Welfare Reform Bill

Lord German Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord German]

My Lords, I should like to follow that because it is an interesting perspective. I come to this issue as one who has been an ardent devolutionist and as someone who believes in power being passed—obviously, in my case—to Wales and to local government. So, although I come with a different historical perspective, I understand the historical perspectives of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, because I read all about it in an article that I am afraid I have lost. It quotes her at the front about how the money would be used in Wales.

I hope that for once the Minister can tell me the mechanism by which the money will be transferred to Wales and Scotland. I understand that it will be part of the local government settlement in England and in Wales part of the Barnett formula. If that is the case, we are transferring the power to deal with those matters to Wales and Scotland. Why should I not argue for that sense of purpose? I am arguing for it and am also arguing for local government to have responsibility. After all, would you expect the swimming pool attendant to have his case heard in London for a swimming pool somewhere in the valleys of Wales? Of course not. The people closest to this—colleagues and decision-makers—will know the local circumstances. This is only a very small part of the Social Fund that is being devolved.

There is accountability because there are elections for local government. Local government is held to account, and the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly are both held to account by their electors. Clearly, there is a role for those who are receiving the money to be accountable to their electorates. I cannot believe that if there is a purpose to deliver something locally it should not be passed on to local government. We do ourselves a disservice by not accepting that there is a democratic right for local government to exercise this ability. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that where I live in my country, her party supports no ring-fencing whatever for local government. It trusts local government to make those decisions. That is a form of devolution that is the right way.

We have to consider what functions are being transferred, whether to Wales or local government. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, in his usual manner of creating an environment, is absolutely right. If these are very small decisions about loans to people with whom the local council will already be in contact, surely it is right to trust local government to do it. I know that local government in England is ready, willing and able to do the job, and I know that there is an opportunity for their electorates to hold them to account. Sometimes it is important to let go and have the decision-making closer to the people whom it most affects.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

Perhaps I may challenge the noble Lord, Lord German. What he is saying is entirely applicable to Wales, where every local authority is a unitary authority and therefore has responsibility for both housing and social services and can read across, for example, from the help that will come from the discretionary housing allowance to the Social Fund. Often the same families need support in a crisis if, for example, a house has been flooded, has caught fire, or if someone is coming out of care, and so on. They will need both housing and social services help, and a unitary authority is rightly placed to give that, provided that it spends the money as it should.

However, the noble Lord has not mentioned that most local authorities in England do not want this because they are lower-tier authorities, and the social services which handle the Social Fund are upper-tier authorities. In the county of Norfolk, which is some 60 miles long and 40 miles wide, yellow lines are put on roads that you do not even drive down, and schools that you have never even visited are closed, which happened when I was a county councillor, because it was too large to be called local government. None the less, that social services authority will be determining the Social Fund for seven district councils, including one wholly urban authority, two semi-urban authorities and three or four rural authorities. As a result, there will be a postcode lottery within Norfolk because a county council of one political complexion will be dealing with half a dozen different authorities below it, responsible for housing and trying to manage the discretionary housing allowance at the same time.

We will therefore have two sets of officials, one at district level and one at county council level, dealing with the same vulnerable family, each of them focusing discretionary money with no mutual interlocking, decision-making or accountability. It is a bloody silly system that is being proposed and I hope that my noble friend presses the amendment to a vote and that, as a result, we give the other place a chance to think again.