Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Baroness Smith of Basildon

Thursday 12th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a very powerful point. I followed on from her at the Cabinet Office, where we had the v programme in place. I was reminded of that only last week when I had an email from a young man who became a volunteer in my office and is now a mental health worker. He would never have taken that step had it not been for the opportunity to volunteer and the support to do so. She makes a powerful point around linking government together, and I was interested in her comment about mental health as well. Talking to a number of young people, it seems to me that one thing that has quite a significant impact on young people’s mental health is the insecurity of their housing. If we can address some of that to ensure good-quality, secure housing for young people—and that young people are part of the solution in building those homes as well—that goes a long way. The opportunities for young people and the expectations of young people about their future concern us enormously. She is right that the only way to tackle that is across government.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government’s milestones are very much to be welcomed as steps towards progress in the broader strategy over the years ahead. It is somewhat depressing to find—maybe not surprisingly from the Conservatives but more so from the Liberal Democrats—the dismissive tone saying, “You’ll never achieve those aims. They are quite unrealistic”. Surely it is far better to be overambitious than underambitious. The previous Government set targets—I cannot remember what they were called—in a number of areas. They were going to be met anyway and were not stretching. These are stretching milestones and that is important, particularly in the housebuilding programme—albeit there is a need to change the planning system—and in getting three-quarters of five year-olds school-ready, which is not the case at the moment.

My final point is one I am less happy about. The 13,000 new police officers, special constables and PCSOs, with an emphasis on community policing, are very much to be welcomed, but does my noble friend agree that the comments immediately afterwards by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner that he was set to cut police jobs were at best unhelpful—perhaps they were a bargaining chip—and could undermine that process? Can she assure me that Home Office Ministers will meet the commissioner to make sure that this does not undermine the Government’s aims in this area?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My noble friend is right; I suspect the comments may have been perhaps to influence an upcoming spending review. We are absolutely committed to seeing more police officers. I remember when the last Labour Government introduced police and community support officers—named officers in communities—and going to a public meeting in my constituency where they were dismissed by so many as “plastic policemen”, which was quite an insult. One year later, the praise for those officers was off the scale, because they were known to the local communities and their presence was reassuring and had a real impact. We remain committed to that and will seek to deliver it.

My noble friend is right about being ambitious. One thing that worries me about the last Government—or Governments, in a sense, because we had several Prime Ministers—is that people became disillusioned with politics and are now very cynical about seeing politics and political decisions being a force for good. We will do everything we can to meet the ambitions that the country had for us and we have for the people of this country. We know that that these targets are ambitious; they are not targets that will be easy to meet—there would be no point in saying that—but we are determined to meet them, because it is what the country deserves.