Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I join others in welcoming the return of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, my old sparring partner in local government. Perhaps I should rephrase that and say “my long-standing sparring partner”. It is so good to see her back looking so well. We very much look forward to hearing her contribute, preferably being somewhat more critical of the Government she supports than she was constrained to be in previous years. It is so good to see her back.

In that vein, the Opposition are very sympathetic to the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes. We hope that the Government will look sympathetically upon them. I cannot see any great difficulty in them so doing. It would be reassuring to hear from the Minister that the Government are as inclined to pursue this issue as they kindly indicated they would do in regard to property guardians—an issue that I raised. The Government have undertaken to look into that problem. I hope that they will go a bit further and either accept the amendment as drafted or come back at Third Reading with different wording that achieves the same objective—because I think that the objective is widely shared across the House.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I remind the House that often we are talking about families. Some time ago, I accompanied a health visitor to a property in Waltham Forest. Five families were sharing a kitchen and bathroom facilities. Perhaps the property was not so overcrowded but it was very insalubrious as they were all sharing those facilities. The front door was wide open when we walked in. We visited a mother whose child was three or four weeks old. The mother was very isolated and desperate. So I remind your Lordships that we are also talking about families when we talk about these people.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Beecham

Monday 21st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

I spoke today to the officer in Newcastle who is responsible for the programme. We do not call it the troubled families programme in Newcastle; we call it the families programme. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, is right to say that we need a title that does not imply some kind of stigma.

Newcastle has been extremely successful in the way in which the present scheme has been working. However, it was interesting to learn in a little more detail from the officer in question—I declare my interest as a member of the city council—what is occurring on the financial front and with progress on the ground.

In moving her amendment—I support both amendments in this group—my noble friend Lady Sherlock referred to the financial basis that was initially for a grant of £3,900 or £4,000. Two-thirds went on a fee for mounting the programme, while the other third went on a success fee. That has been turned around so that the larger proportion is spent on the success fee. Now, of course, the amounts have been reduced by roughly a third, so the total figure is in the order of £2,600 although, as I have said, the proportions have been reversed. That may in itself be a source of some difficulty.

However, other issues need to be considered. One of the criteria is getting people into employment. Of course, that is important and makes a significant difference, but those criteria will not necessarily apply evenly across all the relevant authorities. It will, frankly, be more difficult to get someone into a job in Newcastle and other parts of the north-east than in some other parts of the country, simply because of the state of the local economy. Too much weighting on that one factor could be regressive. That needs to be considered.

Then there is the question of what outcome we are looking for from the programme and, in particular, whether we are looking over a sufficiently long period to be able to judge what is happening and what is successful. I hope that, in any kind of survey of what is going on, we can take that long-term view—over several years rather than only two or three—to see what approaches have paid a dividend.

Another aspect that occurs to me is that the Labour Government made a mistake, frankly, in dividing children’s services from adult social care. I was chairman of the social services committee in Newcastle in the early 1970s, when the two services had been brought together. Dividing them, particularly in the context of families, is potentially difficult. It means that you are working across departmental boundaries, possibly less efficiently than would otherwise be the case. It is time—not only from the perspective of troubled families but generally, given the pressures on social care and children’s services collectively—to reopen that issue. It is worth revisiting whether that decision is now applicable.

The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, referred to changes and savings that might be made. We must bear in mind that at the moment—I speak with some unfortunate knowledge of what is likely to happen in Newcastle—financial pressures are such that we will see significant cuts in both adult social care and children’s services. We will lose experienced staff because we are facing a reduction of some £32 million in the resources available to the authority. I suspect that, to a greater or lesser extent, that will be the case across much of local government, particularly in the areas with greatest need.

Although it is obviously right to bring people together as far as possible, so that we do not have a succession of different bodies or individuals working with the families in question, it will stretch the capacity of local authorities to be able to cope with this without depriving some other potential or current recipients of the support they also need. We need to look at the totality of funding across the range of services provided by local authorities and their partners in the health service and elsewhere to deal with these issues.

Both amendments encapsulate the correct approach: we should regularly be taking a significant look at what will be a long-term programme. I return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and encourage the Government to change the name, because it implies a certain stigma and it would be better if more neutral terminology were applied.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I urge that, whatever approach is taken, we are better at supporting families, particularly vulnerable families. In recent years, we have seen a steady increase in the number of young people being taken into care from their families and a flood of new-born children being taken into care. In some ways, that suggests that we are intervening better to take children out of damaging families, but we should really be trying our level best to support families so that they can keep their children.

Whichever approach one takes—I suspect that it will be a mixture of the two—one needs adequately to fund the general services of local authorities, and I am grateful to the Chancellor for ensuring that there is some limiting of the cuts expected by local authorities. At the same time, approaches such as the troubled families initiative—I express my admiration for Louise Casey, having watched her work in the past—which recognise the need to stick with the family over time, and the importance of loving that family until it can look after itself, are very welcome.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 9th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, unlike the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, whose vast experience of the custodial system in this country we all acknowledge, I will confine my remarks to the issue of under-15s and girls. I do not in any way depart from the criticisms of the general principle, but that has now been settled and we must accept that secure colleges will go ahead, provided the Government manage to enter into suitable contracts to build and operate them.

The Government’s proposal now to consult on and publish a report on this specific issue perhaps raises more questions than it answers. There are questions, going back to the original process, about which organisations or experts have supported the proposal to house under-15s and girls in an establishment of this kind. I am not aware of any. Perhaps the Minister can identify some. There is also the question, raised before by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about whether the Government have considered similar schemes in, for example, Spain and the United States—similar in the sense that they are addressing the problems of this young age group but conducted on very different principles from that which the Government propose to put forward in the context of the secure colleges envisaged by the Bill. Moreover, there have been representations from a wide range of major, national bodies, such as the Children’s Rights Alliance, the Prison Reform Trust, the Standing Committee for Youth Justice, the Howard League for Penal Reform and, in a recent briefing, which some of your Lordships will no doubt have received, eight national women’s organisations concerned particularly with the problem of girl offenders in these institutions.

There are also questions about the proposed consultations that the Government will enter into. Will they take place after the go-ahead is given for the construction of that part of the college that would house these young people or is that element of the proposed building contract to be deferred until the process is completed by the consultation to which the Minister refers? If it is not, I fear that it will become pretty much a fait accompli. Once the provision is made it is hard to envisage that the Government would fail to use it in the way that is currently envisaged.

There are also questions about the nature of the consultation. The Minister has circulated documents saying that the Secretary of State will consult the Youth Justice Board, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons and Ofsted. The Minister has said it this afternoon. One would expect that and it is welcome, although I note in passing that the Chief Inspector of Prisons has, in what unfortunately will be his last few months in office, just published a response to the questions about the rules of the proposed college. In that response he is clearly expressing concern about the provision for under-15s and girls as well. So one potential respondent to the consultation is already expressing those concerns, although the chief inspector will no longer be with us as he is leaving his office in the new year before the final decision is made.

Will that consultation be confined to those three important institutions or will it go wider? Will it, for example, embrace the British Medical Association, which published a report this year called Young Lives Behind Bars, dealing with the provision of custodial facilities and the treatment of young offenders, which raised a great number of concerns? Will it embrace the local authorities to whose areas these young people will go back? It would seem to be essential that the social services—children’s services departments in particular but perhaps also other departments; one thinks of housing and the like—should be consulted about the provisions that are to be made for their young citizens who will be for a period incarcerated in the new college. The question also arises as to whether the other bodies—for example, the probation service, however it is to function under the new regime—will be separately involved. Again, one might have thought that that would be a given but it is not explicit in the Minister’s paper that outlines the consultation process.

It seems to me that there are significant questions to be asked even about the limited process that the noble Lord has outlined. I concur with the views of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that it is an inadequate response. I take the point that was raised in the intervention by the noble Lord from the government Benches, who—if I may respectfully say so—perhaps rather naively thought that the Government might have contemplated that the report would require parliamentary approval. I agree with him, it would have made a significant difference, but that is not, apparently, on the agenda. One has to ask again why the Government are so reluctant to put their report on this hugely sensitive area to the test of the support of both Houses in the event that the consultation concludes that it is desirable to proceed with this very controversial measure.

I join the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in hoping that Members will look at this one, now limited aspect of what has been a very controversial proposal and conclude that the Government have not made their case to proceed in the way that they propose to do, even with the very limited concessional gesture that the Minister has outlined. If the noble Lord seeks to divide the House, I will ask my colleagues on these Benches to support him but I hope, as he does, that that support will not be confined or indeed even governed by a political stance as much as a genuine concern for these young, vulnerable people, and doubts about the rationale for and the potential problems that might be caused by the Government’s proposals, if implemented.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I wish I could support the Minister. I am most grateful to him for all he has done recently for 17 year-olds in police custody and for acting promptly on the concerns of parents for their 17 year-olds in custody. However, I fear I must support my noble friend, to whom I pay tribute for his campaigning and determination in pursuing the welfare interests of these young people—girls and boys.

I have consulted with the experts whom I trust the most and their view is identical to those of the many other experts who have responded on this issue: it is far better to keep girls and boys under 15 in small local units. In large part that is because family relationships can be better sustained and strengthened. In some cases these relationships are unhelpful. In general, however, one has to try to support them.

I recall visiting Dr Camila Batmanghelidjh at Kids Company. One of her young people was my guide. He showed me the scar on his back from a bullet and spoke of his time inside prison. We also talked of the great pains Dr Batmanghelidjh took in helping to reunite him with his mother. He spoke movingly of the experience of the renewal of his relationship with his mother and the importance to him in his rehabilitation.

The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and another Conservative Peer, recently spoke about the importance of fathers—the “dad deficit”, as it is called. According to the OECD in its data on family formation, from memory, 15% of children in Germany live without a father in the home; 18% in France; 22% in the UK; and 25% in the US. The OECD predicts, however, that we will overtake the US in the next 10 to 20 years.

We cannot continue to overlook the value of sustaining family relationships. It is vital that girls and boys under 15 are housed in local, small units, where those relationships can be fostered and supported. I urge your Lordships to support my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for intervening in that helpful way and for giving that information. I have put my name to the amendment because I share the concerns expressed so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig.

It is a naughty time, particularly for the most vulnerable and impoverished families. It is a very hard time and children need enduring and reliable relationships above all. We would want that for all children. The difficulty is that when families are pushed to the very edge it becomes more and more difficult for them to be in reliable and enduring relationships with their children. Pressures are put on the parental relationship and on the attention that parents can give to their children. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, about concerns that parents are so short of money that they cannot afford to heat the home and put food on the table. What sort of pressure does that put on the family when parents cannot look after their family in that way? I am aware of this from meeting parents, mostly mothers, of families in temporary accommodation provided by Barnardo’s and also from going out on visits with health visitors and speaking to mothers. It certainly helped me to understand how, in the past, parents have really struggled on the edge of society. Today, in these circumstances and in the financial conditions we are in, it is hard to conceive how difficult it must be for some families to care for their children as they need to.

I am worried about this and am very grateful for the care that the Minister has taken in taking this forward. I was pleased that he could meet the noble Lord and I was sorry I was not able to join that meeting. What he said is certainly helpful, although I am looking at my notes of what he said to see whether there is anything I can come back on now. I do not think there is. I will finish at this point and look forward perhaps to hearing a little more reassurance in his final comments.

I share the concern of noble Lords that we must do everything possible to protect the most vulnerable families at this very difficult financial time. Many of these families are quite chaotic. They may not open their letters and may be in all sorts of messes. There are also people who prey upon them. Just last week I was speaking to a care leaver in her second year at university. She came from an estate in Stockport where she said there were no expectations—she was expected to have children in her teenage years and that would be her life. However, she has gone on from care to university, where she is now in her second year reading law. She says that when she goes back home, there are three predatory loan sharks on her estate. They will lend money—£250 for Christmas but if you do not pay it back by June next year you have to pay £500. There are all sorts of people who prey on these vulnerable families so, as far as possible, we need to protect them as we legislate here today.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I also strongly sympathise with my noble friend’s amendment, in particular in connection with his reference to the cost of collection. I suspect we will return to that issue when the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, moves her amendment in relation to bailiffs, because, as was mentioned in Committee and no doubt will be mentioned again today, the cost of collection is often wholly disproportionate to the amount of the fines, particularly when it is in the hands of private firms contracted to either local authorities or the courts. It is quite a different matter when the courts have their own collection services run by their own staff.

There will be considerable concern about the potential direct costs, and the indirect costs, if families are driven further into poverty and we have the problems of homelessness, children being taken into care and the like. It seems that the Government’s intention to outsource this work is likely to aggravate what might be a difficult problem in any event. Clearly, the Government are not going to make any further move on this. That is a matter for regret and certainly something that we will have to keep a collective eye on in future, particularly the likely impact on local authorities if things go wrong and families are unable to maintain the costs.

It is perfectly true that those who receive a financial penalty are obliged to pay it, but the likelihood is that it will not just be them who suffer but their dependants. That has financial as well as social implications. I had hoped that the Government would react rather more positively to my noble friend’s amendment but it does not look as if that is likely to happen. That is a matter of regret and it will be for my noble friend to decide whether he tests the opinion of the House at this very late stage. I suspect he may well not do so, but the issue will not go away. We will undoubtedly want to probe whatever arrangements are ultimately made with those who will be responsible for making these collections.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

I rise to speak briefly because I am moved by what my noble friend has just said. No doubt the Minister will want to reassure her as far as possible, but of course we recognise that people will owe money and that that money needs to be reclaimed, if that is possible. I would appreciate some information about how these bailiffs are recruited and how they are trained. These are matters that my noble friend raised. In particular, what happens when there are children in the home? What responsibilities do these practitioners have in terms of families? What if the mother is pregnant or has a child aged under 12 months? Perhaps these are details that will be worked out further down the line, but I would certainly appreciate any information that the Minister can provide. I imagine the Minister has had opportunities to meet with the charities which serve these families and I would be interested to hear what discussions have been had in that regard.

I share the concerns of my noble friend Lady Meacher. She helpfully highlighted the impact of various factors, including the welfare cuts which will take place next year. I was speaking to the chief executive of Action for Children last week and, if I remember correctly what she said, she described a mother she had met who had been obliged to move out of central London because of the housing benefit cuts but wanted to keep her daughter in the school she was used to. So she travelled into London each day to take her daughter to school but then had to spend the rest of the day on the streets in London, with her young infant child, because she could not afford to make the journey home and then back out again.

There are real challenges to families in the current climate and I would appreciate all the reassurance and information that the Minister can provide so that, whatever is done here, any risk to families is minimised.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, this topic has a long history. It is five years since the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 envisaged a code which would cover the powers of bailiffs, the fees they could charge and the processes they would be allowed to undertake. Part 3 of that Act contained the notion of a system of independent regulation—a phrase which we hear in another context at the present time. Subsequently, nothing much has happened. It is fair to say that the present Government, in January of this year, introduced some national standards, on a voluntary basis, to be adopted by local authorities and those working for them, presumably in connection with council tax and matters of that kind. However, beyond that, there has been very little.

When this House debated an amendment in my name in July, we were told by the Minister—again, the noble Baroness, Lady Northover—that, as we had already understood, the consultation period on the Government’s proposals in respect of Part 3 of the Act had ended on 14 May and we would receive the Government’s response by the autumn. I asked a subsequent Parliamentary Question in the autumn and was told that there would be a response in the autumn. Autumn is indeed a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness but we have, on the face of it, more mist than fruitfulness when it comes to an outcome of the Government’s deliberations. The Minister indicated that the response would be coming soon but we are now out of autumn and into winter—as the temperature in this Chamber clearly affirms—and we do not yet see the Government’s direction of travel. Having regard to the disappointment that I voiced over the last issue, I am not over-confident that we will get a resolution that will meet the requirements of the case.

In Committee, I cited a number of instances of what can only be described as appalling behaviour by bailiffs; I am referring to private bailiffs as opposed to the enforcement officers employed directly by the courts. I can update your Lordships’ House with a few more cases. One case involved a company which had a distress warrant and threatened that the defendant would go to prison. In another case, the same company was issued with a distress warrant and the defendant tried to make an arrangement to pay. The defendant received texts, notices through their door and, on one occasion, the bailiff banged on the door. The defendant and her partner were out and two children aged 6 to 8 and a 14-16 year-old were at home. They explained that their parents were out and the bailiff threatened these children that they would take all their possessions and toys and that their mother would go to prison if the monies were not paid.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Beecham

Monday 23rd April 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness in her amendment. I should like to talk about young people leaving care at the age of 16 or 17 and how this affects them. I was very grateful for the opportunity to meet the Minister this morning and for his reassurance in this area. Following that, I spoke to a personal adviser—when children leave care they are appointed such an adviser to support them during their transition from care—who said, “It is so helpful to be able to go on certain occasions to a professional, a solicitor, to get a letter to get access to welfare and the right housing for these children”.

About one-quarter of children leaving care do so at the age of 16. Therefore, we often have very vulnerable young people who really can benefit from expert advocacy. While I welcome what the Minister has said in terms of reassurance, this matter in particular needs to be looked at. He highlighted the use of the exceptional funding avenue. The personal adviser said that often it is not a question of going to court but of getting in early and getting a good letter to make the local authority or other agencies aware of the legal situation and then things would be done correctly. It would be helpful if the Minister in his response could give an assurance that the exceptional funding avenue is easily accessible in those circumstances. I strongly support my noble friend’s amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to her regret that immigration is not included in the amendment. In fairness to the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, this amendment is in lieu and something has to be different from the original amendment. An invidious choice had to be made and one could regret that any one of the categories was to be omitted but one had to be in order for the amendment to be in order.

I am indebted to JustRights for its briefing, which no doubt many noble Lords will have seen. JustRights is made up of some 18 voluntary sector organisations. When the Minister refers to extra support for citizens advice bureaux—which I think she identified in particular although she may have been referring to the whole sector—of £20 million a year for three years, one should know that Citizens Advice sustained a loss of £80 million. That sum is for everything and not just for children. Such investment has to be seen in that context.

However, as regards these amendments, by my calculation, taking out the immigration cases, the cost of accepting the noble Baroness’s amendment would be of the order of £2.8 million. JustRights estimated about £5 million to £6 million according to the Ministry’s estimates but that included something like £1 million for immigration. I beg the pardon of noble Lords but that figure should be more: the net saving should be about £4 million. It points out that the Local Government Association—I declare an interest as a vice-president of that organisation—estimates that the removal of legal aid for unaccompanied child asylum seekers in immigration cases, which this amendment does not seek to restore, would cost local authorities £10 million. In other words, the cost to one element of the public purse will go substantially to exceed the savings which would accrue from the Government’s package. It is estimated by Youth Access and the Legal Services Research Centre that greater costs will fall on other elements of the public sector, including the welfare system and the National Health Service.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I confess to feeling very troubled by what I have heard in the Chamber during this debate. I will say a few words about my concerns in particular about vulnerable families in private accommodation. A few years ago I accompanied a health visitor in the borough of Redbridge in north-east London just north of West Ham. We visited a number of families living in very poor conditions in private property. In one such home the basement was flooded and the landlord had taken no action to remedy this. Another was overcrowded. A mother and her two young children shared one room with water almost running down the walls. The third, and most shocking, was a home in which the shower and the lavatory were somehow combined in one system. It may be a small proportion of landlords, but there seemed to be a lot of them in Redbridge, back then, at least. I declare my interest as a landlord. I hope that the Minister can offer some real reassurance in his reply that the most vulnerable individuals and families in society are not going to suffer significantly because of what the Government propose.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I come to this debate informed not only, as ever, by the noble Lord, Lord Best, whose expertise in matters of housing is second to none in your Lordships' House, but by my experience over many years representing an inner-city ward in Newcastle that has a mix of housing. It has owner-occupiers, a substantial number of council houses, houses owned by registered social landlords and a significant number of private rented properties, many of which are, I have to say, poorly managed and which present many problems to the tenants. It is certainly true that, as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has said, some landlords are exploitative. Others are simply incapable for one reason or another of managing their properties adequately. They do not have the resources or the skill, or they may not live locally. Whatever the reason, it is the tenants who suffer. In these circumstances, there has to be some redress.

I will be speaking to Amendment 81, which seeks to cut to the chase in terms of the overall issue. The amendment so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, deals with a series of issues, but Amendment 81 simply seeks to restore legal aid across the piece in housing matters, which strikes my noble friends and me as probably the most efficacious way of dealing with the problem. That is not in any way to minimise the strength of the arguments put by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. He and I have been opening and closing debates across the council chamber for about 35 years, and it is a pleasure to continue that long-standing tradition.

Housing is now becoming one of the critical areas of public policy. For those engaged in not only the policy but the daily life that is influenced by housing, it is obvious that matters are getting increasingly difficult. We have spiralling rents and a shortage of available accommodation exacerbated, as other noble Lords have said, by pending changes to housing benefits that are likely to lead to still greater pressure on the private rented sector. At the same time, councils are having increasing difficulty in maintaining their stock as capital programmes are reduced and repairs and investment in existing council properties become more difficult to achieve. It must be said that not all councils are wonderful managers of property. Council tenants also have their problems and need redress as, occasionally, do the tenants of registered social landlords. What will occur as a result of the changes that the Bill proposes is that 40 per cent of housing cases—52,000 cases—will lose legal help, often from organisations such as Shelter rather than from solicitors but sometimes from solicitors, and that will save the Exchequer some £10 million. There will be 1,200 cases where legal representation will no longer be available. That will save the Exchequer £3 million. These are not inordinately large sums one might think, and other noble Lords have pointed out that the potential on-cost to other services could be considerably greater. Under the provisions of the Bill, there will be exceptional case funding, up to 25 per cent for some proceedings. I do not know whether the Minister is able to indicate the likely take-up. Up to 25 per cent can, of course, mean from virtually nothing up to 25 per cent, and it is not entirely clear what proceedings are envisaged in the term “some proceedings”. A little enlightenment on that would be helpful.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I am saying that the Bill should lay down at this stage a range of services that will be part of a national health service but that that should not be limited by reference to a particular moment. There will have to be flexibility, but the Bill should clearly indicate, as the 2006 Act did, areas that, taken together, constitute a national health service. It is a simple enough proposition. The content would have to be debated as we go forward, but this is a probing amendment that is designed to ventilate the issue in the hope that some consideration might be given in the course of proceedings on the Bill to the changes that are required.

Ultimately, some decisions will have to be taken about what services are to be provided, not least about the services in Clause 1(3) that must be provided free of charge. People are entitled to know what services they will get free of charge at any given time. As I have said, at some point these matters should be elaborated. There is also an issue about how public health services are to be regarded in the light of the Bill’s current proposals; for example, in relation to the role of Monitor, competition issues and the like.

Amendment 7 seeks to establish a method of taking this discussion forward so that all of us may be clearer about what we are entitled to expect of a National Health Service and, for the purposes particularly of new Section 1(3) of the National Health Service Act 2006, what services would be provided free of charge. I hope that we can look at that matter and perhaps return to it on Report. In that light, I beg to move.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for moving this amendment and for giving us an opportunity to discuss a definition of the services of the National Health Service. Perhaps the Committee will forgive me if I make now the arguments that I had hoped to make in the later debate on mental and physical health in the health service, for which I am unable to be present. Those arguments are also pertinent to this amendment.

I seek reassurance from the Minister that the new arrangements for the health service will have a specific duty to focus on support of the relationship between the parent and the child, or whoever is acting in loco parentis for that parent, particularly during the early years and in adolescence. Professionals say that adult mental health hinges on the relationships between the primary carers and the child in early life and in adolescence.

The Government’s White Paper highlighted that mental health is important to public health. It follows that in the future we have to be even more careful to ensure, without being overly intrusive, that the relationships between parents and children in the earliest years and in adolescence are as supportive as possible. The health service should have an important role in that. For instance, there is tremendous pressure to generate more early years nursery places. In a recession, we want parents to work and to help build capacity. Nurseries need to be cheap, yet we know that high-quality early years intervention is crucial to better outcomes for children. We also know that the people who work in those settings are often underpaid and not properly supported, and that there can be a high turnover of staff. In driving people, for understandable reasons, to use nursery provision more, there is a danger that the relationship between the parent and the child could be undermined.

The evidence indicates that high-quality early years education produces better outcomes in school for children. Professor Jay Belsky at the University of London investigated this issue. Exposure to poor-quality early years education and nursery care over a number of years can have serious, although small, deleterious effects. But if a lot of children go through these experiences, the overall impact can be significant. It is very hard to measure—this is probably why it does not get prioritised enough—what difference it makes if there is not sufficient support for relationships between parents and children in the earliest years and in adolescence. It is easy to measure cognitive performance in schools, whereas the relationship between parent and child in the earliest years and adolescence is hard to measure. However, qualitatively I am very clear, after consulting with colleagues in the mental health profession, that it is hugely important to get that support right.

I know that the Department of Health works closely with early years services to try to offer such support, but there are still shortcomings. For instance, there is not sufficient support in adult mental health services for adults as parents in children’s centres, and more work could be done. An old chestnut is that, if a parent is presenting with mental health issues, thought is not always given to the fact that the parent has children who will have needs. If a parent is mentally ill, what are the mental health needs of the children? Again, if a child presents with mental health problems, a proper assessment needs to be made to look at whether perhaps the best input is to support the parents. That may help the child to get better.

Noble Lords will be pleased to know that I will not say much more. A few years ago I remember working with a young man who was just coming out of adolescence. His father was an alcoholic and he had experienced domestic violence in his home. I was seeing him and working with him once a week for six months. The issues he had were that he was experiencing growing paranoia, he was fearful and distrustful of the staff, he was mercurial and unpredictable in his behaviours and he had a difficult relationship with women. If there had been better support for that family, perhaps the nascent problems we saw at the time could have been nipped in the bud and he would not have had those difficulties.

I am sorry if I am not explaining myself sufficiently clearly, but I would be grateful if the Minister could reassure the Committee that in any of the new arrangements there will be a particular focus on getting in early to support families, both parents and those acting in the role of parents, in their relationships with their children to make sure that those relationships are strong. Children will then have a good basis from which to grow and enter adulthood. I hope that that will be a priority in the new arrangements.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

I thank the Minister for providing me with the strong assurance that to him and his colleagues the strengthening of the parent/child relationship is absolutely crucial in what they are doing. There is strong agreement with that point and I thank him for that. I will look forward to reading with interest in Hansard the later discussion on mental health.

The Minister mentioned the availability of essential services. To highlight the current concerns, an effective and well respected foster care charity operating in all the nations of the United Kingdom had to create its own child and adolescent mental health services in Wales because there was so little available in that nation. On children’s homes, it has been recognised for a long while that often our most vulnerable children are placed in children’s homes with staff who are poorly equipped to meet their needs. There have been important steps forward in improving that situation but, crucial to that, is ensuring that those staff get the mental health support they need. That is becoming more widely available over time, but it is still piecemeal. We need to ensure that those kinds of situations do not continue into the future.

I am grateful for the Minister’s assurances about the Government’s priorities in this area and, as I say, I look forward to reading the debate in Hansard.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for once again bringing his expertise on this issue. He is perhaps the leading proponent in your Lordships’ House of the concerns around children’s health and other matters relating to children, and his contribution today certainly falls in line with our experience of his many contributions in that area of policy.

I am also grateful to the Minister for his reply. I did not, and the amendment does not, suggest that we should have an exhaustive, finite list of responsibilities or functions which comprise the National Health Service. That would clearly be inappropriate. I thought I had made that clear but perhaps failed to do so. The noble Lord rightly pointed out that, under Clauses 10 and 11, responsibilities are effectively transferred from the Secretary of State to clinical commissioning groups. Had this amendment been taken forward, it would have identified for those groups the services which they should carry out. Of course, the transfer imposes the duty to arrange for the provision of services to the extent that each commissioning group considers necessary. That provision raises the question of the extent to which there is still a commonly accepted view of a National Health Service. That is an open question that we will no doubt return to in different forms as we go forward, but in the circumstances I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Localism Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the noble Lord referred to the 75 per cent tax levied on the proceeds of right-to-buy sales. It is interesting to note that at the moment there is a good deal of pressure on the Government to abandon the 50 per cent tax charged on those with substantial incomes and that, indeed, at least part of the coalition Government is interested in a mansion tax, which I suspect would be levied at substantially less than 75 per cent. In the context of housing, we should not be thinking in terms of taxation. The nation is paying a very heavy price in terms of housing need for the refusal of Government, initially in the 1980s, to allow any of the proceeds of the sale of council housing to be reinvested in housing and, it must be said, for the somewhat belated and modest change that was made to those rules by the previous Government. It does not seem to make any kind of economic sense.

The money raised by the right to buy would be ploughed back into housing provision. That would have two effects, the first of which would be that it would create assets on the balance sheet; it would not disappear into thin air. Secondly, it would give a much needed boost to the construction industry and therefore to the economy at a time when, as the Chancellor has belatedly conceded, things are not looking good in terms of the projected growth rate. Thirdly, it would lead to employment being taken up and thus a reduction in the cost of paying benefits. Most particularly, I suspect that the result would be that houses would be built rather more quickly than through the hoped-for gains to be made by the proposals in the national policy planning framework, which seem to assume that planning is the reason for the low number of houses being built, whereas of course the key issues are in fact finance and people’s capacity to buy.

Looking at it purely in housing terms, the noble Lord’s amendment makes a great deal of sense. I hope that the Government will rethink their position because it would make an immediate and much more significant contribution to dealing with the housing problem, as well as helping with economic growth without damaging the balance sheet. Indeed, in some respects it would strengthen the balance sheet with assets that are likely to appreciate.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I hesitate to speak, having not taken part in previous work on this Bill, but my noble friend’s amendment and his words bring to mind some research that was brought to my attention some years ago into lone mothers living in isolation with their children, scattered around cities. They were often forced to live a long way from their communities and extended family because there was insufficient housing stock to enable them to be placed closer by. So if my noble friend’s amendment will help local authorities to supply enough housing to ensure that parents—more often than not mothers—bringing up children on their own had easy access to their communities and extended family, I certainly want to support it.