Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill

Debate between Karl Turner and Andy Slaughter

Monday 20th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Garnier]

Not quite that.

Between now and the Bill’s arrival in the other place, I urge Ministers and the very bright lawyers and policy assistants at the Ministry of Justice to have another think about it. At the moment, it is a silly Bill, and I do not like being party to the passing of silly legislation, no matter how well motivated it is. Having said all that, I apologise to my hon. Friend the Minister because he is a decent, honest and great Justice Minister; it is just his bad luck that he was holding the parcel when the music stopped.

[Mr Slaughter]

I will take one of the hints from Government Members—I am not going to encourage more than one vote in relation to these matters. I do not think I can improve on what the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) has said, very gently, but very persuasively and firmly, about this Bill. I can see from the Minister’s demeanour that he is as embarrassed by the Bill as, is almost everybody else in the House.

I do not know whether the Minister has had an opportunity to look at the Law Society’s briefing, and neither do I know whether that briefing is a retaliation for his slightly ill-tempered treatment of the Law Society witnesses in Committee, but it puts the icing on the cake of what we have heard from the hon. and learned Gentleman. It points out that the Bill will impact not only on the matters that we have been discussing but

“on the selling of financial products, on the rights of children in care, on property transactions, on insurance transactions; indeed, an endless list that will include every sector of industry, every area of public activity and every kind of personal interaction outside marriage and criminality.”

It raises the issue of

“how evidence of heroic state of mind will be demonstrated.”

It says that the Bill

“seeks to influence judicial decision-making which the Society believes is inherently wrong.”

Those are very trenchant and well-made criticisms of the Bill.

I am afraid that the more one examines the Bill, the more it seems, notwithstanding the amendments we have tabled, that it is almost irreparable—that it is, as the hon. and learned Member for Harborough said, a silly Bill that it would be better to strangle before it gets on to the statute book.

[Karl Turner]

Is not this shambles of a silly Bill a good example of why the person holding the office of Lord Chancellor should be legally trained?

[Mr Slaughter]

I am not going to go down that route today. The Lord Chancellor does not often grace the House with his presence on Justice Bills any more, or take part in these debates, so it is almost as though he has absented himself from the legal world entirely. We wish him good luck with his future career, whatever discipline he chooses next to address.

I take comfort from the Law Society’s belief that

“the Bill has been poorly drafted and will not prevent meritorious claims being made and won where, in any scenario, negligence and/or breach of statutory duty has been proved.”

The Opposition and, I think, the hon. and learned Member for Harborough are of the view that the Bill will be treated with disdain and polite ignorance by the courts and therefore we do not need to fret too much about it.

I do not intend to press amendments 2, 3, 4 or 6 to a vote. However, because we believe that clause 3—in its intent, if not in its execution—is a harmful, misleading and rather spiteful little clause designed to further attack provisions for health and safety at work, we will press amendment 5 to a vote. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw amendment 2.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: 5, page 1, line 9, leave out Clause 3.—(Mr Slaughter.)

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Sure Start Children’s Centres

Debate between Karl Turner and Andy Slaughter

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Slaughter]

If the hon. Gentleman bears with me, I am sure that he will get the point that I am coming to, but, in essence, because the money is not ring-fenced, my local authority has voluntarily chosen, in the face of what it says is a 13% cut from the Government, to make a 45% cut in the first year. That came about in the following way, which bears some analysis.

[Karl Turner]

It seems that the temptation for Government Members is to say that councils are making decisions for political effect, but that is simply not true. My Lib Dem local authority settled its budget last Thursday, and the cut to Sure Start children’s centres was huge—something like more than 50%. That was certainly not done for political effect, because as a Lib Dem council it was already very concerned about the prospect of annihilation at the May elections.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I shall now try to make some progress.

On or about 27 December—a time when we are all assiduously reading Government and council documents—my local authority published a report on family support, indicating what funding would be available over the next financial year. The report addressed Sure Start—not directly, but obliquely—first by rubbishing Sure Start provision, saying that although the centres were

“clearly popular with families, and seem likely to have some preventive impact, we have much less clear evidence about the degree of impact this has—including on the ultimate number of children falling into child protection”,

and that

“early studies showed no clear evidence of impact on early school results”.

That might come as a surprise to Members on both sides of the House, given that we heard my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree earlier quoting the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister—certainly before the election—expressing their strong support for Sure Start. However, those rather vague and grudging comments were used as the basis for reducing Sure Start funding by over 50%, with the council report saying:

“However, it is not likely under this scenario that LBHF could continue to directly fund more than 6 Children’s centre teams. In any case we would no longer seek to directly run centres”,

adding that it aimed

“to maintain some provision at most centres, through small amounts of pump-priming funding.”

In the financial section of the report, however, no money whatever was provided for such pump priming; money was provided simply to keep the remaining six centres open.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, by the time report came to committee and was due to be dealt with on 10 January, there was what might be called “a row on the town” in that a large number of people were concerned about it and turned up at the meeting. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) was one of them, so she might want to comment further in her own speech. At that meeting, the authority, faced with great popular disapproval, told people that they had misunderstood the position as no centres were going to be closed, and had misunderstood that the decision had already been taken as consultation was about to be launched. That is what we were told. That would have sounded quite good, save for the fact that the report was then passed in its entirety, including the 50% cut to the budget. We were in the peculiar position of being told one thing when a decision had been taken that was entirely contrary to it. The situation became even more complicated when, later in the same week and rushed out in response to public demand and other factors, a consultation paper was published, with an extra £19,000 slipped in, which turned out to be the pump-priming money—the £19,000 that was going to the Sure Start centres under threat of closure.

Leaving aside the fact that this was shambolic, chaotic and no way to run anything, let alone a local authority, we need to reflect on the reasons for this process of decision making. There were three. The first was connected to public relations. By putting £19,000 into centres that previously had no money at all, the authority could say to the general public and the media, who by this time were taking a strong interest in the issue, that it was not closing the Sure Start centres. Secondly, the consultation was done quite successfully, but it confused the parents and users of those centres, who were told that the centres were not closing but staying open as a result of this £19,000. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, somebody had bothered to look at the regulations, so a scrutiny report was published at the same time, making the observation:

“Local authorities have duties under the Childcare Act 2006 to consult before opening, closing or significantly changing children’s centres, and to secure sufficient provision to meet local need”.

The authority realised that it would be subject to judicial review if the consultation process did not happen. I suspect that it will still be subject to judicial review because consulting after the decision has been made is not the best option.