Windrush Generation: 75th Anniversary
Baroness Scott of Bybrook Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth for tabling this important and special debate. It is right that the House takes this opportunity to honour a landmark anniversary in our nation’s history. I am sure I speak for us all when I say that the moving reflections we have heard today from across the Chamber speak volumes about how much the Windrush generation mean to us all and what a mark they have made on our society since their arrival 75 years ago. I thank noble Lords for their contributions today, and I am proud to be able to add to them on behalf of the Government.
Last month, I had the privilege of attending the national service of thanksgiving at the right reverend Prelate’s Cathedral in Southwark to mark national Windrush Day. It was a truly inspirational day of music, prayers and shared reflections on the experiences and impact of the Windrush generation and their descendants. They included a poem from the young poet laureate of Croydon, Shaniqua Benjamin, who calls herself a hybrid of Jamaican, Grenadian and Croydonian, which painted a remarkably vivid picture of the rich cultural heritage of the Windrush generation and their wider influence. I cannot do justice to her words, but I thoroughly recommend watching an online rendition of that poem. It brilliantly captures the flavour of the Windrush generation’s first impressions of their mother country in all its complexity: the sense of excitement, as we have heard today, and the opportunity to help Britain rebuild, but also the struggles and the terrible prejudice they faced and the monumental part they and their descendants have since played in our nation’s post-war transformation. We undoubtedly would not be the multicultural success story we are today without all that they have contributed and continue to contribute in every sphere of our national life. The tributes paid by noble Lords bear testimony to this.
For our part, the Government are committed to celebrating this wonderful Windrush legacy through national and local commemorations. Five years ago, we introduced Windrush Day in response to Patrick Vernon’s hugely admirable campaigning. I salute him again for securing this milestone around which we can all come together every year.
Of course, as we have heard today, one of the most permanent and visible markers of our gratitude to the Windrush generation is Basil Watson’s magnificent national monument at Waterloo station. If noble Lords have not seen it, I ask them to go to see it. It is incredibly poignant to think that long after the first arrivals are no longer with us, millions passing through Waterloo will continue to see this and think of them and all they gave. I extend the biggest of accolades to the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, who, as always, spoke so eloquently and passionately in today’s debate, for her work, alongside the fantastic Windrush Commemoration Committee, which I also thank, with my department to get that monument built.
This year’s commemorations are particularly special because they mark the 75th anniversary of the Windrush arrivals. Fittingly, my department is leading the biggest programme of Windrush commemorations since they began across the length and breadth of the country. In the run-up to Windrush Day, the Levelling-Up Secretary and the Home Secretary hosted a reception at No. 10 to thank those working with Windrush communities locally and nationally. Rudi Page was awarded the Prime Minister’s Point of Light honour in recognition of his outstanding volunteering efforts supporting Caribbean, Commonwealth and ethnic minority communities.
We have also announced our largest Windrush Day grant scheme, totalling £750,000 in funding, which is going to 45 community groups, local authorities and charities spread across the UK. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, is in his place because they include the Brixton Project, a community-led carnival of art, theatre and music, and the Blackstory Partnership, which is putting on a myriad of events, from performances of West Indian music to a book launch at a commemorative Windrush 75 event in Birmingham. Thanks to the National Lottery Community Fund, sponsored by DCMS, we are backing a further 75 community events and activities.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and others so passionately argued, we need to keep the Windrush generation’s legacy alive by ensuring that young people learn from and celebrate it. To this end, we are providing new educational resources on the National Windrush Monument website and have teamed up with the leading educational charity, Speakers for Schools, to organise a series of school talks by inspirational public figures with Windrush connections, such as Basil Watson and the actor Paterson Joseph. Available in person and online, these have the potential to reach of thousands of pupils across the country.
As we moved through the debate, starting with the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, it was obvious that I would need to answer the questions and challenges from noble Lords on the Windrush compensation scheme. I will not mention all noble Lords, but they know who they are and it will be in Hansard.
The Home Office remains totally committed to righting the wrongs experienced by members of the Windrush generation, although we recognise that no amount of money will ever make up for the suffering that people experienced. So far, more than £75 million has been paid or offered under the compensation scheme and thousands of people have been helped successfully to apply for the documentation confirming their status or British citizenship. Payments to date include some significant sums. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said that there are very small numbers, but over 240 people have been paid £50,000 to £100,000, while more than a dozen people have been paid more than £200,000. The Home Office’s priority is to award the maximum compensation at the earliest possible point to all these people.
Some 66% of claims have had final decisions and the majority of claims in progress are less than six months old. I say in response to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that only 7% are more than 18 months old. However, there are 14 categories and each person’s experiences and circumstances will be different. It is right that the Home Office takes the time to ensure that each claim is considered and understood carefully so that it can offer people the maximum compensation to which they are entitled. That said, the Home Office will continue its efforts to reduce the time it takes to process claims. The length of time that individuals must wait for their claim to be allocated to a substantive decision-maker is less than five months, down from 18 months a year ago.
The Home Office is committed to keeping the compensation and documentation schemes open. The scheme is not closing; it is remaining open. The Home Office firmly believes that moving the operation of the compensation scheme, as has been suggested, would significantly delay what we consider, and I know noble Lords consider, to be vital payments to people. All this has been reinforced by an independent adviser to the scheme, Professor Martin Levermore, in his report, which was published in March 2022. Since the scheme’s inception, the Home Office has continued to listen to feedback from all sorts of stakeholders. It has made significant and positive changes and improvements and will continue to do so as more evidence comes in. For example, in 2021-22, the Home Office published a new claims form, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, in collaboration with stakeholders. I know that it is a longer form, but stakeholders are in agreement that it is an easier one. It is in plain English and it has much more targeted and simpler questions for people to understand and complete. As I said, all the changes that we are making are being made in conjunction with stakeholders.
The Home Office has a multilayered approach to reviewing the process continually in order to ensure that we have an appropriate level of external scrutiny. That was brought up by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark. The tier 1 review is conducted by a separate team that has not worked on any claim and so is totally independent. The tier 2 review is an independent review processed with the Adjudicator’s Office, and the Home Office has accepted all recommendations made by the adjudicator.
I mentioned Martin Levermore. He regularly engages with officials and publishes annual reports on the scheme. His second report was published in May 2023 and is on GOV.UK. The Home Office also publishes a factsheet that has granular transparency. That is published every month and will provide details on a wide variety of aspects of both the casework and the ongoing reviews.
As I said, there is no cap or limit on the amount of compensation that the Home Office will pay out. When the scheme was announced, it was assumed that a high proportion of those who applied to the status scheme might then seek compensation. It is interesting that, although 16,200 individuals had been provided with documentation confirming their status or British citizenship as at quarter 1 of 2023, the experience has been that many of them have not suffered losses or detriment owing to being unable to demonstrate their lawful status in the UK, so they have not needed to claim compensation.
It is important that, as my noble friend Lady Berridge said, we continue to outreach to those communities to ensure that everyone understands the scheme and how to contact it. The Home Office has hosted 200 engagement outreach events, including 120 one-to-one surgeries, since 2018. It has worked closely with grass-roots and community organisations, reaching hundreds of thousands of individuals through the community fund. It has also run national media campaigns and will continue to make efforts to reach anyone who so far has not contacted it. We are doing everything we can.
I hope that that has answered a number of questions, but there were some specific ones. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about benchmarks. Responses to the call for evidence and the public consultation shaped the design of the scheme. We considered guidance in the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s principles for remedy on establishing time-limited compensation schemes and other good practice in that sector. The December 2020 changes increased compensation under the impact on life categories to bring them more in line with the Judicial College guidelines for the assessment of general damage in personal injury cases. We have gone through the normal process that we would do in order to look at benchmarking for this compensation.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark brought up Wendy Williams’s three recommendations. When Wendy Williams wrote the report, she recognised the challenges and applauded the Home Office response to the challenge. As I stated, the Home Office has regular reviews and delivers the intent of all the recommendations, but not in a specific way. Extensive continual consideration of how to deliver the scheme is embedded in and throughout the department.
The Office for the Independent Examiner of Complaints, set up last year in response to the Windrush lessons learned review, is in place. There is also insight and challenge from the Windrush working group. There has been a major internal change in culture and the willingness to listen as policies develop and implementation has begun. The Home Office will continue to challenge itself internally on its culture on this subject.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, brought up the issue of compensation previously accepted if claims are relooked at. Whenever changes are made, they are applied retroactively.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark brought up the important issue of deaths of claimants while still awaiting compensation. It is really regrettable that any claimant passes away before a compensation award can be made. The Home Office prioritises claims where we are aware of any critical or life-shortening instances in any claimant. Where someone passes away before their claim is finally resolved, we work closely with the representatives of their estate, normally their family, to ensure that compensation is paid as quickly as it possibly can be.
My noble friend Lady Berridge brought up an interesting idea, which she has mentioned before in this Chamber, on a specific Windrush scheme for scholarships. She knows that I have passed this on to the Home Office; I have not had a response yet, but I have promised her that I will give her the response as soon as it comes through, and I will.
My noble friend Lady Berridge and the noble Lord, Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick, brought up the important issue of the educational outcomes of young black men and women. It is more complicated than just all black men and women; it depends on their heritage quite a lot. The DfE has done a lot of work on this and has a lot of information on it. I do not have it to hand, but I will certainly ask the DfE to write a letter, and I will put a copy in the Library.
I may not have answered all the questions, particularly on the technical issues of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. We will look at Hansard tomorrow, and my noble friend said that he will write with anything further that I have not covered.
I thank everyone here for their powerful contributions and tributes to the extraordinary Windrush generation. I emphasise the Government’s unwavering commitment to ensuring that we never forget what it has done for us in this United Kingdom. We are so thankful that those first 500 people made that journey and arrived on our shores on that momentous day in June 75 years ago. They are a credit to their community and this country, and it is the greatest privilege to be able to celebrate and honour them today.
Ukraine Refugees: Mothers and Dependent Children Arriving in the UK
Baroness Scott of Bybrook Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Home Office (Lord Harrington of Watford) (Con)
My Lords, I thank everybody for their contributions, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Loomba. To put this in perspective for me—this is a personal statement, in a way—I started this job at the beginning of March. I agreed to do it for a limited period of time, the definition of “limited” being when the job is done. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has a smile on his face because I think he knows, as I do, that things tend to go on. I want to leave this job when it is generally felt that I have done what I can do.
I have spent four months with colleagues putting together a delivery team to do precisely that: to turn the Prime Minister’s promise of an uncapped refugee scheme into a delivery mechanism. I formally record my thanks to Michael Gove, now no longer the Secretary of State, for having the faith in me to do this job and for starting the whole sponsorship idea, which was loosely based on my experiences of dealing with Syrian refugees. It was done in a very limited way for Syrian refugees.
I state formally on the record that for personal reasons I have had the temptation to resign many times over the last few weeks, owing to well-documented activities culminating in what has happened over the last few days. I did not, however, because I believe the refugee job, with its responsibility for tens of thousands of people’s lives, is above all that.
What have we achieved? Please do not misunderstand me and think I mean all the comments in a positive way. I get concerned about everything I hear, but I go to bed at night thinking, “At least 90,000 people from Ukraine are safe in the UK, with a steady flow adding to that”. I do not say that in arrogance or to make out that any of the points made were wrong.
I met the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, for the first time only just before this debate; I am sorry that has not happened before. I offered to meet him next week, irrespective of what happened in the debate, but following his contribution I suggest that maybe we could have a meeting with Barnardo’s as well to discuss the points he specifically brought up. The organisation has not contacted me with those points, and I would be delighted to meet it formally. I am happy to meet the noble Lord informally, of course, as we arranged. The Pugin Room is fine for certain meetings, but we should sit down properly with Barnardo’s with our officials present.
I will go through some of the points the noble Lord brought up; they duplicate some of the other points, so I ask noble Lords to be patient with me. I am working closely with the DfE on qualifications. It has been brought to my attention, and I know there are ways. We are having to persuade professional bodies about qualifications in Ukraine, often in areas where we really need people—for example, nurses and professional people, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said—so I am not oblivious to that, but I am afraid that efforts with professional bodies are rather slower than I would like them to be.
The noble Lord made quite a few points, and generally asked me to be alert to the different gaps in the system. It would perhaps help in my response to him and to some of the other comments made if I could go through the gaps that I perceive, remembering that we are all learning as we go.
The visa issue was mentioned by a few noble Lords, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was very critical of the situation in his first interventions with me. I say that not critically; it is a question of fact. It was very difficult, as was said by various noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Moynihan and Lord Cormack, that visas were taking far too long. I have made various undertakings to bring that down; I said I hoped to bring it down to 48 hours and within 14 days. I set that myself. We are not supposed to talk about targets because they are easy to shoot down if they are not achieved, but in my mind, and publicly, it was a target.
The visa system has changed. I do not know if any of your Lordships have seen it or tried it, but we now have an app-based system for visas, called AUK2; it is an automated system that eradicates the need to go to visa centres. For example, the biometric tests can now be done on phones. As to why it did not happen before, I am not a technical person but I can say that the system was not meant for this volume of people—it just was not. In the majority of cases now, people do not have to visit visa centres. I have tested this myself—I should say I have used people to test it—and, for non-complex cases, it takes sometimes two days, but certainly two to four days. That is far more acceptable than it was. Nevertheless, we can improve that.
I include my failure, despite my best intention, to comply with my undertakings to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, on interpretation. It is very difficult, but we have improved the guidance on Russia and Ukraine. I accept her points, but I can only do what I can do. If the noble Baroness feels that I have let her down, I fully accept that criticism.
I would like to go on to positive things, but will address some of the negative things mentioned by noble Lords. Again, noble Lords should not misunderstand me; I take them in a positive way, and this is how we improve. Checks were mentioned by my noble friend Lord Cormack and others. What kinds of checks do we do? Why are families put into inadequate housing? He asked me for some numbers, and the number of unsuitable housing cases that have been reported to us is 55, on the question of sponsorship, and 280 in the case of family reunion. Our checks to find that out form part of what the local authority is paid for, at £10,500 per refugee. I am sorry; I keep looking at the clock—I will be as quick as I can, but I could go on about this kind of thing for hours. We have checks and balances within that system, but it sometimes fails. However, the scale of this is quite minor.
Homelessness is a big point that was brought up by many noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Khan and Lord Paddick. I am very conscious of it. The actual number of cases is now comparatively small, but significant in my working: there are approximately 600, split 400 and 200 between the sponsorship and family schemes. The whole emphasis is to keep these people away from the homelessness register. Every week, I meet with local authorities. Councillor Georgia Gould, of the same party as the noble Lord, Lord Khan, and I have a very good relationship. She is one of a group I meet to discuss precisely the problem of how we stop people getting on the homelessness list.
One way is to improve the rematching process that was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and others. It is quite new. At the moment, the local authorities are doing it themselves, with our guidance, but I hope to expand that as the six months come to an end. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and every Member who contributed to this debate asked what happens after six months. That is very important, and a big part of it is rematching. We are at three months now but soon, at the four-month stage, we will be writing to people to say, “Thank you very much for agreeing to do this for six months. Would you like to continue?” Otherwise, we will have to do rematching, and we will make it as quick as we can.
There are other ways of dealing with the problems that particularly the noble Lord, Lord Khan, mentioned. On what we are actually doing to help local authorities, they all have problems with homelessness and everything like that. It is true to say that we cannot create properties that do not exist. I think even the noble Lord, Lord Khan, would accept that the Government’s many powers do not include those in the short term. The plan that we are working on is getting more people into the private rental sector. How do we do that? Quickly, we are looking at schemes to help them with the deposit so that they can do it and, moving on from that, with an advance of the rent, et cetera, to get them working. I am going as speedily as I can through all these different points.
Points were made about banking and were brought up again in quite a few of the contributions. I am pleased to say that a number of banks will accept Ukrainians without all the stuff they cannot do—the credit records, proof of address and all those things. Those are in the guidance provided to refugees. It is on the internet and they are given a physical, paper welcome pack. I am afraid I cannot remember what banks they are but a number of them will do this for Ukrainians.
On the question about universal credit and £200 not being enough, that is a problem and we are really trying to speed up on it. The lights are flashing but—
Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)
Oh fine, thank you very much. I will try to use them properly.
Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)
I shall keep my head down and get on with the rest of this speech.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
You have as much time as you like because it is an hour and a half.
Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)
Thank you very much. Right, I have no excuse at all now. I am really not trying to get out of this at all; it is just that I have been going through things quickly to try to get it done in that time.
On jobs, if I could go back to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and her well-discussed point about process in the system, we are working on a system with DWP to get more trained people to help them. It is interesting that the first ONS survey of this cohort showed that more than 60% of those over 18 were already in work. I am meeting a lot of people who are in work—and so pleased to be, as we are so pleased to have them in work. There are problems with transport, however. The Brighton example was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Moynihan, but generally people have to get to the jobcentre for that.
I meet every week—well, I met Ministers every week to discuss this but I am afraid I cannot possibly tell your Lordships quite who it will be next week. Particularly, the department for employment has been very helpful on this.
Quickly going through the other matters, now that I have a bit of extra time, I am seeing what I have missed out in my canter through the whole thing. I probably skipped over the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, too much. It was, basically: what support are we giving to local authorities? He knows this very well but, to put it on the record again, it was a well-negotiated consensus view that £10,500 per refugee—not per family—would cover most of it. I meet so many local authorities now and some of the people cost hardly anything and some, of course, cost far more than £10,500. Basically, they are doing a pool system.
I have not had reports that it is not enough money. I have heard worries about our unaccompanied minors scheme and that it is not enough for them. Of course, we made provision for where children need extra care, be that through intense social services or, unfortunately, to be taken into care. A lot of extra money is available for that. I think we support the local authorities well. They are very articulate and vociferous in their weekly calls to me on that. Again, I hope everybody realises that there are no political points in this at all. Everyone is really trying to help collectively, particularly the local authorities.
Perhaps they were a bit tongue in cheek, but I will just respond to the final comments from the noble Lord, Lord Khan, about what difference the new Secretary of State for Levelling Up will make. He got the job only three or four hours ago, but I was very pleased that he did, for a number of reasons. Apart from the personal friendship between us, he was the Secretary of State when I did the Syrian programme and was excellent with it. The whole purpose for appointing me in the first place was so that I am ring-fenced to deal with this work, but I am very optimistic that what Greg Clark, the new Secretary of State, does will do nothing to impair or impinge on it. In fact, I hope he will improve on it.
The noble Lord asked how the councils are supported. I have dealt with various points to do with that. I ask noble Lords for any feedback they have from any councils—I also ask all the MPs this in my weekly call—as we really do try to learn on the ground.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
Baroness Scott of Bybrook ExcerptsMonday 17th January 2022
(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
A question was asked earlier about what will happen to people who already have their information—what can we do about that? It is important that drafting takes time; in Committee I spoke about the problem of the drafting of these guidelines and said I wanted good drafting. But I was a bit concerned, as the Minister said that free speech is already protected by the Human Rights Act, but that does not console me because free speech is under attack. We have heard of many instances of where non-crime hate incidents are being used to chill free speech and this—
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I remind the noble Baroness that she should not be speaking if she did not speak before the Minister.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
I did not understand that, and I apologise. The guidelines are reputation destroying and they need to be reviewed.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that, with the agreement of the House, we adjourn until 9.15 pm to let the Minister finish her dinner break.
Health Measures at UK Borders
Baroness Scott of Bybrook Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, in light of increasing concerns around new variants, mandatory quarantine measures for those arriving from high-risk countries are the next essential step to safeguard public health. It is also crucial that those who wish to travel to the UK from high-risk countries do so in full knowledge that our overwhelming priority is to protect the health of the population. The fact that not all travellers will be quarantined should be seen alongside other measures. It is illegal to leave home, including to travel abroad, except for a limited set of reasons. Where travellers enter the UK, there are strict isolation measures in place to prevent onward transmission, and the Government will apply quarantine measures in respect of travellers coming from high-risk destinations. We are working urgently to finalise the details of our quarantine plans. I can confirm that operators face a fine of £2,000 for each passenger conveyed to England without proof of a negative result, and £2,000 for each passenger conveyed to England without a completed passenger locator form. These requirements apply to all inbound passengers to England.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Barker) (LD)
I call the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.
Policing and Crime Bill
Baroness Scott of Bybrook Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
First of all, I make the House aware of my job as a leader of Wiltshire Council, which is on the register of interests. I have looked at these clauses on collaboration of emergency services and I would have preferred the Government to have been stronger. On considering the opportunities to collaborate, I quite agree with the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that there is a lot of good collaboration already going on, not just between fire and police but with local authorities as well. In Wiltshire, there are police stations in all the main hubs; they are not just front offices. We have guns and CS gas and response cars outside. That has meant that some of our major police stations have been able to close, saving huge amounts of public money. In Wiltshire, we also do all the police’s IT and we manage their project management. It is quite usual to see the chief constable and the PCC in my offices, working together with my officers. That is good collaboration. This should continue and the Government need to encourage more authorities to do that more readily.
There are, however, barriers to further collaboration. In Wiltshire, we would have loved to have joined both fire and police under our PCC. That would be the best use of public resources, not just financial, but people and assets as well. But we cannot do that now, because Wiltshire fire and rescue, earlier this year, joined with Dorset fire and rescue. Dorset police work with Cornwall and Devon. Wiltshire police work in collaboration on major crimes with Avon and Somerset and Gloucester. There are two PCCs—the whole thing is a muddle. The barrier is that there is no co-terminosity between different public service authorities and this is, I think, probably getting worse. If Wiltshire or any other authority were to ask to change the joining up of fire authorities or police authorities to make them co-terminus with the local authority, would the Minister listen to that request so that we could perhaps have properly joined-up public services? Health is a thing on the end; I think that is a more difficult discussion. In Wiltshire, we could get fire, police and a local authority working very closely together, saving huge amounts of money. Can we look at the areas that are barriers to doing that?
Lord Bach (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the police and crime commissioner for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. This group of amendments is very interesting, as is the first part of the Bill with these early clauses on statutory collaboration. It would be hard to find anyone, anywhere who does not believe that collaboration between the emergency services is a good thing. At any time, not just at a time—as at present —of economic uncertainty, it must be advantageous for services to work closely together, not just because of the savings that may be made but because it is better for the members of the public who need the help or assistance that the emergency services can give.
On whether a statutory requirement is necessary, I remain a little sceptical. It may help, it may not. What really matters, it seems to me, is whether the collaboration is—to use the phrase—bottom-up; in other words, comes naturally and is not forced. My feeling is that that is happening more and more around the country. In the Leicestershire area—Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland—collaborative programmes have been started and others are planned for the future. We have to take a chance with them. They may not always succeed, and we have to be aware of that.
I was grateful to the Minister and her officials for meeting me this morning to discuss such a scheme in Leicester called Braunstone Blues, which is still in its comparatively early days. Its origin lies in the excessive number of 999 calls made to the emergency services by some individuals and families living in that general area of the city, some of which could not be classed as emergencies by any standards, but were made none the less. They, of course, involved cost resources, both financial and human. As a consequence of that, the police, fire and rescue services, ambulance service, city council and health authorities got together to run a programme that involves visiting and, if necessary, helping people in that area. They are given advice about the unnecessary calls, of course, but help is also offered beyond that with other issues and concerns. This joint work has begun to show results but there is a long way to go.
The point I am attempting to make is that this is exactly the sort of bottom-up collaboration which should be encouraged. If the Bill has the effect of encouraging collaboration, with or without these amendments and with or without a statutory basis, that is very much to be welcomed. I, too, look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in reply to the questions that have been asked.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has mentioned Wiltshire and Dorset fire authority, I should make it clear to the House that the joining up of those two fire authorities was made under the previous coalition Government, not this Government. A different view has been taken by this Government on this Bill. That is why I asked the Minister whether we could decouple them. The most important thing for the community—I am talking about Wiltshire, not Dorset or any other authority area—is how we can maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of our blue-light services over a particular geographic area. I do not mind who runs them, I just want the services that local people want to be efficient and effective and to be delivered together.
We cannot get away from the fact that, for any road traffic accident, ambulance, police and fire services will all attend. Can we do things better and can we be more effective or more efficient? When we have floods, for example, all three services are probably going to be at a particular place at the same time—along with, I have to say, the local authority and emergency planning. It is not a matter of how we govern a service but how we make it more effective for people and more efficiently delivered.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I rise to support, to some extent, the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. Police and crime commissioners have an extremely complex and wide-ranging job to do as it is. It is not simply overseeing the police service and arranging for its funding, it is also working with other agencies to ensure that crime is reduced in their local area. It is an extremely large and complex operation. To add to that at this early stage in the evolution of the role of the police and crime commissioner could throw the progress that has been made to date off course.
There are of course situations where the police, fire service and ambulance service work together, such as floods or road traffic accidents, but there are distinct areas where the police operate alone, such as law enforcement. There is a very serious and important role that the police and the police and crime commissioner perform in crime reduction, crime detection and prosecution of offenders that does not involve the fire or ambulance service in any way. Indeed, we have seen that when there has been spontaneous public disorder on the streets of the UK, there is a very different approach towards the police and, say, the fire brigade and ambulance service—there is a lot more hostility towards the police. Any merging, or unnecessary merging, of those organisations —creating confusion in the public’s minds—could create more problems than perhaps the Government have hitherto considered.
One has only to read the Bill to see the enormously complex changes in legislation that will be required if police and crime commissioners take over fire and rescue services, particularly if the employees of the fire and rescue service become employees of the police and crime commissioner, or even of the chief constable.
I can see enormous benefit from greater co-operation between emergency services, but an enormous administrative nightmare from going that one further step of allowing police and crime commissioners to take over the running of fire and rescue services. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that the Government, as far as I can see, have not made out a compelling case to show that the advantages will overcome the enormous bureaucratic, administrative and legislative problems created by police and crime commissioners taking over fire and rescue services.