Welfare Reform Bill
Debate between Baroness Hollis of Heigham and Baroness Butler-Sloss(12 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I will be very brief, but I cannot resist the effrontery of trying to challenge some of the assumptions made by two people whose views on social security I very much respect, the noble Lords, Lord Fowler and Lord Newton.
The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, said that the social security bill is pushing £200 billion and needs to be contained and cut. He is correct, but the biggest single group driving that increase in costs are of course pensioners. There is an increased number of pensioners, who are living longer, sometimes with poor health. These cuts do not—in my view, rightly—impinge on them at all. We are making other people pay for the demographics that are not their fault.
The second point I would like to address comes from the noble Lord, Lord Newton. He says that there is a big prize in this: universal credit. He is absolutely right. I defer to nobody in my support for universal credit and my support for the Minister on the structure of universal credit. However, that structure is being contaminated by where some of the cuts fall. If we can keep those two things separate in our minds, we can fully support the Minister on his structure, as we do, while trying to protect those who are most vulnerable and affected by where the cuts fall.
At the end of the day, it is about political and moral choices. Noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, said that we face a deficit and must bring it down—these cuts have to fall. May I gently suggest to him that I rather doubt that any of the cuts have affected him? Not one of them has affected me. Indeed, my council tax is being frozen at a cost of nearly £1 billion a year, which is very nice. Over five years, that equates to the very £5 billion that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, cited. I get my council tax frozen while disabled children, cancer patients and vulnerable children at risk of homelessness carry my bills for me, even though we in this House have broader shoulders on which to carry the cost. It is about choices and the choice of every Member in this House today. I hope they will make a choice that most of us would regard as the decent one.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I say bluntly that I came here uncertain as to which way I should vote on this amendment today. I remain uncertain but I endorse the suggestion that the Minister should explain what will be done for the most vulnerable by way of the transitional provisions. Like others, I strongly support the cap. The amendment goes too far in my view but it has a nugget of enormous importance. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, my main reason for being here today is because I support children. The transitional provisions may provide the answer but can the Minister tell us how the most vulnerable people will be protected? I should like to know that because it will have an enormous effect on which way I vote.
Local Government Bill [HL]
Debate between Baroness Hollis of Heigham and Baroness Butler-Sloss
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Rosser. Time after time in this saga, we have had erroneous or misleading or missing advice from the Department for Communities and Local Government. Not only has that contributed to the mess we are in; it has also contributed enormously to the cost to Norwich and Exeter—which, I emphasise, have behaved impeccably, legally and lawfully every step of the way. They are the innocent parties in this. They responded to an invitation, which was approved, and then found themselves in this quagmire. As my noble friend has quoted, on 5 July, when talking about the by-elections, Mr Justice Ouseley referred to the,
“preferred option of the interested parties”—
Norwich and Exeter—
“who are not themselves to blame for the pickle in which they find themselves”.
I repeat, as did my noble friend, that the judge was quite clear that Norwich and Exeter were not to blame.
By implication, therefore, much if not all of the responsibility lay at the door of the department—which has continuously given faulty, erroneous, misleading or missing advice. According to the judge, in December 2009 and January 2010, the department could and should have sent out a letter notifying the four interested parties that there were additional considerations to be taken into account. That, says the judge, would have met his concerns and there would have been no quashing of the orders. That letter did not come. I cannot believe that my right honourable friend in the other place would have refused to send out such a letter had he been advised of its prudence.
We then had a Bill that was so loosely drafted by the DCLG that it was arguably hybrid. However, as that was never argued before the examiners, for by then we had the court ruling, the argument that it was hybrid went effectively by default. Given the court’s judgment, councillors who had legally not stood for re-election last May now found themselves unseated. However, the court action was taken by Devon and Norfolk against the DCLG, not against Norwich and Exeter. Norwich and Exeter were, if you like, interested parties. The action was taken by the two county councils against DCLG. If, as the judge says, Norwich and Exeter are in no way to blame for this and they have been innocent parties throughout, why should they pick up the bill?
It seems profoundly unfair that Norwich and Exeter—which have behaved impeccably and legally throughout, as the judge has confirmed—should pick up the bill for the DCLG’s mistakes. I cannot believe that any of your Lordships would think that that is right, fair or proper.
With such a litany, I should hope that the Minister will take this back and ask her department to think again about the moral propriety of shrugging their shoulders and saying, “Tough, Norwich. Tough, Exeter. You’ve behaved legally, properly and innocently throughout but you’ll have to pick up the bill for our mistakes”. I have never known such a casual attitude in government to the assumption of responsibility. I very much hope that the noble Baroness will respond to my noble friend’s amendment.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I have one point to make on this. At the preliminary hearing, Devon and Norfolk asked for an expedited hearing so that these matters could be dealt with before the election. The two cities said that they would prefer the risk of by-elections to an early hearing by the court. So much if not all of this has been brought upon Exeter and Norwich by asking the judge for the case to be delayed until after the hearing.
Local Government Bill [HL]
Debate between Baroness Hollis of Heigham and Baroness Butler-Sloss
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Before I address the substance of Amendment 2, which is what I really want to speak on, I want to challenge the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the wider arguments she has made. I do not think she has been involved in all of the orders that have come before your Lordships since 2006, of which to my knowledge there have been at least half a dozen. Nearly all have been accompanied by judicial reviews. No one knew at that stage what the outcome of those judicial reviews would be. They were carried through by my noble friend Lady Andrews and on many occasions I tried to give her some support to that effect.
On the argument of the noble and learned Baroness, the fact that there was a judicial review suggests, before we know the outcome, that by definition it must have been illegal. With the benefit of hindsight with regard to the judge’s ruling, the noble and learned Baroness has said that the orders were illegal.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I said that only in relation to these orders were they illegal, and they were found to be illegal after the judge made the order. But they were illegal from the moment that the Minister insisted on presenting them to the House.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I entirely accept that. In the same way that if any Minister—myself in a former capacity, my noble friend or the noble Baroness opposite—were to make an administrative decision within their department—in my case it might have been about the Child Support Agency or whatever—which did not go through parliamentary scrutiny, it would be perfectly proper, and occasionally happens, that there should be a JR. At that point a judge might well say, “Minister, you have exceeded your administrative power”, and that would be fine. That is exactly what judges should do—they do it all the time—both for central government Ministers and for local government councillors. No one is challenging that. Of course there is an important key role for JR to ensure propriety of behaviour by people in official positions who carry official responsibilities.
However, that is a completely different situation from the one described by my noble friend. Parliament had seven hours of debate on these orders and—knowing all the facts alleged by Members opposite and ourselves and what they entailed—decided to support them. One judge, 1,000 parliamentarians, seven hours of debate. You can see why some of us feel that this was perhaps an intrusion on parliamentary sovereignty too far. I do not recede from that line.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
The noble Baroness said that the House decided to support the orders. The point is that the House did not support them; it followed me into the No Lobby and opposed them by a considerable majority. The Government overruled the decision of the House of Lords not to accept these orders.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, if I may put it delicately, the noble and learned Baroness misunderstands the import of her own amendment. She tabled a Motion of regret, but the orders went through. Had Members opposite chosen to do so they could have put down a Motion opposing them, as the Lib Dems did. The House chose not to support the Lib Dems. I understand why the Lib Dems opposed the Motion—it is a convention that we have established—but, none the less, when the House chose not to support the Lib Dems’ Motion it did not say, “We do not support these”; instead, it called on the Government to consider and review their position—which they did—and then to proceed, as the Government are perfectly entitled to do. Noble Lords had a choice between two Motions: one to nullify, the other to regret. They chose not to nullify, only to regret. Therefore, I say to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that this House supported through that mechanism the Government’s intent, as did the other place. I am sure that, on reflection, she will accept that that is a proper interpretation of what happened on that night.
In bringing forward Amendment 2, the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, seeks essentially to strike out the orders for Norwich and Exeter over and beyond the impact of the JR. I do not want to talk about the election issue, which is part of the subsequent clause—I shall come back to that on Amendment 4—but to refer to the arguments made by the Minister at Second Reading, together with her follow-up letter of 8 July. At Second Reading the Minister said that her position and this debate was not about the,
“value or virtue of unitary government: it is about the mismanagement and mishandling of two applications for unitary government”.—[Official Report, 30/6/10; col. 1831.]
So it was not about the virtues of unitary government but about the process. She said—rightly—that this was because two additional criteria were added late and were not consulted on. This was because, as we know, an ineffably incompetent Boundary Committee delayed its final report by some nine months.
The Minister may also know that her officials in DCLG, as the judge states in his conclusions, could have met the judge’s concerns by sending out a letter on behalf of the Secretary of State in the December or January preceding the introduction of the orders. The judge made it very clear that DCLG officials could have asked the Secretary of State to do so—the Secretary of State may have refused to follow their advice, of course. Had such a letter gone out in December or January, the transcript of the judge’s conclusion makes it clear that that would have satisfied his concerns and that he would not have squashed the orders—although I do not doubt that he might still have had serious concerns about the process. Why that letter, telling the relevant four authorities of Norfolk, Devon, Norwich and Exeter that there were compelling reasons—that is, the issue of economic development in a period of economic recession on the one hand and the concern with Total Place on the other—was not sent out, I do not know. I can only assume that it was cock-up and not conspiracy.
If the Minister’s opposition is on grounds not of principle but of process, as she said on 30 June, then why not allow Norwich and Exeter to follow any or all of the due processes that she thinks were cut short and resubmit their bids? Why cancel this clause? The courts have JR’d the original orders and therefore squashed them, but if the Minister agrees with what she said on 30 June—that she was opposed not to the virtues of unitary authorities but merely to the process—we could make a fresh start.
We cannot know the outcome of further consultation, which was short cut because of the inexcusable behaviour of the Boundary Committee, until it happens. So I presume that we go back to what the Minister said on the previous amendment, that her residual reason for objecting to the orders was not the issue but cost. We debated that on the previous amendment, when the noble Baroness—I really do not want to be personal about this; I am sure that it was not intentional—was again in danger of misleading the Committee by telling us that the cost of transition would be £40 million. She was not going to go on to the second part of her own impact analysis, which showed that the savings over the six years would be £39.4 million—funny, that. The net cost, therefore, would not be £40 million but £600,000—£300,000 per authority, £50,000 a year. Moreover, the Minister was unwilling to commit again to say what she said in her letter and in the impact analysis: that, after those first six years, the net savings between the two authorities would be more than £6 million a year, or more than £3 million per authority per year. I repeat: on any cost/value-for-money argument, the net costs—which is what matters despite what the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and others have argued—for the first six years are £50,000 a year and the savings thereafter per authority are £3 million per year. That £300,000 over the first six years would be recovered in the first six weeks of the seventh year. If the Minister thinks that that is bad value for money, I find it hard to understand what will ever meet with her approval for being good value for money.
What is for sure is that the option that she is arguing for today, the status quo, is the most expensive option of the three. It costs far more than unitary Norwich and Exeter and far more than unitary counties, which is what the Permanent Secretary argued for. On the previous amendment, however, the Minister was not giving the Committee the full picture. I assume that most of your Lordships will have read the impact analysis and know the stats for themselves; they will know that what I am saying is accurate. Is a net cost of £50,000 a year for six years and £3 million of savings per authority thereafter really bad value for money?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, such warnings had effectively occurred on all the previous JRs—I should note that the noble Baroness did not take part in those debates. We have had something like six or eight rounds of councils becoming unitary authorities, which for the most part had the full support of Members of this House, and at each stage—
Baroness Butler-Sloss
The noble Baroness rightly reminded me that I was not in the House during the period covering all eight previous JRs, but I have been here long enough to have learnt a little—although not as much as the noble Baroness. In all previous JRs, did the Permanent Secretary ask for the letter exonerating him as the accounting officer from the cost of all of this, because it was inappropriate for the Minister to be doing what he was doing? My understanding was that that was an unusual process for a Permanent Secretary.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for contributing to the debate. Perhaps I may run briefly through the comments by individual contributors. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said that she represented the views of a senior county councillor in Devon. I am sure that is the case, but forgive me for noting that, as county councillors, they would say that, wouldn’t they? Of course they would say that the arrangements are fine. I have met senior—
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for allowing me to interrupt. If I said “county councillor”, that was absolutely wrong. It was a senior executive working for Devon County Council.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Forgive me, but that does not affect my point. If I misheard the noble and learned Baroness, I apologise. I understood her to say that it was a senior county councillor, but if it was a senior county official, none the less it is from the county perspective. Like my noble friend Lord Howarth, I have met district councillors in Exeter from all the political parties, so far as I am aware—I am not sure whether the Conservatives were there, but the Liberal Democrats certainly were—who have given us a very different view and say that such co-operation as is being recommended and extolled by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, is simply not happening on the ground.