Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Phillips of Sudbury

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I hope I will be forgiven if I contribute briefly to this debate because I have taken little part in it hitherto. However, I cannot resist rising to speak strongly in favour of Amendment 10.

I started my life in the legal profession traipsing around the magistrates’ courts of eastern England. For several years, I said to myself at the end of every day that there but for the grace of God would I have gone. We are an extraordinary race. We are so intelligent and forward-thinking in many ways, yet when it comes to penal affairs, we have an extraordinary ability to fail to see our own best interests. Today, we would all agree that community life is at a low ebb, and the weaker that the communities of this country are, the greater the likelihood of certain groups of young adults casting themselves adrift and offending against the mores of society, which, unfortunately, they often do.

We are in a society obsessed with money, celebrity and sex. There is a group of young men and women who think nothing of themselves and are thought nothing of. They have succeeded at nothing and failed at everything. Educationally, they are a failure. They have little prospects, little ambition, little self-esteem and no respect. It is this group who Amendment 10 seeks to help. Again and again, we allow our distaste for the behaviour of many of these young people to stand in the way of intelligent redress. It is in our self-interest to ensure that this amendment, or something like it, is passed and that Governments of all persuasions are required to do something specific about it. It is for those reasons that I strongly support Amendment 10.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, as we have heard, many of these women will, as children, have been abused in their own homes. A disproportionate number will have then entered the care system, and a disproportionate number of those will then have their children taken into care. A disproportionate number of the young people we have been discussing will have been abused in their homes when they were children and will have been taken into the care system. Although there have been improvements in that system, many will have experienced multiple foster placements—as many as 30, and some more than 30. They will often have experienced many changes in social worker.

I commend these amendments to the Government and I particularly commend the words of my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham when he said that what these young people need is a long-term, enduring and reliable relationship with a responsible adult. Again and again, reports into the care system identify that continuity and reliability is the key to improving outcomes for these young people. I hope that the Minister can give some encouraging response to these amendments, as I am sure that he will.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Phillips of Sudbury

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, after three excellent speeches I will make only one point, following directly from the last point made by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. What I may perhaps call the Cookson report—the King’s College report—quantifies certain knock-on costs. What it does not do is look at indirect knock-on costs. For example, in a case such as the one my noble friend referred to when he moved the amendment of somebody not getting timely advice and as a result finding that he and his family were on the street with the local authority having to pick up the problem and provide housing, along with the welfare fallout and so on, the indirect costs were not included in the figures of the King's College report. That makes the self-interest of the Government in listening to and agreeing the amendments in this group all the more acute.

My only other point was made by all three preceding speakers but is worth emphasising. The noble Lord, Lord Best, drew an analogy with Somali pirates. He talked of a small minority of exploitative landlords. That is absolutely fair; it is only a small minority of private landlords. However, they are concentrated among poor tenancies. If we throw our minds back to Rachman, we will remember that his tenants were among the poorest in London. That was no accident. Landlords who are of that evil mind know that poor tenants are least able to protect and stand up for themselves, and most easily harassed. Again, it is an issue of self-interest on the part of the Treasury to recognise that. If it does, it will see the sense of the amendments in this group without getting into morality and justice.

[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.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Phillips of Sudbury

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

Is the noble Lord aware of the report commissioned by the Government and published last year, led by Sir Philip Green, which looked at improving government efficiency? He argued very strongly for improved procurement practices and, in particular, for using the collective strength of all government departments together to improve procurement, perhaps appointing two or three very senior civil servants to procure this. Does the noble Lord recall that, and does that not support what he has been saying?

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I shall not detain you long. I cannot resist—given that the noble Lord, Lord Owen, was in reminiscing mood—recollecting that my Welsh father was personally appointed by Aneurin Bevan to be responsible for the inauguration of the health service in what was then the county of West Suffolk. My infancy was taken up with traipsing around hospitals and surgeries in his wake. I am as totally committed to the National Health Service as any man or woman on earth. Indeed, one of my daughters was admitted last night as an emergency patient to an NHS hospital.

Perhaps I may echo the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, because I think that he spoke from great experience and with great wisdom. I am sorry that that flies in the face of what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said, in what was one of the most radical charm offensives towards these Benches in the history of charm offensives. However, as others have said, the notion of incorporating resolutions of party political conferences into legislation is a short road to legislative anarchy. I want to make two points in relation to that.

First, I absolutely concede that an upfront statement of principles makes legislation more comprehensible and more friendly to the layperson. I do not deny that for a second, and that very much draws me to such a statement. But then one comes to the hard, unaccommodating realities of construing statutes. We already have here a Bill of 445 pages, with at least that number of pages to come in secondary legislation, with—as I counted the other night—DHS documentation in support of the Bill in excess of 1,000 pages. I put it to the noble Baroness that principles, however well drafted, may give even more room for manoeuvre and obfuscation to my profession. There is room enough already in this Bill.

If noble Lords do not know what I am talking about, I offer an example. There is no reference in the amendment as drafted to an absolutely fundamental principle of this Bill, which is the subject of an amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, and myself—namely equality of clinical treatment and care for NHS patients with private patients. That is but one example of an omission in the present statement of principles. I am sure that many Lords in other parts of the House could say, “What about this?” or “What about that?”. We could argue until the cows come home. All the while, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, reminded us, we have that historic, catholic and satisfactory statement in the 1946 Act of what it is all about. Therefore, I add my voice, with a degree of reluctance, to the voices of those who feel that the amendment, although good in intention, might not achieve its purpose but sow inadvertent mischief.

Public Disorder

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Phillips of Sudbury

Thursday 11th August 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, perhaps I may raise the issue of citizenship that was eloquently introduced by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury. We must not forget that the Government propose to remove citizenship as one of the subjects in the core curriculum. I hope that the Minister will say something about that. One aspect of this highly complicated state of affairs—obviously, one cannot begin to reach conclusions at this stage—that I do not think has been referred to, and that bears on the question of people feeling part of the community and feeling a sense of civic engagement, is the commonly found set of attributes and mental positions that I have come across many times in my home town. Young people have a sense of personal insignificance and certainly a sense of civic anonymity. They have a belief that they do not belong and that they are somehow outsiders, disconnected from all the things that we cherish and seek to enhance. They also have a sense of being uncompetitive. In this brazenly materialist world, we are constantly told that if we cannot compete we are useless and worthless. I suggest that these and other issues around citizenship are at the heart of one of the deep underlying problems referred to by the Prime Minister that are present in this sad crisis.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, having listened to the Prime Minister's Statement, it is hard for me not to reflect on the young men in these gangs. Many of them have grown up without fathers, or with fathers who have set them the worst example, in families where the hard-pressed mother has to do all the work of rearing of children. The young men may not be properly socialised in that early setting. They move on to schools, fail there and finally find a home and a new father in the gangs, with their charismatic leaders who become their new father figures.

Does the Minister agree that we need to look very carefully at early intervention, at very good, high-quality childcare, and at mentoring for young men and boys by father figures such as people in business who can take them to their work and show them what they do? Will the Minister look at how children’s centres are being funded? Will the Government look again at the lowering of the requirement for children's centres to have a graduate manager and question whether that is the right thing to do, given the importance of giving good opportunities to children from disadvantaged families?

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Phillips of Sudbury

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, would it help the Minister and the Committee if I were to say that the score is England 1, Slovenia 0?

[The Earl of Listowel]

I apologise if this has already been covered but the noble Baroness, Lady Perry of Southwark, pointed out that the academy schools will have considerable additional funds. I am sure that we will have discussed this; it is something that I should have given more attention to sooner. Could the Minister, in replying or in correspondence, give as much detail as possible on exactly how much academies can expect to be given? That would be helpful. I thank the Minister.