Equality and Human Rights Commission: Funding

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Prosser]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government which of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s proposed programme bids will be funded; and, for those that will not be funded, why not.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, the process for the commission to access additional programme funding is set out in its framework document. The Government have now approved, in whole or in part, more than half of the bids submitted by the EHRC under this facility. The main reason that the remaining bids were not approved was concern over their value for money.

[Baroness Prosser (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that reply. In light of the Government’s recent successful application for membership of the UN Human Rights Council, could she explain how she hopes the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is recognised by the UN as the independent watchdog for human rights in Britain, will work with civil society to monitor our compliance with the human rights treaties to which the Government are a signatory? Will the Government, as they indicated in their application to the UN, actively support the commission in this work and thereby reconsider the decision not to allocate funds for capacity-building in NGOs around UN treaty monitoring?

[Baroness Northover]

I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for the work that she has done in this area. As she knows, the EHRC has its core funding for its core responsibilities and, obviously, in relation to the UN Human Rights Council, that is part of what it is doing. The grants that were rejected were rejected because they either duplicated what others were doing or were regarded as poor value for money. On building capacity for NGOs to contribute to UN treaty monitoring, there was a concern about duplication because many of the bid’s constituent parts may already be provided by others, including the voluntary sector.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, under Article 33 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Government are obliged to fund disabled people and organisations that support them. Is this still the case, given the changes that have recently been made?

[Baroness Northover]

We are very much committed to working with disabled people and their organisations. As I said, the EHRC has some core responsibilities; as regards those grants, we are talking about additional areas for which the EHRC put in bids. I can assure my noble friend that the EHRC plays an important part in the independent mechanism for monitoring the convention. A number of the EHRC’s bids for additional funding have not been approved in this instance because of the concern about value for money. However, that does not affect the EHRC’s core budget and its responsibilities.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister says that only half the bids have been agreed to, which I understand. What plans, if any, are being made for the money that has not been allocated? What do the Government propose to do with it?

[Baroness Northover]

I do not have any information about what would happen to money that has not been allocated. Nine bids were submitted and five of them have been approved. One of them was somewhat contingent on the progress made within that bid, after which further money will be brought in if it goes well. However, I do not have any information about the money that is left over.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, we are told that core funding is okay because that is a totally separate question. However, one’s impression is that we passed legislation with a need to implement it through secondary legislation, and the EHRC has many times been given the responsibility to monitor and implement that secondary legislation. Is the Minister saying that the core funding is keeping pace with all the extra secondary legislation that we are asking the EHRC to implement?

[Baroness Northover]

I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, will come and tell us one way or the other. However, my understanding is that the Ministers responsible are working very closely with the EHRC—I am very glad to see the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, nodding—to ensure that it can focus on those core responsibilities. There was, as the noble Lord will probably remember, a previous concern—for example, from the National Audit Office—that some of the extraneous activities around the edge were taking away from those core responsibilities. The bids here do not relate at all to the monitoring of how statutory instruments and so on might operate. That would all be part of the core responsibilities. To come back to the previous question, neither would one assume that all bids would automatically be approved—to do so would be fallacious. Just because the EHRC put in bids for the amount up to the limit of what might have been available, that should not indicate that it will all be allocated if all those bids do not pass the same tests as those that were accepted.