Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Scriven and Baroness Hamwee

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to make two brief points. The first is in response to the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, who talked about anyone over the age of 12 not being vulnerable. I find that a quite incredible thing to say, not just in the sense that 13, 14 and 15 year-olds are vulnerable, but because when we talked about votes for 16 and 17 year-olds in your Lordships’ House, people on those Benches were saying that 16 and 17 year-olds were not mature. So there is a form of hypocrisy here in terms of the age of those who are seen as vulnerable.

My second point is that it is a complete nonsense to suggest that this amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, would act as a pull factor. It suggests that parents and children are sitting in a war-torn part of the world and suddenly say that because 3,000 children have been accepted into the United Kingdom they are going to send their children here. People are fleeing because they fear for their children’s lives and their own lives, not because of some rational thought about what is being said in the sanitised, oak-panelled walls of this Chamber.

I end by saying this. I was brought up to do the right thing, not necessarily the easy thing or the technical thing about the territorial boundaries of where a child in need is. The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is the right thing to do. It is the moral thing to do. It sends a message about the morals of this country: that we open our hearts and our arms to those in greatest need. We do not turn our backs on vulnerable children.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, on behalf of these Benches, including my noble friends who have managed to restrain themselves from speaking—that is probably all of them—I want to say that the word “vulnerable” is overworked but entirely apt; this is not just about the youngest children. I have heard it said that a 14 or 16 year-old who has made his way from Afghanistan or Eritrea all the way across Europe is not a child. Well, he will certainly have had a lot of life experiences. Children come in a lot of shapes, sizes and ages, and a 14 year-old who is caring for his eight year-old brother still has the needs of a 14 year-old. The number of children who have disappeared must give us more than a hint of the abuse, exploitation and trafficking to which children can so easily fall prey. Even those who have not disappeared are unlikely to have avoided abuse and criminality entirely.

The Government have also claimed, although I do not think it has been referred to today, that accepting unaccompanied children risks separating them from their families. But the proposal, as I understand it, would apply to children who have been registered by the UNHCR as having no identifiable family in Europe or in their country of origin.

I turn to the pull factor. I will simply put it this way: there are so many push factors that we do not need to think about the pull factor. Something that has shocked volunteers working in northern Europe is the number of children involved, including some very tiny ones—their ages vary somewhat between the camps. This is not to deny the importance of assisting those who are in the camps in the Middle East, but to accept this amendment would be to acknowledge the huge public concern. When the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, referred to the contribution of refugees welcomed almost 80 years ago, I could see the nods of agreement right round the Chamber.

As to the mandatory nature of the amendment, I agree that it is not desirable to use legislation for a purpose for which it is not needed, but it would not have taken the form of an amendment if the Government had shown more movement towards the objective. Although the children in question may have rights in another European country, the situation surely is such that the UK should take the lead towards some sort of resolution.

I mentioned abuse, exploitation and trafficking. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, did not mention the Modern Slavery Act, but I suspect that it was in her mind. The Government are proud of that legislation, which addresses exploitation, abuse and trafficking. Let us join up the dots.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Lord Scriven and Baroness Hamwee

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I have referred previously to the cost of the statutory duties—in relation not just to the substance, but to the infrastructure built by the Bill. This amendment refers both to,

“local authorities and other specified authorities”,

but I particularly had in mind local authorities. I am not sure that I have yet done so, but I declare an interest in that I am joint president of London Councils.

I have previously mentioned the “new burdens” principle, which might be expected to apply to these activities, and I have previously referred to some of the costs which have been estimated by the Government. London Councils is unconvinced by these.

My noble friend Lord Scriven will speak to this amendment, so I shall simply explain that, as a way of drawing attention to the costs, the amendment proposes an annual report to Parliament by the Secretary of State. The matter could be included in a report dealing with other matters. Maybe there should be some prospective reporting of the costs anticipated to be incurred.

On the first day of Report, I think it was, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, referred to the refusals to disclose money allocated to the Metropolitan Police for counterterrorism for security reasons, though, as he observed, some detail of that budget eventually comes into the public domain as it is scrutinised by the London Assembly. I used to chair the Assembly’s budget committee, so I remember all that.

There should be as much transparency in this area as possible. There is a lot of concern about the costs and, in any event, what money is spent on what is a matter of public interest. I beg to move.

[Lord Scriven]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Hamwee, and I thank the Minister for guiding the Bill so ably and patiently through the House. I am aware of the time, so I will try not to keep the House too long.

Until now, the debate has been about putting on to a statutory footing the powers that some specified organisations will have and some that they will not. The Minister, along with others who support this going on to a statutory footing, has indicated that this is to bring the rest up to the standard of the best. I know, as I am sure do many people who have had responsibility for public service and budgets, that bringing things up to the best does not necessarily mean being able to do it on the cheap; there is a cost associated with it.

Evidence has come from a number of organisations. In my former life as leader of a council, I was not one who participated in the Oliver Twist-type approach to budgeting by always asking for “more, please”; that is not the approach. However, when new burdens or new statutory responsibilities are being put on an organisation, it is only fair that it is adequately funded for those. As I say, evidence has come from a number of sources in the past couple of months about putting this on to a statutory footing—for example, from the Quilliam Foundation, the Local Government Association and a number of local authorities. More revealingly, the Audit Commission, when it did a report on Prevent in 2008-09, made it clear that resources were needed if this was going to be done effectively and efficiently. I assume that the Minister and the Government want to see this being done in that way.

It would be worth looking at the fact that historically something in the region of £140 million per year, or even more, was previously allocated to Prevent, and large cities were getting somewhere in the region of £600,000 per annum to deal with Prevent issues. I always go to impact assessments because they are very revealing, and I notice that in this one the Department for Communities and Local Government indicates that authorities will need somewhere between £4,000 and £40,000. Past evidence suggests that to do this to the best, large authorities need somewhere in the region of £600,000. It is telling that the impact assessment says that we do not have complete data on all the specified authorities that will be affected, and that is why there may be a discrepancy.

Manchester City Council, in a report that went to its cabinet only a few months ago, highlights specifically the financial burden that this is now having on a city such as Manchester, and says clearly that it cannot be sustained at its present level. So there is evidence historically; there are people who are not providers, or not public statutory bodies, such as the Quilliam Foundation, and existing providers of Prevent, who are saying that resources will be needed.

The London Borough of Sutton has done some work on the consultation and says that for such a borough, somewhere between £50,000 and £60,000 would be required for a Prevent co-ordinator—looking at local government, that is about the rate that such people are paid. Somewhere in the region of £250,000 would be required for new interventions, based on best practice from Wandsworth. Sutton also anticipates somewhere in the region of a £150,000 per annum increase in capacity for core safeguarding work, child protection and early work interventions.

This is not cheap. This is not work, if we are going to do it effectively, that can be done with existing resources; that is becoming very clear. The cost from Sutton does not include some of the extra work needed for administration and, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee suggested, some of the extra work needed for looking cross-border at a larger area.

Staff training is a full duty within the guidance. I quote from paragraph 37, which states:

“Local authorities will be expected to ensure that frontline staff have a good understanding of Prevent, are trained to recognise vulnerability to being drawn into terrorism and are aware of available programmes to deal with this issue”.

Staff training in itself will run into many hundreds of thousands of pounds for large authorities. Some of them have between 8,000 and 10,000 staff. The impact assessment states that it will cost £62 for 20 members of staff trained. For a local authority with between 8,000 and 10,000 front-line staff, as some of our large metropolitan authorities have, it will mean £31,000 to carry out just one section of the guidance. That is a significant cost.

I suggest that the duties placed on the public sector will be far more than the anticipated £10 million to £14 million per annum that the impact assessment suggests. I will give one example of why the figures are completely inadequate. Staff training is anticipated in the impact assessment to require an allocation by government of £300,000 per annum. There are 254,000 staff employed by the public sector in the north-east region. Assuming that only 50% of those are front-line staff, that is more than £300,000 per annum. Yet £300,000 per annum is being given for the whole country for staff training.

The amendment tries to get a commitment that, if we are going to go down the route of putting this onto a statutory footing and we want to make sure that local public bodies carry out best practice, adequate funding is provided. If not, the Government’s target of meeting best practice will not be achieved. Resources will not be available, particularly in the present climate in terms of public sector resources. So I ask the Minister the questions asked by my noble friend Lady Hamwee: will new burdens apply to the new duties that are to be put on the public sector, and will money be put forward annually, as the amendment says, before Parliament, so that local authorities and other public bodies locally will be compensated for the duties they will have under a statutory footing?

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Lord Scriven and Baroness Hamwee

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven]

If it is a function across health professionals and health services, the proportion of people who come into contact with an acute trust is significantly small. Why have the health service and GPs been excluded from the duty, yet consultants who see the minority of patients have been included? What is the significant difference in order for the Government to be making that delineation of clinicians?

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, if the Minister is going to come back to us on various points, perhaps he can include something on patient confidentiality.