Queen’s Speech

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps slightly quirkily, I begin by congratulating Michael Gove—not, I may say, on the subject of today’s Statement, but because he has pledged to change Britain’s appallingly low level of reading attainment, as shown in international school league tables, by ensuring that in future, from their first day at school, every child must be taught to attain the basic standard required. Above all, that will mean that children with special needs must have the specialist support necessary for them to reach the required level. So, well done Michael Gove. Just in case he is not in the job at the appropriate time, I should be very grateful if the Minister, when he replies, can confirm that the Government will indeed honour that pledge.

I intend to continue to focus on online child safety, which perhaps will not surprise your Lordships. To date, I have introduced three online safety Bills, and tomorrow we have the First Reading of the latest, new and improved version. I will continue to raise the issue until the problems are properly addressed.

Of course, I congratulate the Government on the progress that they have made since I introduced my first Bill. In his first NSPCC speech last July, the Prime Minister announced that, from January, the four big ISPs would be introducing filtering options and that if customers seek to avoid the filtering questions during the setup, the filters would be turned on by default.

There are, however, some significant problems. First, there is the remaining 5% to 10% of the market not covered by the filtering announcement made by the Prime Minister in that speech last year. One thing is sure: some of the remaining providers will embrace such an approach only if required to do so by law. Andrews & Arnold is one of the larger of the smaller ISPs. Its website proudly proclaims “uncensored internet for all” and markets itself on the basis of its dedicated opposition to filtering.

Secondly, there is considerable public concern that filtering standards are determined by multiple companies and there is no commonality of approach or sense of public accountability. Again, that can be addressed only if we embrace a statutory approach and invest a publicly accountable statutory body such as Ofcom with the responsibility of determining common standards. Then there is the fact that although self-regulation may have some success while we have a Prime Minister who has made this a personal priority, where will we be in 10 or 20 years when we have a different Prime Minister with different priorities? There would be far greater certainty if this was dealt with through law.

What disturbs me most about the current arrangements, however, is the inconsistency that they generate and what that says about how we value children. The Prime Minister has said that few things are more important than keeping children safe online. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that, in the offline world, the law does protect children. It is an offence both to sell an 18 certificate DVD to a child and to allow a child into a cinema showing an 18 certificate film. We cannot claim that child safety is sufficiently important to require legislation in an offline context but not in an online one. If the Prime Minister is really serious about addressing this problem, he surely cannot allow self-regulation to be anything other than a very short-term solution.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, what action has been taken in the remaining 5% to 10% of the ISP market that has not embraced the ISP code introducing the default-on approach to filtering announced in the Prime Minister’s speech last July? Secondly, what action have the Government taken specifically in relation to those smaller ISPs that have sought to develop a marketing strategy clearly defining themselves against the Prime Minister’s announcement?

Another important development with respect to child safety online with direct bearing on the Government’s legislative intentions for the coming Session relates to the call made in March by ATVOD requesting that the Government tighten up the law defining its remit in relation to video-on-demand adult content. It made two specific requests. First, it asked that the laws defining its remit should be amended to put it beyond doubt that it is its responsibility to police adult websites to ensure that those providing R18 material online must do so only on websites with robust age verification. Secondly, it asked that the law be tightened to make it absolutely clear that material deemed to be too controversial even for an R18 rating should not be shown online at all.

I understand that the Government have responded positively to those suggestions, although no legislation has yet been produced. Happily, however, my Bill once again assists in addressing both points.

Immigration Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment. Those who have listened to my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss and particularly to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, who has such a history on the background to this issue, will have been strongly persuaded that now is the time to act. We have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that plenty of able people could be recruited into this area. What is particularly important is that these guardians should be the sort of people who can gain the confidence of a young trafficked person soon enough to be able to intervene and see that whatever devils have been identified are in fact dispelled. The reality of the child’s situation should be appreciated and a way found for them to lead a normal life in the future, however horrendous their treatment has been. All of us will have been utterly appalled by what we have heard of that treatment. I shall not take more time because I hope there will be a vote, the sooner the better, to put this to the test. I merely emphasise how strongly I support the amendment.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, on a final historical note, the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, probably remembers the late Lord Wilberforce sitting on these Benches. How horrified he would be to hear the statistic of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, that there is a greater number of slaves here today than in William Wilberforce’s time. I have followed this issue as a council member of Anti-Slavery International for nine years. I pay tribute to its staff for what they have done behind the scenes to educate the public and the Government.

I am impressed by the distance that the Government have travelled on this road already, not only on the conventions but in the detail that we are looking at today. It is as a result of non-governmental pressure. But there is more to be done today, so I strongly support the amendment although I anticipate that it will not be easy for the Government to accept. The Minister should accept it because of the feeling across the House this afternoon which was inspired by the moving descriptions of my noble friend and others. He should accept it because it is humane, and because it is a belt-and-braces protection for the trafficked child who will not have adequate protection from the social services or from CAFCASS despite what my noble friend has said: they are not in the position yet to cope with this. He may not want to accept it because of the constraints of his ministerial responsibility and the departmental budget, which has many calls upon it.

We are grateful for the offer of a trial for personal advocates. However, it does not go far enough because, as he has already heard, the Children’s Consortium and many others argue that there is no proper protection under the Children Act for trafficked children without a legal guardian. That argument must be correct. Perhaps the Minister will take up the invitation of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, to make a small promise and bring something out of a hat, maybe in the draft Modern Slavery Bill or a promise for Third Reading. I look forward to that event.

Children: Sexual Abuse

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, on securing this important debate. One of the challenges presented by the horror of child sex abuse pertains to the way in which it is growing, not just in its extent but also in its definition. There was a time when one thought of child sex abuse narrowly in terms of physical acts committed by an adult in relation to a child. While child sex abuse of that kind continues, it is also manifest in other ways, and in the brief time available to me this evening I will look at the public policy challenge of how best to address these more novel forms of child sex abuse.

New means of communication, principally the internet and mobile phones, play a key role. In recent years children and young people have started to use their mobile phones to take pictures of themselves or others naked and then to text those images to others or distribute them through new social media. This practice, called “sexting”, is hugely damaging. One can gain some appreciation of the problem by examining the Children’s Commissioner’s recent literature review on the subject, Basically... porn is everywhere, which is a deeply disturbing document.

Among other things, the report highlights studies demonstrating that between 4% and 17% of young people have sent or received “sexts” or have posted self-generated images online. I have references to them in my notes. Crucially, the report makes it very plain that such images can be taken and/or disseminated as part of bullying, or their discovery may lead to bullying. This may also lead to threats or blackmail, or may be posted to or shared by paedophile chat sites. Also, according to one of my sources, Wolf, online distribution of material generated via sexting has the potential to lead to self-harm and/or suicide.

Just because sexting and associated cyberbullying do not necessarily involve physical contact and may be committed by children on children as well as by adults on children, it does not follow that these practices, when they involve people under 18, are anything other than a new form of child sex abuse. If we are to have an adequate public policy response to child sex abuse, we must engage with sexting and associated cyberbullying. The truth is that these behavioral abuses of the otherwise wonderful potential that the internet has to offer can only be addressed through challenging and educating.

This is one of the two central provisions of my Online Safety Bill which is currently awaiting its Second Reading in your Lordships’ House. Clause 4 places an obligation on internet service providers and mobile phone operators to make customers aware of internet and mobile safety issues, which include the online behavioural challenges of sexting and cyberbullying. Clause 5, meanwhile, places an obligation on the Secretary of State to provide parents with education materials about online safety, including sexting and cyberbullying, to help them speak to and teach their children about such challenges. I would like to know what the Government plan to do to help parents engaging with this key educational challenge, and I hope that the Minister will enlighten us when he replies.

We then turn to another crucial issue: to what extent are we prepared to do what we can to help ensure that children do not stumble on legal but entirely inappropriate adult sexual content online? Knowing what we do about the development of the brains of children with respect to sexual images, I firmly believe that there is a real sense in which a culture that chooses not to invest appropriate resources on preventing children from accessing such material is itself guilty of a form of child sex abuse. While we may not yet have the public policy tools to provide complete safety for children online, I believe that at any given time we should do everything that it is technologically possible to do to protect children from stumbling upon such images.

If we pass on this opportunity, we ourselves are guilty of allowing a form of abuse. That is why Clause 1 of my Bill requires internet service providers and mobile phone operators to provide service users with an internet service that is free from inappropriate adult sexual and violent content at the point of purchase but with the option for anyone to access such material, subject to their opting in and going through a verification process demonstrating that they are 18 or over.

I warmly congratulate the Prime Minister on taking on this issue and, in particular, on his 22 July NSPCC speech in which he addressed both the availability of illegal child sex abuse images online and the current ease with which children can access legal but inappropriate adult content online. He has shown real leadership on the issue and for this I thank him. However, I gently suggest that his phrase, “Nothing is more important than this”, with which I completely agree, sits rather oddly alongside his refusal to introduce legislation in deference to the industry's desire for self-regulation. Self-regulation may sound very fine but it is worth remembering that it was tried before when seeking to engage with the great child rights challenges of the past. In 1847 any aspiration for self-regulation of the factories had to be abandoned in favour of a statute, and no one questions the wisdom of that now. I suspect that we will come, sooner or later, to the realisation that we require legislation—

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness but I remind her—

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

I am just finishing. We will come to the realisation that we require legislation to address the problems that I have outlined and that in the future those looking back would be incredulous that we ever dared think otherwise.

Crime: Child Abuse

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

These are important issues, and I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for the way in which she supports moves to strengthen the Government’s position in this regard. The work of the Internet Watch Foundation to encourage search engines and internet service providers to put in place warning messages known as splash pages that tell users that they are about to access a website containing illegal child abuse images is a very important development. However, our preference is for such websites to be taken down or, where that is not possible, blocked from being accessed. Work with the internet service providers is key to getting this problem solved.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, the quite appalling April Jones case has raised wider questions about access to pornographic material on the internet, with its very obvious dangers for children. What progress do the Government think has been made after publication of the response to the report on the outcomes of parental control consultation? Is there not increasing evidence of the need for an adult age verification opt-in requirement, as proposed in my Online Safety Bill, if adult viewers wish to watch pornography?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I thank the noble Baroness for bringing her Bill to the House during the previous Session. I understand, and hope, that she will bring her Bill here again so that we can discuss these matters. The respondents to the Department for Education’s consultation said clearly that parents feel that it is their responsibility, with the help of the industry, to keep their children safe online. It was also clear that, in accepting that responsibility, parents want to be in control, and that it would be easier for them to use the online safety tools available to them if they could learn more about those tools. We are focusing our discussions with the industry on those lines.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I begin with the hope, but not much expectation, that the House of Lords will not be inundated this coming Session, as it was during the previous Session, with too many Bills of a similar nature, often containing interacting content, and with large sections of Bills coming from the other place not examined at all.

That said, the coalition Government are to be congratulated on much of the content of the gracious Speech, in that it certainly contains and confronts some issues that have been ignored by previous Governments. Not least among them is the existing situation in the UK, which has an increasingly ageing and costly population and totally inadequate resources to provide them with a dignified end to life. The state certainly has not budgeted the necessary resources for them for far too long, and nor, in the majority of cases, has the individual. If, to meet the existing situation, the Government can genuinely provide a neighbourly way in which we all share the responsibility of caring for this ageing generation, preferably in their home environment, and if, in addition, the Government can devise, for the long term, a scheme by which people pay for such care during their working life and are therefore not obliged to sell their homes to meet the cost, considerable progress can be claimed. However—forgive the cynicism—I shall await more detailed examination during the Committee stage of any such Bill before I am sure of exactly how much progress can be genuinely claimed.

There clearly will be interest in and concern about the Government’s plans to provide an alternative method of dealing with offenders who would currently be given a year’s imprisonment. The concern, which I share, is over the effect this will have on the probation service. As I have mentioned in other debates, immediately the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Coles, began his reform plans for that service a few years ago, I would have looked for another job if I had been a probation officer. So how many probation officers will lose their jobs as a result of Chris Grayling’s plans? Almost certainly the answer will not be good news for those officers or for our quite invaluable probation service.

Having said that, the interest of the scheme is in the realisation that a short, costly period in prison serves no useful purpose at all. The proposed scheme recognises that nearly 60% of these 50,000 offenders reoffend. The Government propose to give their payment-by-results plan to organisations that will mentor and supervise each offender. Presumably the aim is to get them into a job or training and a place to live as a basic beginning. Will this idea lead to a much earlier look at the family history of offenders? If that were a result, I suspect that some useful evidence would be uncovered in many cases of the offending background from which today’s offenders come, which might help—I certainly hope it would—to press the case for the early intervention policy of Frank Field and Graham Allen.

Turning to our more immediate tasks in the Lords, I join other noble Lords in welcoming many aspects of the Children and Families Bill, which your Lordships’ House will be receiving shortly from the other place. The earlier placement of a child with the right potential adopters—the fostering for adoption policy—is clearly sensible, as is loosening the requirement to find perfect ethnic matches. The urgent need is for each child in that situation to have a family. The expansion of the right of parents of both sexes to request flexible working during the statutory maternity leave period is another welcome step, but one must still hope for a more sensible long-term policy which allows flexible working for parents throughout their children’s childhood to become the norm. Equally important, in light of the Government’s desire and incentives to encourage more business start-ups, would be to make flexible working available for everyone.

Part 5 deals with the role of the Children’s Commissioner. It is also crucial, particularly the commissioner’s greater independence from government and the requirement to produce an annual report to Parliament. Anyone who has read Always Someone Else’s Problem, the report from Dr Maggie Atkinson, the Children’s Commissioner for England, on illegal school exclusions, will realise how important that independence is. The picture painted in her report of the use of exclusion in some schools for SEN pupils—no doubt in an effort to meet the necessary school attainment levels—is very worrying.

The concerns of Dr Atkinson in that report reminded me all too vividly of a very similar situation which existed many years ago when I was, for some 20 years, chairman of a London juvenile court. Whenever a youngster appeared for committing a criminal offence, we would immediately adjourn proceedings for a school report. In almost every such case the child’s school attendance record was either appalling or non-existent. For, alas, in those days too, the incentive for teachers to turn a blind eye to disruptive or difficult children not turning up for school was equally self-evident. I am glad to say that we always started with at least one adjournment of the case to see if school attendance could be resumed before passing sentence for the actual offence committed.

Equally worrying are other concerns of families with SEN children. Scope’s recent report Keep Us Close points out that 62% of the families it surveyed say that the services they require are not available in their local area. Unsurprisingly, this causes 80% of these families anxiety and stress. Scope is also concerned that the Bill’s local offer does little more than require local authorities to set out the support available—that is, a directory of services—with no requirement on them to improve either the quality or availability of such services. This will clearly require more detailed examination of the Bill during its later stages. Again, unsurprisingly, Scope is concerned that the accountability measures around the local offer are not strong enough for parents to be able to hold local authorities to account to access the support they are entitled to.

I fear that, as in the previous Session, we shall, again, spend more time in trying to ensure that maximum support is made available for SEN families, who have an even harder time in ensuring that their basic needs are met, not least when so little legal aid is now available.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham. I believe that what happened in the Commons, the way in which this whole area was tossed aside and not debated at all, was disgraceful. I believe that the very least that the Government can do is to answer the three questions that my noble friend has put to the Minister. I would lay the greatest emphasis on having an annual report on progress that is made in the whole of this area.

I am especially concerned about the differences in the treatment of men and women for two reasons. First, there is a distinct difference in the backgrounds of women who are in prison for very short sentences. As we have heard, such sentences account for the vast majority of women—and indeed men—in prison. As one example, 5% of the prison population are women, and yet 31% of self-harmers in prison are women. The Government should receive full marks for starting to outline, at last, these plans, as we have begun to get a picture of what we hope will happen in the future. I am very supportive of these plans as there are so many women in prison who should not be there, certainly not to serve short sentences as is currently the case.

Secondly, and above all, these women should not be in prison because of the effect that it is having on their families. How many of those families will find their own way into prison as a result of having had their family broken up, having been taken into care or placed with relatives and, above all, having lost that very particular relationship between mother and child? I believe that that is the worst aspect of all. How many facts are we given about the number of families who are repeatedly in and out of prison in a continual spiral of offending?

Good luck to the Government with their plans, but please let us have a report on what is happening, and let us have real progress. Quite apart from the women concerned, I believe that we will find that this kind of treatment could be as applicable to men in our prison service. We need a whole overview of what goes on.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I would be surprised if some Members of your Lordships’ House were satisfied with a report as infrequently as annually. The questions, rightly, will come quite often to my noble friend, as they have done over the years. I know that this is something that he holds close to his heart, as does Helen Grant. I note that the document published on Friday—which I, too, thought was shorter than expected—is headed Strategic Objectives for Female Offenders and does not purport to be a complete strategy.

Perhaps I may ask my noble friend one question which follows on from what the noble Baroness has just said. It concerns the effect on children of their mother’s imprisonment. I suppose that this is a plea to include that in the strategy. The developing knowledge about the effect on children of separation from their mothers is something that we should take very seriously, and no doubt we will be considering it in the Children and Families Bill. I hope that my noble friend can reassure the House that the whole-system approach which is referred to in the strategic objectives is a whole system that will extend in all the ways we know it should, and not just to the narrow punitive and personal rehabilitative aspects that we have mostly been talking about this evening.

Crime: Stalking

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

This is part of a fuller education strategy in sexual health and education involving both young men and girls, which I hope is being practised by schools across the country.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, will the Government reassure us that they will be paying particular attention to the use by stalkers of the internet, where the stalker can reinvent themselves as a victim and cause even greater misery and upset to the entire families of those being persecuted in this way?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The noble Baroness is also a member of the justice unions group, and I am grateful for the work that that group did. Cyber offences are explicitly included in the new offences and are designed to recognise that stalking can take many different forms. It is a form of harassment that this Government will not tolerate.

Crime: Women's Safety

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Desai, for introducing this debate in what is becoming an increasingly important subject. On occasions like this, one is not often of the view that it is good to be further down the list because everybody will have said everything and one will have nothing to say. That is not my view today; I have been extremely glad to have had the opportunity to listen to previous speakers and to learn about their specific concerns. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, indications of some improvement, which is a good sign for the future, as well as the priorities for future action by the Government, so I am glad indeed to be quite near the end.

There is a huge amount to be covered on this issue and even though we had a debate quite recently, I suspect that there will be plenty of others to come. The Government’s report that is the focus of our debate today states, as the noble Lord, Lord Desai, said, that one in five women surveyed had been a victim of a sexual offence at some point in her life since the age of 16. That such a large proportion of women in England and Wales should have experienced this sort of assault is yet another indication serving to highlight the urgency of the need to address the very damaging effects of the increasing sexualisation of our society.

Provocative images and language permeate all areas of our culture from film and television to song lyrics and advertising, while the amount of explicit pornographic material widely accessible on the internet continues to grow. The ubiquity of this type of material creates an environment in which, as we are seeing, more and more people are exposed to images of sexual violence which can, in turn, have a serious impact on their own attitudes, expectations and behaviour.

Particularly vulnerable to these harmful influences are children and young people. The sexual offending report records that young women aged between 16 and 19 are the age group most at risk of being victims of sexual offences, while an NSPCC survey reported that physical and emotional violence is commonplace within teenagers’ intimate relationships. It appears that many adolescents are increasingly developing damaging attitudes towards relationships where violence and bullying are accepted forms of behaviour. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, mentioned the importance of schooling in all this and, my goodness, that is very true. Of course there is parental responsibility, but schooling will have an increasing responsibility over the years.

The development of communications technology is increasing young people’s access to sexually explicit material while simultaneously reducing the ability of parents to oversee what their children are viewing. These concerns, among others, prompted me to introduce my Online Safety Bill, which I am glad to see has its supporters in the Chamber today, as it is vital that mechanisms to reduce access to explicit content are made simpler for the ordinary internet or mobile phone user and that greater responsibility is placed on the providers of internet services to ensure that their products are not being used inappropriately.

The opt-in mechanism contained within that Bill would prevent children and young people accessing pornographic material on the internet, whether accidentally or otherwise, by requiring that this material is accessible only to consumers who have purposefully chosen, by opting in, to have access to such websites. Furthermore—and this is vital—service providers would be required to verify that the consumer is over the age of 18. This second mechanism ensures that young people are protected not only from inadvertently being exposed to unsuitable material but from intentionally seeking to opt in. Sadly, we also know that some young people intentionally seek access to pornographic material, and these young people’s own behaviour can be most influenced by the images to which they are exposed. As we all know, having had talks about trafficking children, the group to whom this whole approach is most dangerous is those who have been in care for a long time but have nowhere that they can turn to.

Sexual violence in all its forms, as we have heard, is extremely dangerous and damaging for individuals and for society as a whole. I certainly believe—as I am sure others do, too—that it is vital that we seek to redress this situation wherever and however it occurs, including in the digital arena. Like other noble Lords who have spoken, I look forward to hearing what plans the Government will in future be making to protect women’s safety in the UK so that, with the increased services that are already being provided, we can begin to feel more confident that this kind of behaviour will diminish rather than increase.

Visas: Student Visa Policy

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor. I thank Universities UK for its invaluable briefing, and I speak in support of three of the issues it has raised.

First, although at 13% we are currently second in the market for overseas students after the USA, there is growing competition for such students. Canada wanted to double the number of overseas students there and not make entry more difficult, as this Government are doing. Secondly, we have already heard about the five parliamentary Select Committees, and their follow-up letter. Let us hope that it works a miracle. Thirdly, we should remember the significant contribution that these students make to their university towns and cities. The University of Exeter has been mentioned. Its report estimated that the GDP generated by its overseas students directly supported no fewer than 2,480 jobs in that city. Contacts with fellow students from overseas can lead to future research or business opportunities for British graduates as well as for themselves in other countries later on.

As a trustee of the internationally renowned Architectural Association School of Architecture, I am reminded of the successes which graduates from that school have achieved. The noble Lord, Lord Rogers of Riverside, has his world headquarter offices in London, from which outstanding international buildings are designed and built; or, to take an example of a younger brilliant generation, Chris Lee, originally an overseas AA student from Singapore, has set up a successful collaborative office for his generation of architects in Britain, from which they, too, are designing buildings all around the world.

However, unsurprisingly, the AA school is even less happy than Universities UK with the current Government’s policy for overseas students. Because the AA school is classed as an independent private school, overseas students with a tier 4 visa at the AA are not permitted to work during term time or in vacations, yet overseas students studying for an architectural degree at a UK University can—all this despite the fact that the AA school has achieved full accreditation by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, and has the same tier 4 visas. Like other noble Lords, I can only hope that the Government will now agree to remove genuine overseas students from the category of illegal immigrants.

Equality Act 2010 (Age Exceptions) Order 2012

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her very good explanation of this rather straightforward order. The order arises out of the Equality Act 2010, which my noble friend Lady Royall and I took through the House before the general election. There are two areas that I want to explore.

We welcome the implementation at last of Labour’s age discrimination legislation and the fact that that the Act will come into force in October. What preparatory work is being undertaken to explain and publicise this important legislation and which government departments are involved in its implementation and rollout? Is it, for example, BIS or the DWP? Is support being given to employers and employees? Perhaps the Department of Health—to which I will return—is involved as well. Who is leading on the preparation for rollout of the legislation in October? Is it the Government Equalities Office or the EHRC? What quantum of resources might be applied to it? The impact assessment, which came with the helpful notes accompanying the order, explains what the impact might be on businesses, charities and voluntary and public sector bodies; it does not say what resources might be put into explaining and promoting the legislation.

I welcomed the Minister’s mentioning the Government’s awareness of issues relating to discrimination in health services, because, even at Question Time today and as the Minister will know, a noble Baroness mentioned that older people with depression are not being offered talking therapies because of their age. The breast cancer charities produce enormous amounts of evidence that suggests that older women with breast cancer are routinely undertreated.

Are the Government still refusing to implement the dual discrimination provisions in the Equality Act which will make it easier to challenge the multiple layers of discrimination that older people face, such as the toxic combination of ageism and sexism? The Secretary of State said on 15 May that there would be a delay to the commencement of the dual discrimination provisions. What does that mean? How long is that delay going to be? When can we see orders which implement those provisions, or an intention to do so?

During the passage of the Bill in another place, the Minister’s colleague, Lynne Featherstone, put down an amendment which suggested that the Bill be implemented within six months of its passage, because she did not trust what might happen after the general election and she feared that the party elected, if it was not sympathetic, might not implement it. The Minister will be pleased to know that a combination of my then right honourable friend Vera Baird and her honourable friend Mr Harper persuaded Ms Featherstone that this was not necessary and that the Bill would be implemented, albeit perhaps with a delay—as is the case.

I turn to the orders in front of us today. Of course we welcome them; why would we not? They directly arise from commitments given during the course of the Bill in February and March 2010. There were serious discussions during that period with Saga, Age UK and organisations that provide financial services about what those exceptions should be. The continuing consultation seems to have covered most of those points. My only question about the consultation arises from the fact that Age UK mounted a campaign objecting to the proposed specific extension of financial services, because in its view that would continue to perpetuate the culture of ageism. What is the Government’s view of that campaign? The 17 campaign letters received from Cornish self-catering holiday home workers seeking a specific exception to ban young people from their accommodation have my total sympathy, when one hears about what young people get up to in Cornwall after their exams.

We welcome this measure. We think it is important, and I hope that the Government are going to put resources into supporting organisations and people during its implementation in October. During the debate in March 2010 there was cross-party agreement in the House about these exceptions, and I think that the Government have covered all the issues that needed to be covered. My only questions are about its implementation, resources and publicisation, and ensuring that all the people who should know about this will know about it.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the Government on the great deal that has been achieved. I have memories of the heavy support for Saga initiatives and so on, which clearly have been very well handled subsequently.

I have a specific question about the Equality and Human Rights Commission. I happen to have been seeing the commission about another matter today, and as a result have received some comments about the articles that we are discussing. My general question, and I will back this up in a minute with a specific one, is whether the Government have had more recent detailed discussions with the EHRC and made certain that it is satisfied. I am thinking particularly about Article 4, “Exceptions for concessionary services”. The commission says:

“In its 2011 consultation response, the Commission noted that the exception for general beneficial concessions was limited by a test of reasonableness. The exception also contained a requirement that the concession (or more favourable term) did not have the effect of preventing persons of other age groups from requiring the services. However, in the version of the Order currently before Parliament”,

apparently,

“both these limitations have been removed”.

The commission, having analysed Article 4, advises that,

“as currently drafted, the exception may fail to meet the policy intention of the exception, as stated by the Government Equalities Office in its 2011 consultation paper: ‘The exception will not, however, allow concession to be a deterrent to people who do not qualify for them or unreasonably to inhibit access to the service concerned by those outside the target age group’”.

The commission says that:

“There is a risk that, as currently drafted, the exception could be used to create artificial pricing structures designed to exclude older (or younger) people from access to particular services”.

A number of examples are given, including a fashion retailer which wishes to maintain a younger customer profile. It inflates its prices for clothing while offering a 50% discount for the under-30s, thereby allowing them still to pay reasonable prices.

As regards my main point, have the Government had discussions? Is the Commission reasonably satisfied, from its independent perspective of not being part of a government department—its independence is crucial to the way in which it operates—with what the Government are doing? Have the Government at least explained why they are doing things in a specific way? Has the Commission accepted that as the Government’s right?

[Baroness Hussein-Ece]

First, I declare an interest as a commissioner for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. I also wish to pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Verma for very comprehensively setting out the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 (Age Exceptions) Order 2012. She took us all the way through the order. I welcome the order and, in answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, the Commission has also welcomed it.

Noble Lords might recall one of the key recommendations of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s very successful inquiry into older people and human rights in home care, which quite recently received widespread publicity. In that work, there was a specific call for the ban to commence as soon as possible in order to tackle the problem of ageist attitudes and unjustifiable age-based discrimination in this sector, some of which we know has been endemic and harrowing.

I should like to ask the Minister a couple of questions. I recognise that the legislation should allow for some types of age differentiation to remain lawful. However, as has been explained in response to some of the consultations last year, we have concerns about some of the exceptions—for example, Article 3 and the financial services. Obviously, we all have concerns about the financial services. That exception could be seen to have been cast rather widely in that it refers to the whole sector as well as covering all transactions and interactions between customers and service providers.

As drafted, the exception would make it difficult or impossible to challenge some types of age discriminatory treatment. I understand that these things happen; for example, a bank may decline someone over the age of 75 applying for a credit card or making another type of application. Given this exemption, presumably a bank still would be able to do that. How would such a 75 year-old have recourse to that treatment? Could that be redressed under this provision?

Another example might be that of an insurance company making a decision about someone at the other end of the age spectrum, someone aged under 25. When insuring young people for driving a car, we know that many insurance companies tend—I will not use the word discriminate—to make it more difficult or charge higher prices for those under the age of 25. What safeguards may be in place to address these points?

I very much agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said about information to ensure that service providers, employers and the general public are made well aware of these new provisions, as well as of their rights under the new Act.