Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [HL]

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 25th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, one advantage of putting my name alongside that of my noble friend Lord Hunt is that he has said pretty well everything that needs to be said on the subject. I want to make the much more general point that we need not only to think about the Birmingham-based Commonwealth Games but to reassure cities which host similar events in the future that they will not be put in huge financial difficulties. That is the reason for the amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and my noble friend Lord Hunt.

Clearly, the most important thing is the arrangement for underwriting and the relationship between central and local government. However, if any additional source of funding can be identified, through whichever amendment we consider, that would make the possibility of a city bidding for a major sporting event more attractive, then it must be part of the legacy. We need to say to the next group of bidders, “These are ways in which the costs can be met.” I think we all know what the Minister will say. If she wants to give us all serious heart problems, she should say, “Yes, the Government agree with all these amendments.” However, showing some degree of sympathy about the financial arrangements and their importance is a really important message that the Government ought to pass on to the city concerned, and to any cities that look to fund future events of this sort.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I want to speak in particular to Amendments 3 and 11. This is a major opportunity for Birmingham to promote itself in an international context, with all the subsequent benefits. I know that Birmingham is a fantastic city and that it has been regenerated with huge imagination, creativity and great ambition. Following on from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, it is very important for us here to give other cities the confidence that they can take their ambitions forward, bring huge benefits for the people who live there and demonstrate what fantastic places they are in an international context.

As has been said, these amendments particularly address the demands that are likely to be made on local authorities, as well as the scope for the maximisation of benefits. I have been a city leader myself, and I can only imagine how the city council feels about the Games. There will be huge pride and ambition against a backdrop of unprecedented cuts to council budgets and the anxiety that must come with that. In an international context, they will have to face great pressures.

Older Persons: Provision of Public Services

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, the BBC’s announcement that it will stop free licences for all but the most needy over-75s was greeted with shock, disbelief and outrage by pensioners, politicians and public alike, not just those affected. It seems a petty and miserable reneging on a principle and, given that these are the oldest pensioners, another assault on the people least able to fight back. It makes these pensioners pawns in a stately dance of death between the BBC and the Government, who are trying to shrug off their responsibilities. I support the speakers today who have said that this should be the responsibility of the Government, not the BBC. The information I have been given tells me that the BBC has a total of £5 billion, including £1 billion from overseas sales. Sky has £7 billion to spend on programming. Netflix will have $13 billion to spend on programmes. The current provision for pensioners will eventually cost £1 billion. As all noble Lords have said today, we value our national broadcasting company, the BBC, and all that it stands for. How can it possibly cope with this level of responsibility for pensioners’ concessions?

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, spoke eloquently and made the case for keeping licences and bus passes. He talked about the “scourge of loneliness”. There are so many vulnerable pensioners. Many of the oldest are in social isolation and have depression and mental health issues. More than half of over-75s live alone. This is an absolutely awful reneging on a commitment that the Government gave to these pensioners. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, and the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, about the rather disturbing narrative that pensioners are all well off and do not need benefits. This may be true of some pensioners but it falls short of reality for many, particularly the most elderly, and is very divisive. As the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, said, there need to be good relationships between the young and the old and, by and large, there are.

Experience in my city showed me that many pensioners are living on shrinking resources but not qualifying for benefits. They are unable to afford entertainment so rely on their televisions to provide them with entertainment, news, stimulation and a sense of being part of a bigger world. Many pensioners in rented accommodation, particularly in urban settings, live in communities where there is no support network. They are in flats in places where other people do little more than sleep. Bus services, and a bus pass, and community transport are essential for them. Many noble Lords have spoken about the nature of prevention and how we need to keep people active. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, spoke eloquently about areas of good cultural practice and gave many examples. We need to build on local experience and enable those. When I was leader of a city council, I tried to get budgets to combine. Budgets are compartmentalised, both in central government and across the NHS. We need to work much harder in that area. There is a lot of social prescribing now, but it tends to be about solving problems of illness rather than trying to prevent it.

Many in this Chamber support these benefits and believe they are essential. However, not all pensioners require them. The report of the Select Committee on intergenerational fairness raised a number of issues about them. I am sure we all know people who say that, though they are retired and are pensioners, they do not really need the winter fuel allowance. Most enjoy the bus pass, but perhaps sometimes feel that the money could be put to better use. If we want to keep these universal benefits, we have to consider exactly how we will pay for them. There are other ways of providing them.

The noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst, spoke about broadband, but unfortunately broadband is not available over wide stretches of the country. I know that in my city there are Wii sports competitions between pensioners in retirement homes and this is a really important feature. Certainly, the internet can provide lots of facilities for people. In some homes I know of, the internet has replaced the television in the room and the pensioners have a much more social experience. They watch television together rather than independently. So there are more ways of making pensioners’ lives happier and healthier, and of fighting social isolation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, addressed the issue of the very different capacities of different groups of elderly people, and we need to recognise that. Good practice in many cities has pensioners delivering services to other pensioners and building on the strength of volunteering. Despite the need, in my view, to keep these universal benefits, we can build on good practice. We can look at cities and rural areas and see how good practice can be financed. People often have really good ideas and can do excellent things but just cannot raise the money to do them. Cuts to local councils have made services even rarer. I support keeping the universality of these benefits; on the other hand, a number of ways of financing them have been raised in the Chamber today.

My noble friend Lord Kirkwood spoke in a personal capacity about such things as the triple lock. The report mentions means testing, which I do not favour because of the cliff edge and the people who fall just short. However, there is an idea that the people in tax could be taxed on the value of some of these benefits; that is an area we could look at.

I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for bringing this debate to the House and I very much hope that it will not be something that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, said, we do again and again. I certainly support her call for a proper strategy on social care. I hope that some of these ideas might be taken up by the Government and that we might make progress by taking the report of the Select Committee on intergenerational fairness into account in doing so.

The Politics of Polling (Political Polling and Digital Media Committee Report)

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I too pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for his leadership on the committee and the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, for the role that she played in the closing stages, bringing things together and spreading harmony between the different views on the committee. I also pay tribute to the committee team for their very high-quality support. Many of us felt that we learnt a great deal from the material and the witnesses whom we met.

This report should lead us to think about the democratic process as a whole. It has already been mentioned that we have not done much on the digital world, but our democratic processes are very precious. If they are not to be susceptible to subversion and corruption and the risk of powerful and wealthy interests, we must look urgently at the influences on the democratic process.

As a politician, I know that many of us fear and are fascinated by polls. I remember one election when I was a councillor I was almost dreaming of leaflets that said “Liberal Democrats 6% in the opinion polls”. But the polls do not always take into account a regional perspective or the difference between city regions and travel-to-work areas. The referendum showed huge divergence of opinion across the country, and the national tendency to focus on what people think in London should be questioned.

As the report says, polls can be very influential, not least in the way that they are reported and the way that pressure can be exerted on politicians and electors. The lack of accuracy in the recent performance of the polling industry, which has been well documented, can also add to the lack of trust that we see many of our fellow citizens have about the ability of systems to deliver what they want and expect. This whole issue of trust is important, particularly in elections.

The important questions for me are: who is commissioning a poll and what are their interests, financial and otherwise? Who is paying for a poll? How transparent is the methodology, and how has it been validated in terms of consistency of approach, selection of participants and objectivity of analysis? Obviously, that comes down to how effectively our polling organisations are regulated.

As we see from the report, self-regulation of political polling is mainly carried out through the British Polling Council and, to some extent, the Market Research Society. The BPC is effectively an association. It has voluntary membership, voluntary staff and very little money. It does not and cannot express a view on the merits or otherwise of a particular poll. Transparency of funding is limited to printing the name of the client—no information on the sources of funding—and that is all the information it requires. The Market Research Society has a code of conduct that sets clear standards and has disciplinary procedures, but it does not cover all polling organisations. The chief executive recognised that activities conducted during a general election need much more careful monitoring.

The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, mentioned the French Commission des Sondages. That seems an interesting organisation in that its members are representatives from the highest legal and judicial bodies and it is funded through the French Ministry of Justice. Its job is to ensure that polls on electoral debates are not tainted by methodological error or manipulation which may affect the fairness of the election. The commission can also issue notices, “mises au point”, in the press when a poll does not meet the acceptable standard. A witness commented that sometimes this could lead to the polling organisation concerned or the director of the study to actually leave the poll sector. It might also lead to the media terminating contracts with targeted polling organisations. Seven of these mises au point were issued during the 2012 presidential election, but none in 2017. As the report states, the committee was not persuaded that this method offers any distinct advantage, but I would say that having government-backed regulation with a framework in law must be a big plus when it comes with effective powers to call out bogus polls, certainly when compared with the laissez-faire approach we have here at the moment.

We have already mentioned the media and our hope is that the findings and recommendations of the report will influence them, although I am inclined to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, that I am not expecting great things to come from that. However, when we think of how we who stand for elections have to count our however much it is per head of population, how we have to have special printing on our leaflets and take them back in again or face prosecution if they are not correct, how every committee room meeting and telephone call has to be documented, we none the less have these big players in the polls that can be paid for by organisations and are not transparent, yet election law says absolutely nothing at all about them.

It has been pointed out already that we have not covered digital, but it seems that it is even more the case that our electoral law does not really see the wood for the trees. Much as I am pleased to see the digital charter being pursued, a close examination of our electoral law governing elections as we have it at the moment would be a very good thing.

The committee drew back from a ban on voting intention polls in the run-up to elections. The view that was moderated across the committee was that we should give polling organisations and the press a chance to better police themselves, and I hope that that will happen. The digital threat, which I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, will talk about in her speech, is absolutely massive in scale and is something which again I hope will be examined in much more detail as it relates specifically to elections and electoral law.

This report provides us with a great detail of information about, insight into and understanding of polling and its influence. If adopted, the recommendations will certainly take us forward, in particular those which recommend further action. What is both obvious and alarming is the advancing sophistication along with intelligent means of persuasion and influence which are now at work and are unconstrained, thus running rings around our outdated electoral processes and law while at the same time its proponents take pleasure in boasting about how little these things affect their activities.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and my fellow members of the committee. I hope that the recommendations will be taken forward and that the Minister will be able to respond to the concerns which have been expressed, some of which are extremely urgent. Despite the disappointing response from the Government, I hope that we can find the means to take this work forward.

Volunteering

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, for giving us the opportunity to speak about volunteering.

In my city of Bristol, volunteers make a crucial contribution. As the noble Baroness said, volunteers inspire creativity and inspire people to change their behaviour: through mentors, as volunteers, as health champions and as volunteers growing produce on green space and selling it at reduced rates to encourage people to eat more fresh and healthy foods. There are cycling projects and projects that encourage people who are victims or in recovery to mentor other people and give them the understanding that they need; that happens particularly for people with multiple problems, such as drug and alcohol abuse and mental health problems. I would be happy to provide details for one of those projects, but obviously we do not have the time.

I am sure that across the country there are lots of ideas for creative, imaginative and transformative projects. In the recommendations of its report, Stronger Charities for a Stronger Society, the Select Committee on Charities talks about the development of regional context to address the local needs of people more closely, as well as provide more transparency of governance and perhaps more accountability. With the accent now on devolution to city regions, I wonder whether the Government might look at how this could help to get more volunteers—for example, whether it could be part of the local agreement with government. One example would be incentives to get more employers to give time off for volunteering—only 30% do so at the moment—and to increase the number of retired volunteers through post-career advice. Many retired people say that they would love to volunteer but they just do not know how to get the information and get into the right organisation.

We could also encourage more innovation. As I said, my city has plenty of imagination, creativity and enthusiasm, and I am sure that there are cities and regions like it across the country. I hope that we will build on that.

Youth Services

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I do so because I think it is vital. When the National Citizen Service Bill went through the House, it received virtually unanimous support because it was regarded as a good thing. I encourage noble Lords to visit the NCS during the Summer Recess. They will be impressed. We deliver 80% of that service through local community action groups. The money that central government allocates is spent through local charities, authorities and voluntary groups in the various regions of the country.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that cuts to youth services, public health, libraries and education all hit hardest young people in the poorest and most vulnerable communities? What assessment have the Government made of the impact of these cuts in such communities? What are they going to do about that?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The Government looked at these particularly disadvantaged areas and set up the Youth Investment Fund, funded by DCMS and the Big Lottery Fund. It will award £40 million to the most disadvantaged areas in the country.