Asylum Claims: Child Trafficking
Lord Touhig Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
It is certainly not Home Office policy that a child who has been trafficked should not receive the support they so need through the various agencies that can support them. In fact, if that child is an unaccompanied child, they will be in the care of a local authority, from which they will have all the support they need.
Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, the United Nations reports that one migrant child goes missing or is reported dead every single day. At the end of this month, together with colleagues from both Houses, I will take a report through the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on protecting vulnerable migrant children. Does the Minister agree that we can show the best of being British: that, although we are leaving the European Union, we can take a moral lead if we can tell our European colleagues that this Government have accepted the Dubs amendment?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I agreed with the noble Lord almost until the end. We can show our European partners what our record looks like on taking children who need our refuge and support. Yesterday, I gave the history of what we have done and set out what we intend to do. Next year, we intend to take 5,000 people through resettlement schemes. I am proud of our record; we are an example to all the states in Europe.
Children and Families Bill
Lord Touhig Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, I have added my name to that of the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, on Amendment 155 and it is to that cause that I wish to speak. If there is one thing where I find myself at one with the Government, it is in our shared ambition to encourage young disabled people to have the highest aspirations for their lives and to be self-assured and confident about their future. More and more disabled youngsters are liberating themselves, to the extent of refusing to accept their disability as a barrier. They are self-assured, confident and determined to have a full life.
For many, the pathway to that full life is through a university education but higher education facilities are currently excluded from the new framework created by the Bill. Given that I share with the Government this ambition that disabled youngsters should have the highest aspirations, I am mystified why they should be excluded. Indeed, I am sure that I am not alone in this Committee in thinking that. Many universities already meet the educational needs of disabled young people. Surely we want to feed and encourage this.
All too often, unfortunately, disabled students, even when given first-class support at universities, find it hard to access other services that they need. A report by the Trailblazers group found that 30% of young disabled people felt that the number of places where they could study was limited because of their concerns about an all-round care package. One student named Zoe, who was at Oxford, told Trailblazers:
“My local council had never sent a disabled person away to university before. They were quite insistent that I should stay and study at my local university (ranked at 119th as opposed to Oxford, ranked first), and do a course that I had absolutely no interest in. My decision to move away was treated with complete bewilderment; there was no understanding of how my care package would be accommodated, and the idea that agency care was more expensive in the new local authority caused real problems when negotiating”.
Lauren, who graduated from Manchester in 2012 and is now doing a master’s degree at Leeds, recalled:
“My local authority would not give me the required hours straight off. We had to appeal. Luckily we started the process a year before so had enough time to do this”.
Katy, who studies at Bedford, said:
“After an argument my home county agreed to pay for my personal care but I nearly didn’t qualify for funding as their criteria for supporting people was for those whose needs were ‘substantial or severe’”.
Finally, Rupert, who is at Canterbury Christchurch, added:
“First of all, I was living in Lewisham and Lewisham Council didn’t want to tell us that they were responsible for providing and funding the care themselves. They knew they had to but didn’t inform me. We found out through other sources, so they eventually paid up”.
Disability discrimination legislation has been in force since 1995, yet disabled people still have to struggle for equal access in many areas of our national life. Young people with a disability face challenges and hurdles enough that the rest of us do not face. Amendment 155 is a step in the right direction. It is one more step in creating a level playing field for all our citizens, able-bodied and disabled, thus ensuring that all can use their talents to the full and have a full life.
Lord Addington (LD)
Sometimes higher education provides better support than further education. I must declare that I have commercial interests in a firm that enables it to be done through the DSA. The transition between the two bits of education is probably unnecessarily complex. Making sure there is a smoother connection and an exchange of education from higher to further and the other way around would enhance the system and would probably allow people to study better in both places. I am interested to hear what my noble friend has to say on this matter. This is a recognised problem of transition and has been around a long time. It will be interesting to hear the Government’s thinking on this matter.
Baroness Northover
I thank the noble Earl for his comments—and for his thanks to me. Again, we are all very concerned, in this and other areas, that the transition of a child becoming a young person and into adulthood is supported as effectively as possible, especially for the more vulnerable of our young people. Again, I will make sure that the point the noble Earl made is fed in. It would help if he looked at the draft code of practice to see whether he feels reassured by that.
Lord Touhig
My Lords, I am sorry but I missed a little of what the noble Baroness said in response to me. Was the reference she made to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, about something in the Care Bill?
Baroness Northover
Yes. As I listened to the noble Lord, it struck me that some of the concerns he had would be addressed by the way that the care of a particular individual moving from one area to another should be looked after. He highlighted cases of students who wished to move from home to study at particular universities—just like all other young people who had those ambitions—but their personal situation stood in their way. We clearly need to ensure that that is not the case. The Care Bill should help in that regard because of the responsibilities there in terms of social care, outside the responsibilities I also mentioned in terms of education support.
Lord Touhig
I am grateful to the noble Baroness. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and I work quite closely on these matters.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, I support the comments that have been made by previous speakers. I shall add a brief comment on Amendment 104. At the end of his speech, the noble Lord, Lord Low, helpfully said that we need robust, accessible and effective information in the offer. I would add “consistent and detailed”. If parents are comparing different authorities, as they may have the option to move, they must be able to see apples and apples rather than completely different things. Despite our need for individualism within local authorities, it would be very helpful if the offer were expressed in a fairly familiar and consistent way.
There also needs to be some detail in it. I shall come on to that in a later group that also looks at the publication of the offer. Without that detail, it can be very difficult for parents to understand what is on offer. I know a qualified teacher of the deaf who has just retired. When I first met her 15 years ago, she was based in one school with a number of children who were being integrated into the mainstream there. She spent the last five years before she retired in her car tearing around the county from appointment to appointment. As far as the local authority was concerned, deaf children were being taught sign language, but a 20-minute session every other day is not good enough for a child just starting sign language. Parents might think that they are going to get a level of offer that they are not going to get if the information in the offer is not explicit.
Lord Touhig
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 110, which is in my name. It ties in with other amendments tabled which seek to ensure that the local offer has both teeth and some meaning for parents looking for support. The amendment places a duty on the responsible agencies to deliver the services that they say will be in the local offer. The Government have already placed a duty on health bodies to deliver what they outline in EHC plans. However, a corresponding commitment in relation to the local offer remains sadly absent from the Bill. It is the local offer that most children with additional needs—and there are 1.4 million of them—will be relying upon.
In the other place, the Minister said that to have such a duty would limit the services which groups such as voluntary and community organisations were prepared to offer. He also said that the local offer already increased accountability by involving children and young people and their families more and allowing them to compare what is offered. I agree that listening to children and young people and their parents, and ensuring that they have adequate information, is the right approach but the omission from the Bill of a duty on responsible agencies to deliver services is simply not right in terms of accountability, or in ensuring that families will actually receive the services specified as being needed in the local offer. It is important that there is real accountability. The Bill is currently lacking in this area for the delivery of the local offer. If we do nothing about it, there is a serious danger that the local offer will serve as merely a statement of ambition rather than as something upon which parents and families can rely. Amendment 110 would put some meat on this bone.
Lord Northbourne
I very much hope that I am not wasting the time of the Committee but I need to seek some guidance from the Minister. I am trying to put myself in the position of a local authority or the relevant responsible people in a local authority. The better the service they provide or purport to provide, the more people they will have to provide that service for because people will immigrate into their area. Does the money follow the quality of the service that is being supplied or is the pupil premium all they get? If the latter, the local authority has a very strong incentive to tone down its prospectus as far as possible because it does not want to attract more people into its area at the expense of the council tax payer, or indeed to overload the social services of that authority.
Lord Touhig
My Lords, I should like to say a few words about Amendment 109. I welcome Clause 30(3) because it outlines the provision to assist young people in preparation for adulthood. This preparation includes, among other things, assistance in finding employment. This is welcome but I am not sure that it goes far enough, and that is why I think that Amendment 109 would take us that step further.
The amendment would help to prepare young people to stay in work or to access any benefits that they need or are entitled to. The inclusion would also form part of a genuinely supported transition to adulthood. In addition to finding employment, many skills are involved in retaining it. Support in this area would surely aid young people in making the proper transition that the clause commendably strives to achieve. Similarly, in difficult economic times, with high youth unemployment, it is important that young people are aware of the benefits support they can get in order to progress into employment.
In the other place, the Minister referred to the code of practice. He said that,
“the local offer must include information about, for example, job coaches, who can support people who are already in employment, supported internships, apprenticeships, traineeships and support from employment agencies”.
He continued:
“The code also says that local authorities should provide some signposting about where young people can obtain advice and information about the financial support they can have not only when they seek employment, but after they are employed”.—[Official Report, Commons, Children and Families Bill Committee, 21/3/13; col. 435.]
Clearly, Ministers are aware of the vital importance of aiding young people to retain employment and access the benefits support that they need at appropriate times. This is necessary to ensure positive outcomes and real transitions for young people into adulthood.
In the letter that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, sent to noble Lords following the Second Reading, he said:
“Local authorities should ensure that early transition planning is in place for all young people with an Education, Health and Care Plan, focusing on positive outcomes and how to achieve them … When a young person is anticipated to be leaving education within two years, reviews of EHC Plans must plan for phased transition into the key life outcomes listed, with a greater emphasis on pathways to independent living, higher education and paid employment”.
These statements from Ministers are most welcome but remain a little vague. More specific skills training and support could be set out in the Bill, thereby placing within the legislation a real commitment properly to prepare young people for adulthood. That would be making considerable progress.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, the amendments in this group seek in different ways to put more detailed information in the Bill regarding the local offer. Let me deal with the issues that noble Lords have raised.
Amendment 103 of the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, seeks to ensure that the local offer includes specialist provision made in the independent sector, in particular that made by institutions covered by Clause 41. I thank the noble Baroness for acknowledging that this issue is in fact covered in the draft code of practice. I think she said that.
Children and Families Bill
Lord Touhig Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, I entirely endorse the arguments advanced by my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch on Amendment 73. I spoke about this at Second Reading and argued then that the Bill must protect existing rights for parents and young people and not diminish them. I think we all agree on that. At present, parents rely on their right to appeal statements at a tribunal. However, if my understanding is correct, under the new system that the Bill will introduce, only provision which is deemed to be,
“wholly or mainly for the purposes of education”,
can be appealed in this way. This raises the threshold, as my noble friend Lady Jones said, and it restricts the ability of parents to uphold their rights and support the needs of their children. The removal of the three words “wholly or mainly” is, I think, absolutely necessary.
My noble friend referred to the letter that the Minister sent to all noble Lords following the Second Reading debate. She mentioned that he said that the Government would be looking at ways to address this matter. He also explained—and this gave me some hope—why Clause 21(5) was included in the Bill, but he added:
“As there is now a duty on health commissioning bodies to secure the health care provision in a Plan, this clause is no longer necessary to ensure that the child or young person receives the health care provision specified in the Plan.
However, retaining the clause does enable young people and parents to appeal to the tribunal in respect of health care provision where it is defined as special educational provision in accordance with the clause—as now”,
a point just made. We now need some clarity from the Government about precisely what they want to do about this part of the Bill.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the president of Livability, which is an organisation that cares for people with complex needs. I am very concerned about this issue because we have two colleges for young people aged 16-plus where their social and educational needs are met together. Sometimes it is quite difficult to differentiate between the two, as we found during Ofsted inspections. If young people have extremely serious difficulties that need perpetual health provision and you are trying to help those young people to learn skills—the sort of skills whereby they can sit and pick up a cup instead of screaming all day, which is how they are when they arrive—it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate between education, social care and health provision. I am simply asking that nothing in the Bill should make that even more difficult. Usually we have difficulty getting payment for the social element of these colleges, but recently we have found ourselves being given the social element without the educational element of the colleges. Some really difficult issues are emerging and I should like to stop them before they develop. I should be delighted if the noble Lord, Lord Nash, would one day visit Nash College.
Lord Low of Dalston
My Lords, the Support and Aspiration Green Paper, published in 2011, contained the aspiration that it would be as good as its name and would make the system of provision less adversarial and give children, young people and their parents greater clarity about their rights. It clearly stated that local authorities would have to set out a local offer which parents could rely on. However, parents and special education professionals are concerned that the Bill will not put an end to the battles faced by families which the Green Paper so clear-sightedly analysed as a major blot on the system and pledged to end. They also worry that it fails to put in place appropriate accountability mechanisms in order to ensure that local authorities deliver the support that families need.
The Government’s intention to put children, young people and their parents at the heart of the system, and Ministers’ oft-repeated desire to ensure that the services outlined in the local offer are responsive to families’ needs, are commendable. The key to this is accountability: if families with disabled children and children with special educational needs are not able to hold local agencies to account for the delivery of the services in the local offer, they will have no way of ensuring that the services they need are available.
The Bill makes some useful moves in this direction. Clause 27 states that local authorities must consult children and young people with special educational needs and their parents when reviewing education and care provision in the local offer. Clause 30 requires local authorities to publish comments about their local offer from children with SEN and their parents, as well as the authorities’ responses to those comments. However, I am concerned that, while publishing the comments is a start, it will not of itself ensure that local offers are responsive to local needs. Local agencies will be under no obligation to act on the comments and to make the improvements parents want to see. Parents will still have to battle with local authorities for the services they need.
The amendment places the onus on local authorities to improve the service, rather than leaving children, young people and their parents to fight for their rights themselves. It would require local authorities, after publishing comments on the local offer, to involve young people and parents in producing an action plan to revise the education and care provision outlined in the local offer; to review and report on progress against the action plan; and then to revise the local offer accordingly. This would help to ensure that local support is responsive to local need.
Without this amendment, which is aimed at driving up the quality of local services, I fear that little will change for families, and the opportunity to transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of disabled children and children with special educational needs will be missed. Parents will still feel that they have to battle through the labyrinths of bureaucracy the Green Paper spoke about for the support they and their child need. I therefore hope that the Government will adopt this amendment, which will ensure that the local offer will be something parents can indeed rely on. I beg to move.
Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, I add my support to the noble Lord, Lord Low, on Amendment 98A, to which I have added my name. I shall also speak to Amendment 99, in my name and the names of my noble friend Lady Hughes and my noble friend Lady Jones.
The noble Lord, Lord Low, has outlined the objectives of Amendment 98A, which requires local authorities, where services that they provide have been found insufficient, to involve parents and young people in producing an action plan, to revise the education and care provision in the local offer and to review and report on progress against the action plan.
I look across the Room. I believe that the Minister has spent most of his life working in business. I am sure, therefore, that he would see the merits of this amendment; if he ran a business that was in danger of losing a major customer, he would want to find out why and then to put in place an action plan to deliver what the customer wanted, thereby keeping the business. Amendment 98A does just that. The provider of the service is required to engage with the user to ensure that what is provided is what is needed. That seems sensible to me.
I turn to Amendment 99. Clause 27 requires local authorities to keep education and care provision under review. While that is welcome, in the view of the Opposition it is insufficient. Amendment 99 would require local authorities to assess whether there was sufficient funding in place to be able to secure these services for all the children and young people who needed them. If they found that they lacked the wherewithal, they should consider jointly commissioning services with neighbouring local authorities where appropriate.
These are difficult economic times and there has been huge pressure on local authority spending and budgets. Whether or not services are secured and available should not depend on whether a particular local council can afford the level of provision needed to meet the needs of children and young people in its area. Therefore, collaboration strongly commends itself.
I am sure that I am not alone in believing that accountability is the key to these reforms. Parents, children and young people should be able to rely on the services provided by the local authority and render it accountable when that provision is not met. That seems fair and proper, and our amendment requires local authorities to consider working together and sharing services with neighbouring authorities. I believe that that already takes place in a number of London boroughs. I know that in my part of the country, Wales, a lot of collaboration is now taking place between local authorities that are sharing the ability to provide services across a number of boroughs.
Importantly, Amendment 99 would not constrain local authorities to work with others but would merely require them to consider doing so in the interests of improving services for children and young people. The amendment was dismissed in the other place, where the Minister said that the decision for spending on children and young people with special educational needs must remain one for the local authority. We would certainly agree with that, but nevertheless Amendment 99 highlights a problem and seeks to find a solution. If the Government recognise that there is a problem but do not want to accept this amendment as a solution, will the Minister explain how they will ensure that local authorities deliver the services that young people and children need and that they are accountable for providing those services? In other words, if the Government do not like our solution, what is their solution to a problem that we all recognise exists?
Baroness Wilkins (Lab)
My Lords, I support Amendment 98A, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and I echo his comments that accountability must be at the heart of SEN reforms in the Bill. I will also speak to Amendment 99, which is a better version of my Amendment 98, which I withdrew.
Times are tough for all families, but for families with disabled children the challenges are even more acute. The current SEN system has led to parents with disabled children all too often feeling powerless, overwhelmed by the seemingly endless bureaucratic hurdles that they need to jump over to access the support their children need. Parents are exhausted, demoralised and unable to understand why it is such a battle for their children’s needs even to be recognised, let alone given adequate support.
Recent evidence shows that one in eight families in England who have a child with SEN are being pushed to breaking point by a lack of support. Scope’s Keep Us Close report found that 62% of these families said that the services they need are not available in their local area and that that has a serious impact on their family life. It is vital that robust accountability measures are in place around the local offer. This would give parents the confidence that their needs would be listened to and that local support would be in place to enable their children to be a part of their community and part of society, and to have the same opportunities as their non-disabled peers.
Amendment 98A would ensure that the local offer was not merely a “Yellow Pages” of SEN support, as many fear it will be, but was rather a living document, responsive to the needs of families and with a clear intention to improve local services. The current requirement in the Bill for local authorities to publish comments from parents on the local offer, although an important first step, does not go far enough and will not fulfil the Government’s ambition to, in the words of the Children’s Minister, put the child and their family in the driving seat. The amendment would require that local authorities actively involved parents and young people,
“in producing an action plan to revise the education and care provision”,
outlined in the local offer,
“review and report on progress against its action plan”,
and then,
“revise the local offer accordingly”.
That would give Clause 27 some much needed teeth. It should confine the battles, fights and struggles faced by parents to the SEN history books.
Care Services: Abuse of Learning Disabled
Lord Touhig Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Touhig
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rix, for securing this debate and for bringing to it his very great experience and background in giving support and care to people with disabilities.
In his Statement on the final report on Winterbourne View, the Minister for Care and Support, Mr Norman Lamb, said that,
“hospitals are not where people should live”.
He was so right. He went on:
“There are far too many people with learning disabilities or autism in hospital, and they are staying there for too long—sometimes for years … We should no more tolerate people being placed in inappropriate care settings than we would people receiving the wrong cancer treatment”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/12/12; col. 49.]
However, the truth is that we have been prepared to tolerate this sort of care—and for far too long. We have simply tinkered at the edges of the issue of caring for people with learning disabilities.
As the noble Lord, Lord Rix, said, more than 30 years ago the big idea was care in the community. Everyone got worked up calling for the closure of institutionalised hospitals and care homes. At the county hospital near where I then lived in Pontypool was a ward called St Hilda’s Ward. The hospital had been the local Victorian workhouse and this ward was given over to the care of around a dozen ladies with learning difficulties. It had become their home and they had become very much part of the community, shopping in local shops and attending every event from carol services to school fêtes. Care in the community was supposed to end this sort of caring arrangement, giving people an independent life in their local community, but I believe for many it has made things worse. In order to give people a degree of independence, they were put into small houses and encouraged to live in what were supposed to be family units, but for many the care was non-existent.
A dear friend of mine was persuaded that her daughter with Down’s syndrome would be better off living independently in the community. She was placed in a house with two elderly men, both of whom had dementia. The so-called care amounted to a person—often a different person—calling each morning to see that they had breakfast, coming again in the middle of the day to see that they had a midday meal, and calling late in the afternoon to see that they had tea or supper. The rest of the time they were left alone, with next to no contact with neighbours or anyone but close family. My friend’s family rightly removed this lovely young person from this so-called care in the community placement. It simply did not work and care in the community did not amount to a tin of beans.
Contrast that with three young women, all with Down’s syndrome, whom I met during the Blaenau Gwent by-election. They lived together in a small house and their carer lived with them. It was truly a family environment. They had a rich and varied social life, and the carer was part of their family. That is real care in the community, but I believe it to be the exception rather than the rule. If any noble Lords walk down Victoria Street tonight, barely a few hundred yards from this Chamber they will see people sleeping in doorways. Many clearly have mental health problems and learning difficulties, but their homes are cardboard boxes. This is the life of many who should be cared for in the community.
The Minister, Mr Lamb, said that all hospital placements will be reviewed by June 2013 and everyone who is there inappropriately will move to community-based support as quickly as possible. Could the Minister say precisely what is meant by a move to community-based support? If it is like the so-called care in the community that we have now, I wonder how many will end up like the poor souls sleeping on Victoria Street.
I would now like to spend a few minutes speaking about another matter of concern—disability hate crime. More than a third of the patients at Winterbourne View had a diagnosis of autism and the National Autistic Society, of which I, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, have the honour of being a vice-president, has been campaigning to end poor care and abuse at large, institutional-style services such as Winterbourne View since “Panorama” first aired its programme. The 11 individuals who were charged following the Winterbourne View scandal were charged with disability hate crimes. Disability hate crime is a major concern, regardless of whether someone is in hospital, a care home or the community. It is clear that nobody should suffer abuse because of their disability. In race-related hate crime, the Attorney-General has the power to intervene to increase sentencing where he believes that it has been too lenient. I strongly believe that this power should be extended where there has been a disability-related hate crime.
A lack of training and support for staff can contribute to poor and, in the most extreme cases, abusive practices such as those seen at Winterbourne View. It is vital, therefore, that staff have access to training in the specific needs of patients, especially those with autism. The Department of Health made specific commitments related to training in the adult autism strategy. However, I know that the National Autistic Society is concerned that such commitments have not been fulfilled. In July, the National Audit Office published a memorandum explaining that, despite progress in many areas, key recommendations related to training had not been implemented. Its report demonstrates that the Government have failed to, for example, work with the National Health Service and local authorities to identify priority groups for training and to ensure that autism awareness training is available to everyone working in health or social care.
I urge the Government—and I am sure I am not alone in this—to ensure that the training commitments made in the adult autism strategy are fulfilled. The review of the strategy will take place next year. This is the chance for the Government to carry out their promise to ensure adequate training. I certainly hope that they will embrace that.
Crime and Courts Bill [HL]
Lord Touhig Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Touhig
“( ) In fixing such an amount, and subsequent additions, account must be taken of the person’s relevant weekly income, excluding housing benefit and child benefit, and allowance must be made for the protection of a reasonable financial subsistence level, in the manner used to determine the initial fine.”
Lord Touhig
My Lords, this amendment will extend the means-testing system currently used in the calculation of court fines so that it also applies to the calculation of additional costs which, under Clause 20, will be imposed on people as a result of late or incomplete fine repayments.
The rationale behind means-testing in the justice system is laid out clearly in the magistrates’ court sentencing guidelines, which make clear that while financial punishments should cause a degree of hardship, they should not force people below an income level required to meet their most basic needs. Furthermore, they should impact equally upon offenders regardless of their financial situation. On this basis, fines are set as a percentage of the offender’s relevant weekly income, minus child benefit and housing benefit.
However, as the Bill now stands, those who miss payments for whatever reason will be liable for extra costs that take no account of their means at all. Consequently they may be left owing significant sums that they simply cannot afford, even being forced to cover repayments using benefits that were protected in the calculation of the initial fine.
This has raised serious and urgent concerns among charities and others working with vulnerable individuals and families. The Catholic Children’s Society in Westminster has said that imposing costs on parents without taking account of their financial means presents a serious risk to their children. It states:
“Child benefit exists to support children’s basic needs and is quite rightly excluded from the calculation of fines … It would be iniquitous to undermine this by adding further non means-tested costs that could jeopardise children’s wellbeing … Ultimately, under the government proposals children will suffer because of their parent’s inability or failure to meet payment deadlines. This is neither a just nor acceptable situation”.
If the current system of means-testing is applied to the new financial penalties outlined in the Bill, such a situation can easily be averted. Offenders with dependent children will still be penalised for not meeting fine payments in full or on time, but the sanction will protect the amount required for meeting those children’s essential needs. Similarly, all those required to make extra payments, regardless of their family situation, will maintain the basic amount needed to cover fundamental costs such as food and housing.
It should be emphasised that, with basic subsistence levels being accounted for in this manner, the Government’s aims of incentivising timely payment and reducing the cost of recovering fines will not be undermined. In fact, with means-tested amounts as opposed to arbitrary or standard sums being imposed, repayment may be more likely, as people will be subject to payments that they can realistically meet rather than face mounting debts that they may have no real chance of ever paying off. Equally, by maintaining safeguards against forcing people into unsustainable financial situations, the public purse will be protected from potentially significant expenses in the long term.
In response to the points that I made at Second Reading, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said that,
“if the offender provides accurate means information at the outset of their engagement with the justice system and keeps to the payment plan set out by the court, enforcement action will not take place”.—[Official Report, 28/5/12; col. 1067.]
However, as those working on the front line know only too well, in reality a whole array of circumstances prevent people keeping to their payment plans.
I welcome recent government pilot schemes to aid compliance such as text-messaging reminders when payments are due, but these will not provide a universal fail-safe against offenders defaulting on amounts owed, nor are they intended to do so. As I have previously stressed, people should face up to their financial responsibilities and should not be exempt from covering any extra costs that the Courts and Tribunals Service incurs as a result of their deviation from their agreed payment plan. However, the principles of equality and basic subsistence that underpin other financial penalties must apply here. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will take that on board and consider extending the current means-testing system to apply to the new financial penalties as outlined in the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
My Lords, I support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig. Clause 20 as I understand it writes new Section 75A into the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980. Under that new section, the costs incurred in the collection of a fine should be added to it. No discretion is given to a magistrates’ court, once the machinery has commenced, to decide whether to make an order. The Bill states quite baldly that those costs shall be added. There is no question, therefore, of a court saying, “Well, in the circumstances, we do not think that it would be appropriate to make an order here”. Once those basic facts have been proven, the machinery runs in a way that is less than fair.
Lord Touhig
Would I be right in thinking that, without any form of means test for the additional fine, it could be greater than the original fine?
Baroness Northover
In theory, I suppose that that could be the case. The important issue here is that the offender stays closely in touch with the fines officer. If an offender has a very small fine decided because of their circumstances, ways to pay that should be sorted out and the offender assisted in that regard. Only a very small fine would be overtaken by the cost of pursuing it, one would imagine. As I said, it is extremely important for the offender and the fines officer to work through the implications of the decision taken by the court.
Lord Touhig
My Lords, I must say that I am somewhat disappointed by the Minister’s response. I entirely agree—I said it at Second Reading and I have said it today—that people should be responsible for paying the debts that are due. If they are fined for an offence, they should be responsible for paying those debts. However, as the Minister said, people often live chaotic lifestyles. We think that it is right that the guidelines of a magistrates’ court make it clear that, although the fine should provide a degree of hardship, it should not leave people with an income on which they cannot survive. Surely we should protect children and the person’s ability to pay for food and housing. Those are three basic things: children, food and housing.
Baroness Northover
I remind the noble Lord that I said that, if offenders find themselves in the circumstances that he describes, they can go back to the court and the administration cost, too, can be varied or set aside. It is not as cast-iron or concrete as the noble Lord suggests.
Lord Touhig
I apologise. I accept the point that the noble Baroness made in her earlier response. The point I seek to make is that if we think that the guidelines to the magistrates should take account of those elements, surely it is right that any additional fine should take account of those elements. At the end of the day, because of the lifestyles of some people, some fines will never be paid. That is wrong, but they will not. The taxpayer will end up paying more if children are not properly cared for. Social services will be involved. Someone will lose a house and have to go into emergency accommodation. The Government are storing up a problem here which could be avoided by simply saying, yes, if a form of means testing is used to determine the initial fine, any additional fine should have the same application.
I regret that the Government do not see it that way. There is clearly much work that we must do as missionaries to persuade the Government, before the Bill passes, of the error of their ways. With those few remarks, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but give notice that I shall come back to it at a later stage.