UNESCO: Westminster World Heritage Site

Debate between Lord Mawson and Baroness Jolly

Thursday 26th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jolly]

My understanding is that there is plenty of policy at a national and a local level, and there are probably people who are not terribly happy about that policy.

[Lord Mawson (CB)]

My Lords, major changes are being proposed for the Palace of Westminster in the coming years. These include a many millions of pounds upgrade to the building, the possible removal of the archive and a new education centre. Could the Minister please tell the House who the named individual is with responsibility for and overview of all these moving parts?

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Lord Mawson and Baroness Jolly

Monday 28th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords, I can give an example of where it has been provided. Today I have been talking to the operations director of Peninsula Health Care. That was the provider arm for the Cornwall PCT which was providing community hospitals and community services, and which is now a community interest company as of 1 October 2011. It has already brought across all the arrangements that it has with its local authority; Section 75 and so on, shared budgets for equipment, and all sorts of innovative work alongside.

The whole thrust of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, was part of our manifesto, it was part of the coalition agreement, and I feel quite comfortable about supporting it.

[Lord Mawson]

My Lords, I am very sympathetic to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for very practical reasons. I am building a street at the moment in Tower Hamlets, and part of that street is not only a new school but a new health centre, which has been under development for five years. The health centre proposals were begun in the previous Government’s time in office. It is true that the Bromley-by-Bow Centre, when competing for that practice, was not on a level playing field. It is very difficult to compete with a multinational company that could undercut the price per patient to £75 per head, when I, having run an integrated health centre for 20-odd years, knew that the real costs were probably around £119 per patient and that the £75 per patient was not sustainable. It was very interesting going through the whole of that process, of proper competition and then losing the competition, to three years later, when I was approached by that company which admitted that the business plan did not work and asked whether we could help rescue the situation, which we have now done, and the multinational business has now withdrawn. I know that there is a problem here that we need to get our heads round, and I know and believe that the Government are serious about wanting the social enterprise sector and the voluntary sector to play their full role. It is a practical problem that needs to be got hold of.

The other thing that I know from experience is that bureaucracies like to talk to bureaucracies. I know that large government departments often find it easier to talk to large businesses. Indeed, we have seen this happen over many years. I am in favour of the private sector. We work a lot with the private sector, and I do not think that it is a case of one of the other. However, I have noticed how easily civil servants translate across into large companies, with the bureaucracy carrying on under other names, and organisations that are leaner and more innovative sometimes find it very difficult to break in. Therefore, if the Government are really serious about allowing some of us who do this work but are smaller in scale to break into this market and grow in capacity, then something will need to happen here to help that.

I also know from experience that one way in which we have grown in capacity is by forming relationships with one or two businesses. They have got to know what we are about and we have got to know what they are about, and we have formed partnerships and grown opportunities together. As I mentioned earlier, a £35 million LIFT company has now built 10 health centres. When we formed that relationship, which is a bit like a marriage, we got to know about each other’s worlds. We are now in a social enterprise with that business carrying out landscape work on 26 school sites. Therefore, there are things that government can do.

In my experience, some businesses are becoming more intelligent about this, although some businesses are not. The Government should be using their muscle to encourage businesses to form these local partnerships. If they do not do that, the danger will be that the profits made in poorer communities will be sucked out of the area, rather than there being virtuous circles around the areas creating more jobs and opportunities in local contexts. Therefore, I am sympathetic to the amendment. I would encourage the Government to look again at some of the practical issues and how they work in practice on the ground.