Transfer of Responsibility for Relevant Children (Extension to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2017

Debate between Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord Dubs

Monday 22nd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, of course, the transfer scheme has been necessary. There has been more pressure on Kent and Croydon than on other parts of the country, so no one questions the necessity of the scheme. Therefore, it is good to bring Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland within its scope. I am a little puzzled as to why that has not been done sooner. The scheme has been going for some time. Either it was unnecessary earlier, in which case the Minister will tell us, or there is some other reason. Perhaps she could also tell us how some children have been transferred to Scotland without being part of the scheme, which did not then exist.

I notice from the Explanatory Memorandum that the Government intend to review the funding to be provided for local authorities. I know that the Explanatory Memorandum is not an integral part of the regulations, but it is nevertheless interesting that it has been stated there, and I very much welcome it.

I also welcome the reference to the safeguarding strategy. Can the Minister assure us that the strategy, which was agreed some time ago, will apply equally to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? I think that was the intention, but I am not sure it has happened.

Will the Home Office set up a new consultation to deal with the process of getting children to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? I assume that it has some method of contacting the local authorities there directly—perhaps the Minister will confirm that—so that they can respond immediately; or will this be done through the Scottish Government and the Welsh Assembly? In any case, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, there is also the question of what will happen specifically in Northern Ireland.

We have discussed before the adequacy or otherwise of previous Home Office consultations with local authorities, and we need a new one. If we are to have another consultation on children covered by the transfer scheme, could it not also address other unaccompanied asylum-seeking children dealt with under the new agreement reached between the Prime Minister and President Macron a few days ago? The Home Office could have one wider consultation covering local authorities’ possible responses to the new children coming in, and to those who are the subject of the transfer scheme. This is not the occasion fully to discuss the Sandhurst agreement. All I would say is that, as far as it goes, it is very welcome.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I am happy to support the regulation before the House and declare an interest as a local councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I first pay tribute to Kent County Council, members and staff, who have for many years worked very hard to deal with the issue of asylum seekers, particularly vulnerable unaccompanied children. Kent’s proximity to France and mainland Europe, and its ports of Dover, Folkestone, Ramsgate and other ports and harbours has meant that it has had to carry a heavy load. We are very grateful for that, as we are to all the other local authorities that have taken unaccompanied children in recent times.

All of local government should play a full role in looking after children fleeing conflict and there is no excuse for any local authority not to do so. So I welcome the Government taking these powers. It is right that they should be extended UK-wide, as this is a national response to a human tragedy. I hope it will not be necessary to use these powers as I hope every local authority in the UK will be willing to step up and play its part.

That is not to say that I do not have some criticism of the Government’s handling of the child refugee crisis. Despite votes being won in this House, pledges given and legislation amended, the Government’s response can sometimes be seen as mean-spirited in respect of children, and that is a matter of much regret. More should and could be done to protect vulnerable children who are fleeing persecution. We could take more children if we were minded to do so.

That means not only children in northern France but those in Italy and Greece who are also vulnerable. My noble friend Lord McConnell could not be here. He had another engagement and could not wait, as business has gone on a bit longer than we thought it would today. I know that he had some positive discussions with officials from the noble Baroness’s department. He was going to raise the issue of discussions between Ministers in the UK Government and Ministers in the Scottish Government, and whether there had been correspondence between them. If so, could that correspondence be published?

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and my noble friend Lord Dubs raised important points, and I look forward to the response to them. Having said that, I support the instrument and think it is a positive step forward.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord Dubs

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s statement and congratulate my noble friend Lord Dubs, who has been doggedly pursuing this issue for some time now. He produced a Private Member’s Bill and pursued this matter here, and we have a very good conclusion.

[Lord Dubs]

This is a very happy occasion when we are all in such agreement. I am most grateful to the Minister for what she said and for the commitment she entered into, which I think is pretty good. Everybody I have spoken to says it is pretty good and that we can move forward with it. I cannot guarantee that the Minister will be a headline in the Evening Standard, but she jolly well ought to be. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord Dubs

Monday 24th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Snape. Counties are the starting point of any boundary review. They are not the building blocks; wards are the building blocks. Those of us who have been involved in boundary reviews in various capacities will know that. I would include among that group myself, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, and many noble Lords on all sides of the House who have served in the other place. They will know that counties are the starting point. Outside London, you always start with a county—it can be a shire county or a metropolitan county. You are advised of the number of seats in that county and the initial recommendations of the Boundary Commissions are published.

I recall my time working in the east Midlands, when Derbyshire received an extra seat. That came into force at the last general election and the constituency was called Mid Derbyshire. This was because the electorate had increased and the county qualified for a new seat. I was always clear that that would be a Conservative seat and in May last year it returned a Conservative MP. There were knock-on effects. The review resulted in High Peak becoming coterminous with the district council boundary. That was positive and sensible. A seat called Derbyshire Dales was created close to the boundaries of Derbyshire Dales District Council. The South Derbyshire constituency became coterminous with the boundary of the district council; previously, it had contained a couple of wards in the City of Derby.

There are of course seats all across the county that cross different district boundaries, but all are contained within the county. The county is compact; it provides historic identity and people understand it. Take away those county boundaries and what do we risk? In Derbyshire, bits of High Peak would go into Greater Manchester. North East Derbyshire would be put together with Sheffield, while seats that are largely based on the towns and districts of Erewash and Amber Valley would be ripped up. The historic A52, which was recently named Brian Clough Way, in recognition of what Brian Clough brought to Nottingham and Derby, was put in a Leicestershire seat. It is wrong to ignore these boundaries. Greater London is a county and is allocated a number of seats. It is true that in Greater London seats cross borough boundaries, but account is taken of that. That recognition would go under these proposals.

Seats and communities of course change and movements in boundaries should take account of those changes. However, the Government’s proposals are deeply flawed, as nothing else matters but the number of people, who are thereby denied their right to proper input. They will have the right to send in a letter but not to appeal to an inquiry. That is not right. It is most regrettable that the Government have not moved on these proposals, but I live in hope, given what we have heard from the Leader of the House this afternoon.

The names of seats are also important. This is sometimes forgotten, but boundary inquiries are a good forum for looking at them. The inquiries do not always get it right, but they can improve the situation. I grew up in Walworth in the London Borough of Southwark. When I joined the Labour Party in 1979, I found that I was in the Southwark Peckham CLP. I went to secondary school in Peckham, but calling the seat Southwark Peckham did not reflect the community. The proper name should have been Camberwell, Peckham and Walworth, which would have identified the three distinct communities in that constituency. I am pleased that in a subsequent review the seat was renamed Camberwell and Peckham, which better reflects the constituency, because most of Walworth has been included in Bermondsey and Old Southwark, although that name could be improved.

I bring my remarks to a close in the spirit that has been expressed on both Front Benches. I hope that a deal can be sorted out shortly.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, I support these amendments. Perhaps I may give an example of where even the Boundary Commission does not always get it right. The point is that there are, at present, ways of getting it right subsequently.

I had the privilege of representing the Battersea constituency. We had an anomalous situation on the Wandsworth/Lambeth border. My constituency was within Wandsworth. As noble Lords know, Wandsworth had a Conservative council and Lambeth, which adjoined it, had a Labour council. One council estate that belonged to Wandsworth was partly in Wandsworth and partly in Lambeth. That might not have been so bad in itself, except that Wandsworth’s policy was to have a low council tax and to charge pretty heavy rents to council tenants. Lambeth’s policy was to have a high council tax and to charge low rents to council tenants.

Think of the position of a block of flats in Lambeth in a Wandsworth-run council estate. The poor people living in the Lambeth bit of the estate had pulled two short straws. They had to pay the high council tax in Lambeth and the high rents charged by Wandsworth Council. They were caught both ways. Fortunately that situation was adjusted, but the anomaly of splitting a council estate in two by a constituency and, as it then was, a borough boundary is clearly nonsense. I only hope that such things will not happen again, which is why many of us are concerned that, if anomalies of this sort are built into the system, it will damage local communities, local people and the politics of the area.

Perhaps I may widen the argument away from that example. We have discussed representing a constituency that was in more than one local authority area. I would have found that pretty difficult. Many noble Lords have represented areas, either as local councillors or in Parliament. It is difficult to represent an area and deal with another local authority. It is possible under the present system that one might have to deal with another health authority. That is also difficult and I do not know what the future will be for the health service in that regard. For a Member of Parliament to be effective, it is surely important that the constituency should reflect the community, the local authority area and the way in which the health service operates. In that way, a Member of Parliament can be most effective.

Take the situation where one wants to achieve better co-operation between a health authority and the social services department of the local authority—co-operation that occasionally does not work too well. If a Member of Parliament is to be effective, he or she needs to be able to understand these relationships and, it is to be hoped, to have these bodies covering the same area. We used to call them coterminous boundaries.

The other important area is not just the community but the way in which a Member of Parliament relates to local voluntary groups in the community. These groups tend to relate to natural community boundaries. It is difficult to achieve an effective relationship with one’s constituents if the community groups do not cover an area similar to that of the constituency. I had another difficulty in Battersea, because part of the constituency was in Balham and the people of Balham did not like to be called residents of Battersea. We had to deal with that one, but it was all done within the local authority boundary, and it was a matter of just recognising that the community in Balham was different from the community in the northern part of Battersea.

I would like to feel that the Boundary Commission will be empowered by amendments to the Bill that take these matters into account. I honestly believe that the ideal situation is when a Member of Parliament represents one community within one local authority area, not two. That would make for the most effective relationship and the most effective work of the political parties and it would enhance democracy.