Queen’s Speech

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I offer my apologies, because I shall be a little wide of the subjects listed for today’s debate on the gracious Speech, as I will speak on the continuing need for protection online for children aged under 18 and then turn to the role of parents in their children’s education.

I begin by saying how delighted I was to read in the background document published with the gracious Speech that one of the purposes of the digital economy Bill is the:

“Protection of children from online pornography by requiring age verification for access to all sites containing pornographic material”.

This, of course, represents the honouring of the commitment made in the 2015 Conservative manifesto. In their consultation earlier this year on age verification for pornographic websites, the Government reported the outcome of their research through comScore about children accessing adult sites in May 2015. This revealed that 1.4 million visitors aged under 18 accessed adult sites from their desktops and that the data represented 20% of those aged under 18 accessing the internet and 13% of children aged six to 14. In the context where we have the technology to allow the introduction of proper age verification, failing to do so is indefensible.

As noble Lords will know, I have long campaigned for this change through my Online Safety Bill, and I particularly want to thank all those who have supported me in raising the issue in this House. That it is a matter of real public concern was underlined yet again in a letter I received yesterday from the Cornwall Community Standards Association expressing the hope that the law will be implemented as soon as possible. I warmly congratulate the Government on taking this important step, and I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Shields, the Minister responsible, who has worked so hard on this issue.

The audio-visual regulations already provide some protection for children from accessing R18-rated material that is streamed from pornographic websites based in the United Kingdom. I am pleased that the Government propose in their consultation document that there should be an extension of the material to include pornographic content that the British Board of Film Classification would consider rating as 18. This is something for which I, too, have been urging for a while. However, at the heart of the age verification challenge is the need to recognise what ATVOD reported on this issue in 2014, that 23 of the top 25 adult sites accessed in the UK were located abroad, and I have no reason to believe that the situation has changed. It is the material from outside the UK that is especially problematical and has in effect been unregulated. The key goal for the Government must therefore be to develop an enforceable means of requiring foreign pornographic sites projecting material into the UK to introduce robust age verification, whether the material being supplied is free or not.

Last year in my Online Safety Bill I proposed a licensing scheme based on the Gambling Act 2005 for those who want to supply pornography into the UK market from abroad. In Committee on the Bill, the Minister kindly described my proposal as an,

“innovative approach … to solving this challenge”.—[Official Report, 11/12/15; col. 1811.]

The essence of my proposal makes it very clear whether a foreign website whose content includes either 18 or R18-rated pornography is in compliance with UK law by having a licence or not. It is a simple yes/no, and a criminal offence will have been committed for not having a licence and a statutory system of financial transaction blocking.

I have retabled an updated version of my own Online Safety Bill principally to highlight the robust statutory age verification enforcement mechanism set out in Clauses 8 to 12, so I look forward very much to the publication of the digital economy Bill, and I hope that the Government will study carefully the relevant clauses of my Bill, particularly when addressing the matter of enforcement.

Having sung the Government’s praises, I must now turn to the education for all Bill and strike a rather different note. I am concerned about the Government’s White Paper entitled Educational Excellence Everywhere, which presumably will inform the direction of the education for all Bill announced in the gracious Speech. There is much that could be said, but I shall focus specifically on the Government’s proposals for school governors, and in so doing I must declare an interest as president of the National Governors Association. Paragraph 3.30 of the White Paper states:

“We will expect all governing boards to focus on seeking people with the right skills for governance, and so we will no longer require academy trusts to reserve places for elected parents on governing boards”.

It goes on to say that,

“fully skills-based governance will become the norm across the education system … Parents often have these skills and many parents already play a valuable role in governance”.

But the point is clear: parents can contribute towards being governors, but the key fact that they are a parent is not fully relevant. What is important is that they have the right skills for school governance, to which it would seem that being a parent is only incidental. Some might think that this is a good message to send, but I do not. I fear that the Government are being tempted by what I have to describe as a rather technocratic view of schools in which governors may have special expertise unrelated to being a parent while parents principally seem to be treated as consumers who must be given lots of information to help them hold their school to account and, if necessary, complain.

I believe that schools should be regarded as a rooted outworking of their communities. One of the ways in which that is realised is by giving parents who live in the community and carry the ultimate responsibility for their children a clear stake in school governance via seats on school governing bodies. Parents are the ones with their feet on the ground, knowing what is happening at the school, what other parents are feeling and whether their children are thriving. Of course one can particularly encourage parents with additional qualifications to engage, but being a parent must in itself be recognised as one of the most important aspects of the appropriate qualification. In the end, schools act in loco parentis. Parents will not take kindly to the idea that they are being displaced from the governance of their children’s schools by experts. I wish that the Government would think again.

I end by warmly congratulating the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle on her brilliant, moving and historic maiden speech. I hope that it will not be too long before she has other women Bishops joining her on those Benches.

Childcare Payments Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I would personally welcome any measures that would put more pressure on my Treasury colleagues to appear before your Lordships’ House.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, on the practical aspects of this Question, does the Minister agree that it is important that not only should the Government support working parents with the cost of childcare, they should also look at ways to help improve access to flexible childcare? What action are the Government taking in this very important respect?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the key thing is to increase both the quantity and the quality of the childcare that is available. A welcome development is the fact that a larger number of primary schools are now providing nursery places. Also, the Government have been supporting, by way of grant, individuals to set up as childminders, as a result of which there are now several tens of thousands more places available than was the case a couple of years ago.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Friday 7th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, my Amendment 7 is a very simple one which deals with an issue that might arise as a result of the Bill—what one might call suicide tourism. I am sure that it is common ground between those who support and those who oppose a change in the law that we would not want to see any such law being abused by people from other jurisdictions travelling here to commit suicide. I feel sure that that is what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, had in mind when he included a requirement in Section 1 that an applicant for assistance with suicide must have been ordinarily resident in England and Wales for not less than one year. I certainly applaud the intention of that provision, but I fear that it does not go far enough.

Let us consider a hypothetical but far from impossible situation of a couple who have lived in England and Wales then retired to the Costa Brava. One of them is diagnosed with a terminal illness and wishes to take advantage of a law along the lines of the one proposed here, so he or she returns to this country and qualifies as having been resident in England and Wales for more than a year, but not for a year immediately preceding the application. And what about Scotland? Returning home from the Costa Brava is one thing; coming south into England is something else. There must be thousands of people who have been ordinarily resident in England and Wales for not less than a year but who, at a time when they may wish to avail themselves of a law along the lines of the noble and learned Lord’s Bill, are living north of the border. Are they to qualify for assistance with suicide, too?

It is a simple matter to guard against such suicide tourism by stipulating that the applicant for assistance with suicide must have been resident in England and Wales for a specified period immediately prior to making the application. I feel sure that that is the intent of the Bill, which should make that clear, as well as the stipulation that the specified period required should be not one but two years.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I find this procedure extremely confusing. I realise that when a complex amendment is passed which subsumes other amendments it makes life complex, but for future reference, we would be very grateful as a Committee to have clear procedural guidance from the Whips as soon as possible. This has been a very confusing discussion on an extremely important issue.

Children: Television

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, obviously there has been a considerable reduction in original children’s television production in the UK. There are a number of reasons for this: for instance, the ability of the independent television companies to generate income from children’s television has reduced as a result of restrictions on advertising during children’s television programmes. However, these issues will be put by the industry and considered by the Treasury.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, do the Government think that it is appropriate that the BBC, a public service broadcaster, is the largest buyer of children’s live action TV?

[Lord Newby]

When I look back to my own childhood—it was a long time ago, although I am not that old—the BBC had a pre-eminent role in terms of children's television. It has continued in that capacity and in that role for many decades.

Children and Vulnerable Adults: Abuse

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, would like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, on securing this important debate. In particular, I would like to congratulate her on her excellent speech.

I intend to confine my comments to the abuse of children. Evidence from a range of sources in recent years has underlined that children are being increasingly exposed to harmful and damaging content online. A parliamentary inquiry in 2012 found that one in three children aged 10 or under has seen sexual images online, and four out of five children aged 14 to 16 access online pornography at home. The inquiry went on to say, somewhat chillingly, that,

“the whole history of human sexual perversion”,

is available on the internet and only two clicks away. It goes on to say that,

“unfortunately, our children, with their natural curiosity and superior technological skills, are finding and viewing these images”.

The inquiry also noted that the rise of internet pornography is leaving teenagers with an inability to develop normal relationships and is even increasing their susceptibility to grooming by sexual abusers.

Last year, the Deputy Children’s Commissioner for England suggested that the scale of access to adult pornography among children was now so widespread that it should trigger “moral panic” among parents, schools and the Government about what should be done. Her research also revealed that in one large local authority area, 100% of boys in year 9 classes—14 year-olds—accessed pornography. The damaging consequences of all this are plain. Children do not simply view these images and move on. They can produce real trauma for weeks, months and even years to come.

In a 2010 Home Office report into the sexualisation of children, leading psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos found that there is a striking link among young males between the consumption of sexualised images and a tendency to view women as objects, along with an acceptance of aggressive attitudes and behaviour as the norm. According to research by Ybarra and Mitchell, children who are exposed to pornography are three and a half times more likely to be depressed and two and a half times more likely to be less bonded to their carers.

Given the effect on children, I am very clear that the provision of this kind of material online without robust age verification to protect children constitutes a form of abuse, about which something must be done. So, what have the Government done? They have persuaded 90% of the ISP market to provide what is in effect a form of default filtering, which I welcome, although the self-regulatory nature of the current arrangements—missing out 10% of the market and therein many homes with children—is deeply problematic for reasons I have explained on previous occasions.

However, I want to focus particularly on the ATVOD call on the Government to make the law clearer that R18 material should be put behind robust age verification mechanisms that it would be ATVOD’s responsibility to monitor. I am pleased to say that the Government have responded favourably to this request, although they have not yet produced any legislation. That is of concern, given the importance of the issue.

In the light of this, my Online Safety Bill, which had its First Reading in your Lordships’ House on 11 June, would save the Government time by providing them in Clause 7 with a provision that rises to the challenge. However, it goes further. If we as a society decide that children aged under 18 should not see 18 or R18 material, it would be wholly inappropriate for the Government to require the provision of age verification for R18-rated material but not 18-rated material. If we are serious about child protection, age verification must by definition apply to both 18 and R18-rated video on demand material. Since the Gambling Act 2005, we have required all online gambling sites to be set behind robust age-verification processes based on credit referencing, the electoral roll and so on. We must now do so in relation to 18 and R18 video on demand material.

ATVOD has also rightly drawn attention to the fact that the majority of R18 material that is accessed in the UK comes from beyond this country where the authority has no jurisdiction. Simply to make the Communications Act 2003 clearer on the point that all 18 and R18 material should be placed behind robust age-verification systems, while essential, is by no means the whole solution. I am not aware that the Government have done anything specifically to address the problem. It is for this reason that Clause 8 of my Bill would introduce a financial transaction blocking provision.

Clause 8 provides a mechanism for requiring financial transaction providers not to process transactions between internet users in the UK and websites based outside the UK that provide 18 or R18 content without a system of robust age verification. This is a vital measure. It will cut the flow of money to such websites, challenging them to act responsibly and introduce a system of age verification.

There is no doubt in my mind that given the damaging implications of all this material for adults, making it available to children constitutes a form of abuse. Moreover, if as legislators we have the capacity to require people who engage in the provision of this material to do so behind robust age verification, as with online gambling, but cannot be bothered, there is—I say this gently—a sense in which we are all complicit in that abuse.

I welcome the steps that the Government have taken in relation to filtering—subject of course to the problems associated with its self-regulatory basis—but there is so much more to be done. To this end I hope that they will carefully consider and adopt my Online Safety Bill, as suggested by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham.

Financial Services Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McFall of Alcluith]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, the Government and others in the House on passing this Act because in terms of consumer protection in Acts, the wheels turn very slowly. The Consumer Credit Act 1974 was only superseded because of a lot of effort by quite a number of us in the other place in getting another Consumer Credit Act in 2006, 32 years later. At a time when we have the internet and technology has increased enormously, that means that the imbalance between the consumer and the industry gets even steeper, so I welcome this amendment today and the efforts that have been put into it.

In particular, I congratulate the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, as he departs the Front Bench. He deserves our hearty congratulations because for years we have listened to the plea, “Let the market work”. What happens when we let the market work, to be euphemistic, is that innovation takes over and innovation, as the Minister says, equates to sharp practices. Once we pass this in the House today, it will be going out into the cold light of day and I can tell everyone in the House that innovation will take place and we therefore have to be on our guard.

This is but a first step but it is a huge first step. In line with the comments made by other Peers, I ask the Minister for clarification on these points. First, will the new clause cover all costs and charges levied by payday lenders or borrowers? Secondly, when will it come into force? A number of us are worried that we could be waiting for a long time before it is brought in and that, in the interim, the sharp practices will continue. Lastly, how do the Government envisage the cap being set and does the Minister have in mind at what level he expects that cap to be set? It is important to give some direction to the FCA in today’s debate. My last word to the Minister is to offer my congratulations as a new life beckons in front of him, which I hope is just as prosperous.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I had not intended to say anything today, because I was pleased with the amendment. The more I listened to the explanation, however, the more enthusiastic I became about it. So I wanted to add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, for all that he has done here, as well as to the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, and everybody else who has been involved in the redrafting. I am sure it will not solve all the problems. I would also like to ask when it will come into force; I imagine that it will not be all that far ahead. Nevertheless, as has been said, it is an extremely important and valuable step in the right direction.

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I am grateful for all those contributions. I will briefly respond to some of the specific questions. First, the noble Lord, Lord Peston, asked whether this means that the FCA has to go into this field. Absolutely it does; it would have to anyway. Putting all this in the Bill will concentrate the FCA’s mind wonderfully. However, as the noble Lord knows, it is an enabling power; the FCA may make these rules, but this does not say that it must make them.

On the noble Lord’s other questions about whether consumers know what they are letting themselves in for, this is one of the other areas that clearly needs attention, as I indicated in my opening remarks. Whether this is addressed under the consumer credit directive or the consumer protection regulations, it is another parallel area. I stress again that we are getting to the heart of the issue in this amendment, but this is not the sum total of it.

There were also questions about when the rules might come in. The rules will come in when the FCA gets round to making them. There is nothing to stop the OFT moving ahead. The next thing we are expecting is the academic report, which refers in some detail to the international evidence about the pros and cons of caps. That will be part of the evidence base that will be used, building up to any rules that may or may not be put in place. However, I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, that there is no question of secondary legislation here. We are giving the FCA a clear rule-making power; its rule-making procedures will then go for consultation, but this does not need to come back through the channel of secondary legislation.

Lastly, I turn to the questions from the noble Lord, Lord McFall of Alcluith. In parenthesis, I would argue that there have certainly been financial innovations that have been beneficial, but perhaps we will leave that debate for another day. The noble Lord asked whether all costs and charges would be covered. Yes, they will—all of them. He asked when this comes into force. This specific power comes into force in April 2014, when credit becomes a regulated activity under the FCA. Of course, that will not stop the Government and the OFT looking at what may need to be done before then, but we are talking about a Bill that relates in this instance to the powers of the FCA when they are transferred over. As far as what the cap should be, that will be a matter for the FCA. It is a very difficult question that will need careful thought. As I have already indicated, the Bristol study, which is coming out very soon, will be an important contribution to that thinking. We are putting an important building block in place today, but it is not the only building block in this area.

Financial Services Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, for what he has said; it sounds like an interesting and potentially successful solution, but I am still quite confused as to whether we will get to the right conclusion on time. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, and congratulate him on tabling his amendment, to which several of us have added our name. I am glad to have been able to hear the comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, because he gained great expertise in financial matters in his career before he joined the Church.

There has been plenty of support for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, from other areas around the country, from councillors and from MPs. For my own part, having sat through the Welfare Reform Bill, with its drastic consequences for the poor and disabled, and subsequently witnessed for the same group the extent to which voluntary legal aid and advice services were being curtailed so that they were not getting the help that they had had in the past, my first reaction to the amendment was that it was far too weak. However, I have listened to what people have said and accept that consumers without bank accounts or with no credit history—that is some 25% of credit users and 23% of payday loan users, I was amazed to find—have no choice when facing a financial crisis but to resort to these loans. Nor should we forget, as has been pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, and by Which? reports, that some 78% of payday loans are used for basic essentials such as food or household bills. So if these organisations—I am tempted to call them by less pleasant names—are to stay, undoubtedly the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, will be a huge help. It may be that it will be a reserve weapon, as it were, but it will nevertheless be a very important weapon. I hope that I can feel confident at the end of our discussions. I want reassurance from the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, that he is sufficiently satisfied with what he has heard, that otherwise he will bring back further amendments at a later stage, and that that will be acceptable to the whole House.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. Like her, I felt that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, was the very least that we should be doing in this area and I would have been happy with something even stronger. I congratulate her, my noble friend Lord Mitchell and the right reverend Prelate on their initiative in bringing this matter before the House and, indeed, before the country.

I am going to say something which I think needs to be said this afternoon and is probably best said from the Back Benches—that is, I think the Government should be hanging their head in shame. They have had many months to prepare the Bill and bring it forward and have not brought forward the clause that they are now promising, although they had every opportunity to do so. It is only because of the determination and initiative of my noble friend and his colleagues and the great moral force brought to this matter by the right reverend Prelate that, at the last minute, the Government have decided that they have no alternative but to do the right thing for once. That needed to be said; this has been a very dramatic afternoon when we have seen a U-turn.

This evil we have been talking about—and it is an evil—has, of course, got worse, for the reasons given by my noble friend, over the past two years, but it has been with us for a long time. It is an evil that I was well aware of when I was a Member of the House of Commons; most people with constituency experience came across it. The normal trick of loan sharks is to persuade people to borrow so much money at such a high rate of interest that they can never get around to repaying the principal because any cash they happen to have simply goes to servicing the debt by paying the interest. Essentially, they lend someone £500 and have their thugs go around every week, or every two weeks, collecting at their door whatever the poor family concerned can pay—£20 here, £30 there—which all goes towards the interest. The interest piles up and the principal is never going to be repaid but the lender makes a return on his capital of hundreds, maybe thousands of per cent every year.

I remember coming across a particularly nasty scam in my constituency, which I fear may still be going on. It is the targeting of people who have some equity in their house but very low cash flow in relation to their debts and persuading them to consolidate their unsecured debt into a secured loan, something one should never do, in principle, except in very exceptional circumstances. These people are, generally, financially very naive and agree to do it; they take out a secured loan of whatever amount, but they can never afford to service it at an APR of, perhaps, 20%. The lender knows perfectly well that they will default, that they do not have the cash flow to service the loan, but he has security of several thousand pounds of equity in the house and he puts into the loan agreement enormously expensive penal clauses, so that, in the event of default, thousands of pounds will be paid by way of compensation or penalty interest. He knows, of course, that the borrower is going to default; he hopes that the borrower will default at the first interest payment date, not the second or the third, because that way he turns his capital over more quickly. As soon as the borrower defaults the lender forecloses on the loan and takes all his additional thousands of pounds in penalty interest, a very large slice of the remaining equity in the house. It is extraordinarily cynical, extraordinarily cruel, and this kind of scam and others like it thrive in what we like to think of as our civilised and humane society.

We need to do something about this very rapidly indeed. What has been put forward this afternoon is an absolute minimum; I would have been much happier with something along the lines of the anti-usury laws. I am so glad that the right reverend Prelate is a churchman and not afraid to use old-fashioned but eternal concepts such as usury. I would have been happy with the sort of anti-usury laws that some American states have. We are not going to go that far this afternoon. I hope that the government amendment lives up to the promises that have been made this afternoon by the Minister.

Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I voted last week with Her Majesty’s Government on the Motion on the Bill, because, on balance, I believed that the Speaker’s ruling that it was a money Bill should be respected. However, in doing so I was certainly not in favour of the Bill’s aim to remove the child trust fund payments for all looked-after children born after January 2011. That would serve further to disadvantage some of our most disadvantaged children. That is why I am speaking today, and I will address only that aspect of the Bill.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said, it appears that during the Bill’s passage in the other place, Paul Goggins, working with Barnardo’s and Action for Children, and after a sympathetic discussion with the Treasury Minister Mark Hoban, proposed an amendment based on the new junior ISA that the Government themselves proposed to introduce in 2011. The scheme, which I am certainly not against in principle, will apparently allow parents to contribute limited tax-free sums each year for their children’s use when they became adults. Thus the amendment that Paul Goggins proposed would, as your Lordships have heard, ensure a yearly government grant, guaranteed for each looked-after child after she or he had been in care for more than three months. The cost would certainly be a reduction of, I think, £6.6 million from the saving of £500 million a year achieved by the abolition of the child trust fund, but it would at least ensure that these highly vulnerable children, too, have some help at that difficult time when they leave care and begin adult life.

That is the point at which the situation becomes obscure. There was, apparently, no prior indication that the Bill would be deemed a money Bill during Report in the other place. I understand that Paul Goggins therefore withdrew his amendment on the basis that, if the Government did not come up with their own satisfactory scheme for looked-after children, it could be tabled in your Lordships’ House—I would certainly have been very happy to table it. However, as we now know, due to the Speaker’s decision at that late stage of the Bill, the opportunity to amend the Bill in your Lordships’ House is no longer available.

My concern, and that of other noble Lords, is that by making the Bill a money Bill late in the process, we are not given the opportunity to amend and thereby ensure that there is an equivalent scheme for looked-after children. The result is that the Government risk being seen—I am sorry to say this, but it is true—as neglecting their responsibility to our country’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.

At Second Reading in the other place, the Government promised:

“To make sure parents have a clear, simple and accessible option to save for their children”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/10/10; col. 212.]

However, without government contributions, how will the Government ensure that looked-after children have the same opportunity to begin life with a similarly adequate nest egg?

I dare say it will be argued that the junior ISA gives local authorities discretion to pay into savings accounts for looked-after children. However, considering that their budgets have been cut by 26 per cent over the next four years—I am not complaining about that, because I know savings have got to be made and we have to face that situation—how realistic an expectation is this, unless a sum from Government is ring-fenced for this specific purpose?

The evidence to support the value of financial assets for children in care is plentiful. As it stands, 90 per cent of 19 year-old care leavers were NEET—not in employment, education or training—in 2009, compared with 17 per cent of 18 year-olds in the general population. Financial assets through savings accounts can be vital for children as they make the transition from care to independence, not least if they are going to continue in education or training of some kind, as we hope they will.

As the Prime Minister explained at Question Time on 30 June, only 0.6 per cent of children are in care, but 23 per cent of adult prisoners in our prison system were in care. With limited resources, when these children in care grew up, they often had nowhere else to turn. More financial resources, not less, as well, of course, as other forms of community help, are certainly needed to support vulnerable children.

Frank Field's recent report, The Foundation Years: Preventing poor children becoming poor adults, which the Prime Minister apparently welcomed enthusiastically, further strengthened the case for providing the utmost support to children in their early years. The report found overwhelming evidence that life chances are most heavily predicated on their development in those vital first five years of life. All of us, especially the Government, have a responsibility to protect and support our country's most vulnerable children. I hope that the Minister will give noble Lords some indication that an appropriate government scheme for looked-after children will be produced, and tell us when.

I will end with a concern that I believe other noble Lords share. What is the Government's definition of a money Bill? We need to know when a Bill is a money Bill and when it is not. The procedure in the case of this Bill is particularly worrying. What was the justification for making the announcement so late in the Bill's passage through the other place? Any new Government face challenges. A coalition partnership may have more problems than most Governments in getting its legislation accepted. However, noble Lords need to be reassured that this kind of procedure is not going to be used as a way of easing a difficult issue through the parliamentary process.