tax and that councils take into account where people really need help. I notice that even in business rates there is a provision whereby you can apply to have your business rates reduced, and that might enable you to stay in business and go on employing people who are working for you. Things are not that easy. The internet is destroying lots of shopping centres. There are issues there.

The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, made points that I agreed with strongly. He talked about the deserving and the undeserving. That seems to be the tag that they are giving us today. I remember Keith Joseph, in the days when he was very involved, talking about the cycle of deprivation. I have always thought that that still exists. If you do not know how to live frugally and do things for yourself, you cannot teach your children the same things because you do not know them to pass them on. This is very important. When times are hard for some people, they tend to buy food that is expensive and not necessarily nutritious. We get all the talk about obesity even in the very poor, and that is because the food that they can buy that is cheap is the worst for health. All these things are difficult.

The noble Lord referred to the climate of uncertainty and fear that we are trying to create—I do not know whether he said that we were trying to create it or whether we had done so—but that is certainly not the intention. There are things that we could do. I am strongly supportive of old people having bus travel passes or of transportability for people. Again, we did a great survey when I was chairman of social services and we discovered that the best thing possible was for people to continue to be mobile and to get around. If they could not afford the fares, they could not do that, and that added to the national health bill. If we are looking for a good economic thing, one of the good things is to keep people mobile and moving around as much as possible. The other things that are much more difficult are how to occupy them.

We have created a culture of dependency. As I said, those benefits went up 60%. This is the realistic situation that we have to bring back into line. The Bill has been demonised today in a way that is not fair. This side cares very much about people. It is simply that the answers are not easy. We would all like to do everything to help everyone, but you just cannot have it all ways. For that reason, I support the Bill.

Taxation: Avoidance

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proposals they have to deal with any abuse of charitable status for the purposes of tax avoidance.

[The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Deighton)]

My Lords, an organisation must be a charity, under the law of England and Wales, and meet certain other conditions in order to qualify for UK charity tax reliefs. Whether an organisation established in England or Wales is a charity in law is a matter for the Charity Commission. The Government are considering the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on updating charity law following his review of the Charities Act 2006.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. I notice that when you complete your tax return, one section asks you to say whether you are a member of a tax avoidance scheme. I am always amazed by that. That makes me wonder whether certain tax avoidance schemes are recognised and approved by the Treasury. Can the noble Lord tell me whether the Cup Trust, which is the one that has been so widely accused in the recent press, is known and approved by the Treasury, or whether it is unknown and that it has come as a shock to the Treasury to have this revelation in the press?

[Lord Deighton]

My Lords, I cannot comment on the tax affairs of individual taxpayers but what I can do is speak generally. Schemes that abuse the gift aid rules with a view to enabling individuals to avoid tax do fall within the disclosure of tax avoidance schemes rules. That means that anyone who uses such a scheme must disclose it on their tax return. HMRC can then identify those individuals and challenge the reliefs claimed where appropriate.

Property: Commonhold

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will support the development of commonhold properties by means of the guarantees to be given under the Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Bill.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, under the Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Act, the Government intend to issue up to £10 billion of debt guarantees to support the building of both private-rented and affordable-rented homes across the UK. As commonholds typically consist of privately owned properties and given that, in any event, commonholds are relatively rare, it is unlikely that any commonhold scheme will come forward under the guarantees programme.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

I am disappointed to hear that commonhold is unlikely to benefit. Does the Minister agree that many young people, particularly first-time buyers, would like to be empowered owners of their own homes and that commonhold is the fairest way of doing that in blocks of flats? Does he also appreciate that this is the first time that I have had any sort of reasonable answer on housing from a different department? No matter how I table my Questions, I always get an Answer from what is now called communities—but the name changes so it is hard to keep up—no matter what the Question is. When I write to the Minister for Housing, he refers the letter to the Treasury, and the Treasury sends back a hopeless reply saying, “It’s nothing to do with us”. Does the Minister not think that this is a moment in history to have more joined-up government and better liaison and understanding between departments?

[Lord Newby]

I absolutely agree with the need for joined-up government. As noble Lords would expect me to say, on a whole raft of housing initiatives, not least in relation to the Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Act, the Treasury and the Department for Communities and Local Government are working extremely closely together.

I understand why the noble Baroness is such a keen proponent of commonholds, but between 2002 and the present day, there have been only 15 commonhold developments in England and Wales comprising a mere 161 units.

Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Bill

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, I am glad that infrastructure is defined in Clause 1(2), as it is a word that has such a wide meaning and without it I would not feel entitled to speak on the Bill, because I do not have expertise on the financial aspects of it. Guarantees are of such importance and relevance at present, when we need jobs to be created. I believe that the guarantees under the Bill will enable works presently delayed to be carried out so that they will be of benefit both to the nation and to individuals. My comments will be directed towards subsection (2)(e), housing, which will also automatically involve subsections (2)(a), because of the linkage of services, and (2)(b), roads and transport.

For a good many years, until I reached their retiring age, I was a vice president of the National House Building Council. I hold it in high regard and it provides an excellent service for small builders and individuals. When I had to rebuild my own home in the 1980s—sadly, it had split asunder due to subsidence—I valued the security provided by its guarantee, which I believe covered the first 10 years after construction.

Later, I learnt of the wide support that it gives to the home building industry and I know that it plays a very necessary part in the provision of homes which are again so badly needed. Awards were given annually to various categories, such as small builder of the year, rather like a mini-Oscar ceremony. I hope that the NHBC will, among others, encourage builders to produce commonhold developments. It is time that we got rid of the antiquated leasehold system for residential property, which exists only in England and Hawaii, I believe.

In the Housing Reform Act 2002, we introduced commonhold, but it has hardly been used at all. I believe that the main reason is that developers prefer to make more money by selling the freehold to one body and the leasehold to another. That means that owner-occupiers, particularly in blocks of flats, have little or no control over the work carried out on their properties or the costs of them. I am sure that your Lordships are aware that I have spoken about leasehold reform many times. I still have my flat in Australia, where our commonhold is called strata title. Under that system, all flat owners are members of the body corporate and all decisions about the block are made collectively. I am convinced that once a reputable company such as Persimmon—and lots of others—builds and sells one commonhold block, it will see how popular and effective the system is; once it takes off, there will be no turning back. Getting the advantages known to the public will prove the value to home owners.

In our 2002 housing Act on this matter, there is provision for leaseholders in existing blocks to apply to convert to commonhold, but the provisions of the Act make it almost impossible, as 100% of leaseholders must agree. Apart from the fact that more often than not one owner is not contactable, it is open to abuse by any superior landlord not wanting to change. They need to buy out only one person’s vote to secure retention of the property for the superior landlord. Would it not provide a wonderful example if the Government were to support commonhold as the choice of tenure for the buildings to be converted to residences on the former Olympic site? This would provide a real legacy for the Games.

Returning to the wider issues of housing, we are all aware of the desperate need for more housing. Finance has been in short supply and mortgages have been almost unobtainable. Small builders cannot employ staff or begin construction unless they are sure of financial backing. From the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, I thought that the flexibility in this scheme should clearly mean that small builders can be supported in the same way as anyone else; it does not have to apply only to huge construction firms. Many of these small builders have huge skills and capabilities.

A lot of noble Lords will remember the late Lord Taylor. He told me that his career began when he built one house—I think in Liverpool. Selling that house provided him with the funds to build two houses and he went on to head Taylor Woodrow, which was a great achievement for him and a wonderful example for anyone looking for a future in the industry. We should not overlook that; we should support small builders who are ready and able. I like the expression “shovel ready” used by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and builders are shovel ready and often desperate for work at the moment. If they cannot employ staff, they cannot get going.

There is another aspect of housing on which I must comment. At present, there is a great argument about green belt and non-green belt land. I made this point during the passage of the Localism Bill, but consider it worth repeating in the context of this debate and all recent debates on the subject. There are small pockets of land in so-called green belt land that are sited in the midst of fairly built-up areas. These infill sites already have all the infrastructure in place and homes could be built on them without the delay of waiting for services, such as power, roads, and so on. This would mean that builders could get working much more quickly. Naturally, whoever owns the adjoining house will not want new neighbours, but nimbyism is not to be encouraged. Providing the new build is in harmony with the neighbours, it would rapidly become acceptable.

Reading page 3 of the Library note on this Bill today, I was disappointed to see the negative comments from the Opposition in the other place. To speak as pessimistically as Rachel Reeves did for the Opposition—in col. 689—is most disturbing. Surely we should all welcome this hope of producing not only more jobs, but also more homes. All parties must surely support the principle of this Bill. To oppose it, which in fairness she said she would not, would be to kill off hope for people who would definitely benefit if this finance made the difference between action and no action on infrastructure.

I can better understand Nick Raynsford’s remarks about “deep scepticism” and his wondering whether the Bill will deliver all that is expected of it. We have heard similar comments from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. We all hope that it will deliver, but no one can know these things for certain. Without this Bill, I believe there is no hope for this necessary progress. It is a money Bill and I understand the significance of that, but I do not mind speaking on it. It is not something that we have any right to do anything about. We must go ahead with this financial assistance scheme; we must look to the Government to ensure that the money is put to good use to provide homes, systems, schemes and developments to the benefit of those needing work and homes.

I found many of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, very interesting, such as his comments on toll structures. I have just come back from Australia, and I was very interested to see how well the toll roads work out there. Whether they are appropriate for here, I do not know. That is not my field of expertise. The noble Lord said that things have not progressed but perhaps this Bill will help them to progress. We have to look at this positively and go ahead with this action by the Government. The important thing is that the money has to be spent wisely on guarantees. No one seems to be able to get a guarantee now from a bank for pretty well anything, particularly for major projects but also for small projects. My appeal today is that we try to help small builders to get going so that homes can be built immediately for those who desperately need them and so that builders can provide employment. I support the Bill.