Policing: Priorities

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Thursday 15th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, what assessment have the Government made of the impact of the reduction in the size of safer neighbourhood teams in both Wales and England on the capacity of the police to gather intelligence that helps them deliver on their priorities?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, safer neighbourhood teams certainly provide reassurance to local people, and if local forces feel there should be more numbers in the safer neighbourhood teams, then that is what they should invest in. I certainly recognise that safer neighbourhood teams provide reassurance at a local level.

Brexit: Border Control

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend is absolutely right to raise the issue of getting better and richer statistical data. For the last few years we have been introducing exit checks, which add to the picture of what our immigration and emigration system looks like.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords—

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)]

My Lords, we will hear from Plaid Cymru.

[Lord Wigley]

I am very grateful. Does the Minister appreciate the worries in the port of Holyhead, expressed very strongly by people from Stena Line and from the port authority itself, that there are inadequate numbers of staff to cope with the very high volumes that come from Ireland? Unless something is done urgently, there is no chance of being in a position by 29 March. Can she give some assurance to the House?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I certainly appreciate any concern that we have sufficient numbers of staff to meet demand at the border. People coming from Ireland are often not subject to those sorts of checks but it is important that we have the right number of border staff in place as we leave the European Union.

Brexit: Costs

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

We have honoured those obligations and they are part of negotiating a settlement. The Prime Minister set out in her Florence speech that we will continue to honour that, that no country will have to pay in more and no country will get out less. I think that has been well received by our European partners and we look forward now to moving on to negotiating the more important area for us of continued trade with the frictionless access that we want to a very large and important single market.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, further to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, will the Minister confirm that, if there is indeed a transition period beyond 2020, we may well need to make further payments for that period?

[Lord Bates]

We will find that out when we find out the outcome of the negotiations.

Brexit: Financial Settlement

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is absolutely right in pointing to the fact that there are assets of the European Union. Those are highlighted in the consolidated report and account, the difficulty with which is that it shows assets of £162 billion, but liabilities of £234 billion. In agreeing what our share of the assets is, we also have to be fair and recognise that there may be some concomitant responsibility for some of the liabilities.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, further to the point made a moment ago about the date being written into the Bill, does that not mean that on that date in March 2019, if all is not agreed at that point, nothing is agreed, and we would leave without even any semblance of a security agreement?

[Lord Bates]

That is a fact that should be borne in mind by all parties for the negotiation.

Barnett Formula

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wigley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what changes they propose to make to the application of the Barnett formula to Wales and Scotland arising from any potential additional financial provision for Northern Ireland.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government remain committed to the Barnett formula, which is designed to ensure that devolved Administrations are funded to deliver their priorities within their devolved responsibilities. Like those previous interventions, this exceptional funding will be made outside the normal ongoing Barnett funding system. It will therefore not attract Barnett consequentials.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

Surprise, surprise. The noble Lord will be aware that £1,000 million has been allocated primarily to hospitals, schools and roads in Northern Ireland—mainstream Barnett elements. Clearly the Government have perceived an extra need in Northern Ireland, however that is defined. Will they therefore move towards a needs-based formula for Scotland, Wales and indeed, for the regions of England, to ensure that valuable and important economic projects, such as the M4 in south Wales, the A55 in north Wales and the Swansea Bay lagoon—things that are important to the economy—can move ahead and are not constrained by the way in which these matters are approached at present?

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord will be familiar with the long-running debate over the needs-based versus the population-based formula. The Government always remain responsive to needs. That is one reason why a number of investments have taken place in Wales, for example, outside the Barnett formula. There is the Cardiff capital region city deal of £500 million, the Swansea city deal of £115 million, and I hope the north Wales growth deal. All those will be outside the Barnett formula and reflect the particular needs of Wales, as the deal to which he referred reflects the particular needs of Northern Ireland.

Children and Families Bill

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the mover of this amendment but also to the Minister for this very good news. The noble Lord, Lord Freud, took great trouble during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill to consult the interested parties around foster care but I have a couple of questions for the Minister. What is the situation for families who are providing supported lodging for young people at university for whom they wish to keep a room open when they return? More generally, what is the position for families providing supported lodging for older young people who have left foster care but whom they still wish to support?

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I will intervene very briefly if I may. Whereas Part 1 of the Bill largely did not apply to Wales, Part 2 to a large extent does. I therefore ask the Minister, in the context of the new clauses being proposed, whether any review that he will be undertaking will be in co-operation with the National Assembly of Wales and the Government of Wales, which have responsibility for education and social care but not for some aspects of social security and housing benefit. I would be grateful if he could at least give an indication that he will take that on board.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I should like to reassure noble Lords that the Government are committed to helping people foster, adopt and be special guardians to some of the most vulnerable children. We want to ensure that government policy supports this aim. As has already been pointed out, on 12 March my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced an easement of the treatment of foster carers under the housing benefit policy to remove the spare room subsidy. Foster carers are now allowed one additional room under this policy, as are those who have a child placed with them for adoption. That will ensure that many foster carers will no longer be affected by removal of the spare room subsidy.

Adopted children, those placed for adoption and those being looked after by special guardians are treated as part of the family in the same way as birth children, so these children’s bedrooms are also included in the bedroom assessment for the household. Prospective adopters and prospective special guardians awaiting a child being placed with them are treated differently. This is because these are temporary situations. People in these circumstances will be able to apply to the local authority for short-term assistance from the discretionary housing payment fund. My honourable friends the Minister for Children and Families and the Minister for Welfare Reform have written to local authorities highlighting that these groups should be a priority for discretionary housing payment funding. The measures the Government have taken should ensure that foster carers, prospective adopters and prospective special guardians are not unfairly treated by the removal of the spare room subsidy.

The Government are committed to conducting this review and it will be placed in the Library. It will be a matter for noble Lords as to whether or not they wish to debate it. The Government have commissioned a separate report from Ipsos MORI but, in answer to the noble Baroness’s question, we will be having our own report on this matter.

I shall write to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, in response to his questions about supported lodging. So far as concerns the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, we will talk to the Welsh Government regarding our review of foster carers, and I will write to the noble Lord further about this. In those circumstances, I urge the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, to withdraw her amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, we have Amendments 47, 50 and 52 in this group. I have listened carefully to what the noble and learned Baroness has said in introducing her amendments, and have some sympathy with the points she makes, but we are approaching the issue in a slightly different way.

We accept that mediation is not always appropriate or of sufficient quality but we support the central thesis in Clause 10 that parents should attend mediation before making a court application. We believe that there are clear advantages, particularly to children, in avoiding the adversarial nature of court proceedings wherever possible, but accept that there will be exceptions.

Our first amendment simply adds flexibility to the clause to ensure that where the court considers it unreasonable families are not required to attend mediation, information and assessment meetings. While we believe that mediation, and ADR more generally, can be very useful means of resolving disputes, they are not appropriate in every type of situation—for example, in cases of domestic violence or child abuse. We are therefore proposing amendments for making clearer the process for deciding on exemptions whereby you do not have to be involved in mediation.

This point was picked up in David Norgrove’s family justice review. At the time, he said:

“There would also need to be a range of exemptions for those for whom an application to court was urgent, or for whom dispute resolution services were clearly inappropriate at the outset. The regime would allow for emergency applications to court and the exemptions should be as in the current Pre-Application Protocol”.

When these issues were debated in the Commons, the Minister stated that the Government had invited the Family Procedure Rule Committee to draw up rules specifying areas where exemptions to the proposed procedure would be appropriate, including domestic violence. The Minister also identified at that time other areas where exemptions might be relevant. These included: a need for urgency; where there is a risk to the life, liberty or physical safety of the applicant or their family; when any delay would cause a risk or significant harm to a child; or where a miscarriage of justice might occur. At the time, we welcomed this commitment. However, we requested that the draft rules be made available to Parliament before scrutiny of the Bill is over. We have now received the letter and its attachments from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, which again states that the Family Procedure Rule Committee will be invited to make rules on these matters. Given that we still have not seen the rules, we ask the Minister again: when will these be made available? How can we be expected to judge whether this provision is sufficient to address our concerns in their absence?

Our second two amendments in this group would insert a definition of an “approved mediator” as someone who satisfies defined training and quality standards assurances and would specify that a mediation, information and assessment meeting would always be held with an approved mediator. These amendments originate from concerns expressed to the Justice Committee in pre-legislative scrutiny that the quality of mediators is often far too low. They tie in with the concerns we have just touched upon: that mediators might have to screen for domestic abuse and safeguarding concerns, which require specialist skills. For example, the Children’s Commissioner for England has highlighted research showing that around 50% of all private law cases involve domestic violence or child abuse. For this reason, it is crucial that mediators are trained and skilled in spotting these issues. It is also important that mediators are trained to listen to and draw out the voices of the children and young people involved.

When this was discussed in the Commons, the Minister said that he had asked the president of the Family Division to revise the existing pre-application protocol to make it explicit that family mediators must be approved by the Family Mediation Council. He said that meant that they would also have to adhere to the code of practice of that council. However, we do not believe that the provision in the code of practice is strong enough. We emphasise again that concerns have been raised about the quality of mediators, even working under this code. We would prefer that safeguards be set out in the Bill.

Although we agree with the aim of the clause and welcome the provision as far as it goes, I hope that the Minister will understand our ongoing concerns and agree to give further consideration to incorporating the additional safeguards set out in our amendments.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 50 and 52, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, which would ensure that any mediator who is to deal with family disputes through a family mediation, information and assessment meeting—known somewhat inelegantly as a MIAM—would have to be approved and would need to have undergone relevant training and quality assurance. I also signal my support for Amendments 46 to 49 and Amendment 51, as tabled by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, which would remove the introduction of compulsory mediation.

Currently, of course, attendance at a MIAM is voluntary. Solicitors make a referral to a mediator, allowing clients to receive legal advice prior to the mediation process. Since April 2011, parties have been required to send an FM1 form to the court alongside court applications to show that they have considered or attempted mediation. I should also point out that there is currently no regulation of mediators and that many have no formal training, although of course many are also qualified solicitors.

Under Clause 10, attendance at MIAMs will be made compulsory. There is great concern that this may be used to further domestic abuse in certain cases. Since MIAMs will be compulsory, mediators will be given the task of screening for domestic abuse and children’s safeguarding issues, yet without training there can be no knowing whether the skills these mediators possess will be appropriate or adequate to undertake such work. Legal aid will still be available for mediation but since legal aid has been withdrawn for private family law cases, except those involving recent domestic abuse, parties will be entering into the mediation without having received prior legal advice. That puts children and abused adults in a particularly vulnerable position.

Finally, since the majority of parents settle contact arrangements between themselves, the cases which go through to the courts process are by necessity the most complex and the most likely to involve abuse. Forcing parties through mediation in these circumstances would be highly damaging and potentially dangerous. At the very least, accreditation of mediators should be made compulsory. I urge the Minister to accept these amendments.

Arts and Culture: Economic Regeneration

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, we are all very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, for facilitating this debate. At the very outset I should declare several interests, in that my wife, daughter, son and daughter-in-law are all involved professionally in the creative arts, mainly in the music-related sector.

I realise that this debate has been projected by other speakers, largely in the English context, as addressing cuts in arts funding in England. Ministerial responsibility in this Chamber for the arts is primarily geared to England, though responsibility for the tools which encourage economic regeneration are not fully devolved. In any case, I believe that the nations of these islands can learn one from another in such matters. I hope that our experience in Wales with regard to the role of the creative industries in regional economic regeneration may be of assistance to others.

A debate was held in the National Assembly in Cardiff last Wednesday by my party. The Motion for the debate called on the Assembly to recognise and celebrate,

“the enormous contribution that the arts and creative industries make to the economy and culture of Wales”.

In his comments, our former Minister for Culture, Alun Ffred Jones, said:

“It is worth remembering that our culture is also an industry. It employs some 30,000 people in Wales, with an economic output worth around £0.5 billion”.

However, he emphasised that,

“we do not have to and should not justify expenditure on the arts by listing economic statistics. The arts have a value in their own right. It is an activity that develops confidence and creates interesting and imaginative people—the kind of people that employers want to employ”.

I wholly concur with that sentiment. Indeed, while the global companies of the past were largely concerned with manufacturing—that still has its place—key corporations of the future will increasingly be in the fields of communication, information, entertainment, bio-medical science and technology. These require high levels of creative imagination, a feature the arts are ideally placed to nurture.

The creative industries and the arts in Wales are supported through the complementary roles of the Arts Council of Wales and the activities of the business and enterprise department of the Welsh Government. That reflects the essential link between culture and the economy. The arts nurture the imagination, which generates the flow of new ideas and new products, which lend themselves to economic application via the creative industries. These industries in Wales overwhelmingly comprise small businesses. Of the 1,800 businesses in the sector, 94% employ fewer than 10 people. They make a significant contribution to the GVA of Wales and of the UK.

Many aspects of the cultural industries have a significant economic consequence for other sectors. They are a vital ingredient for tourism, with a knock-on effect on transport, hotels and catering. Major cultural projects can bring benefit not only to the city or region in which they are held, but to a wider economy and, indeed, to the Treasury and the UK generally. There is a danger that some people believe that the significant cultural activities of these islands occur only in London. That is patently not the case. One has only to think of the huge international significance of the Edinburgh Festival or, indeed, of the Hay book festival in Wales.

Showcase Scotland opens tomorrow in Glasgow. It brings into Scotland 180 holiday operators from overseas—an excellent example of how Scotland has succeeded in using the arts to underpin its economy. This autumn, Cardiff will host the WOMEX world music exhibition, an event that previously has been held in Gateshead. WOMEX will bring some 2,700 delegates to Cardiff, mainly from overseas, together with some 400 journalists. This represents not only an immediate input into our economy, but the potential of much more if we succeed in projecting a positive message and image.

WOMEX would not be coming to Cardiff were it not for the excellent Millennium Centre, a £100 million facility which has functioned as a concert hall, an opera house and a theatre. It attracts visitors from all over the world. It is a metropolitan, more than a regional facility, but without such infrastructure, it would not be possible to sustain, support and project the activities which now occur.

One does not have to look only at such major cultural infrastructure facilities. I give an example which may interest others in the Chamber. In my home town of Caernarfon, we succeeded a decade ago in establishing the Galeri Creative Enterprise Centre, at a cost of just £7 million. We could have secured 15 of them across Wales for the cost of the Millennium Centre. Galeri is the home of some 20 creative arts enterprises, ranging from music to graphic arts, cinema to drama, websites, television and arts-related PR companies. It generates some 400 events and performances a year within Galeri itself, and many more in the surrounding communities.

Galeri employs directly 36 full-time-equivalent staff and supports more than 50 full-time-equivalent jobs in the surrounding community, contributing some £3 million a year to the local economy. Galeri raises 75% of its turnover, but it is supported by a modest £300,000 a year grant from the Welsh Arts Council. An economic impact assessment recently concluded that for every £1 of grant funding, it generates £9.65 in the local economy.

Incidentally, the William Mathias Music Centre, which is based at Galeri, bringing music tuition and experience to adults, including some with learning difficulties, itself gives work to 30 part-time self-employed music teachers, providing a basic income without which they almost certainly would not all be able to remain living in north-west Wales. That activity also spawned the William Mathias Schools Music Service, which has outgrown its home in Galeri and now provides 80 peripatetic music teachers to support music education in schools in three counties in north-west Wales. Galeri is also the venue for the quadrennial international harp competition, which attracts competitors from 20 or more countries. Without that facility, none of that would be occurring in Caernarfon. Galeri represents a private and voluntary sector partnership with the public sector. I suggest that it is a model worth emulating.

Another vehicle for bringing cultural enterprise to communities across Wales is our national Eisteddfod. We may not be able to replicate that in all parts of these islands, but it is held annually in different centres, alternating between north and south. It costs about £3 million a year to sustain and is supported by a grant of about £500,000 annually from the National Assembly—again representing a very good gearing of public to private funding, bringing creative arts to every corner of Wales and stimulating interest as a result.

One problem with creative activities which are peripatetic, as with events organised by different host communities at different times, is that there is perennially a need to reinvent the wheel. Experience is not rolled forward. There is the danger of repeating the same mistakes. To avoid that, there is the need in the cultural sector to ensure adequate post-facto evaluation, which should be planned from the outset and perhaps should be a condition of public funding to ensure that ongoing maximum benefit is attained.

The physical facility is one thing, but we also need people with vision and a proactive attitude, and a framework to enable the arts to be an economic driver, not just a hobby. For example, more artists are active in Pembrokeshire than, probably, in any other rural area in Britain, but very few of them succeed in making art their full-time, primary source of income. With a little help, many of them could do that and work full-time at their art—not just in Pembrokeshire; I am sure that that is applicable more generally. Often, a support framework can make all the difference.

Whether it is major events and activities, and facilities, such as in Cardiff; in micro-grassroots activities such as Galeri in Caernarfon; or in a peripatetic festival such as the Eisteddfod, they all need a public, private and voluntary partnership. They all stimulate economic activity in the areas massively greater than the sums of public money that they require to sustain their viability. Surely the Government should think carefully before cutting funds for such a worthwhile dimension.

This debate matters to avoid us going down a blind alley of being penny wise at the cost not only to our diversity of cultural activities but, in the long term, to the regional economies in these islands.

Healthcare: Support Workers

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My noble friend makes some very cogent points; of course, he has recently reviewed this whole area in the Willis report. As I mentioned just now, we are imminently to receive the report on the Mid Staffs situation, which continued over a long period. My understanding is that it will be published on 6 February. The Government will be responding to what its recommendations might be, but I have already mentioned that Skills for Health and Skills for Care are developing standards for the training and conduct of support workers. They should report on that very shortly. The CQC has also been commissioned to review induction training, so we are acutely aware of this and are working on it at the moment.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, in view of the fact that Skills for Health has a UK remit, whereas I believe that Skills for Care has an England-only remit, can the noble Baroness tell the House what consultation there has been with the Governments in Wales and Scotland to ensure, on the one hand, that lessons are learned from each other and, on the other hand, that the training needs are co-ordinated to the benefit of everyone?

[Baroness Northover]

We are in constant contact with the devolved Administrations; I have information from both Wales and Scotland. It is indeed extremely important that we learn from each other, as the noble Lord has flagged up.

Wales: Economy

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I am very grateful to speak for a couple of minutes in the gap. I welcome this debate and I underlined a very dire need to get the Welsh economy moving. I welcome the fact that so many noble Lords who have spoken have referred to the importance of the manufacturing industry. Speaking as one who has spent his life in the manufacturing industry before entering this Chamber, I can say that what has happened to manufacturing, not only in Wales, but throughout these islands, is a tragedy. That needs to be reversed if our economy is to come right.

When I started working in politics in the 1960s, Professor Edward Nevin had shown, in his seminal work, that the GDP per capita in Wales was at that time 92% of the UK average. As has been said, it is now down to under 74%. Most of that drop occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. We now desperately need a capital investment programme to trigger economic regeneration. That cannot be done by the Welsh Government alone because they do not have either the powers or an adequate capital budget, having suffered a 40% cutback as a result of the Westminster cutbacks. It may well be that the Silk commission will bring forward proposals for stronger financial powers for the National Assembly when it reports in two weeks’ time. I hope that the UK Government will respond positively to any proposals that emanate from Silk and will flesh out last week's limited announcement on the borrowing powers of the Assembly once the Silk report has been published.

Wales needs a Government that is much more geared to achieving economic success and we need a system whereby the Government of Wales benefit from the economic success that they achieve by their own actions. I hope that the UK Government will also give wholehearted support for capital projects, such as the Severn barrage scheme, which will bring private sector investment into a project that could be of tremendous help to the Welsh economy. Likewise, I hope that early progress can be made with the Wylfa B scheme now that a commercial investor is showing some interest in it.

Finally, I welcome the recent statement by the Secretary of State for Wales, Mr David Jones, on the possible electrification of the railway line from Holyhead to Crewe. That would be very beneficial and would tie in with the electrification that has been mentioned by noble Lords in the debate. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, on her appointment to the Wales Office. In response to the debate, I hope that she will be able to confirm that the Wales Office will be working very closely indeed with Transport Ministers get this important project off the ground.

Health and Social Care Bill

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hollins]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Finlay has eloquently explained, alcohol misuse is one of the major public health challenges that we face in the UK. It causes wide harm to individuals and places a significant burden on the National Health Service. Even more widely, it has a devastating effect on families, on communities and within wider society, and it is vital that the reforms to the NHS are effective in helping to address this challenge. This is an important debate in an uncertain time for alcohol services. I understand that local authorities are set to commission alcohol services out of their ring-fenced £4 billion budget, but there is no guarantee how much of that will go to alcohol services. Furthermore, public health is a wide-ranging area and there are concerns that alcohol services may have to compete with wider public health initiatives.

I hope that the Government will use this important opportunity to show how alcohol services will be prioritised in the reforms. I know that one particular opportunity lies in the Government’s alcohol strategy which is expected in the near future. I would welcome a commitment from the Government that this strategy will make clear how alcohol services will be made a priority in local authority delivery and in primary and secondary NHS care. At the same time primary care and the new clinical commissioning groups will need to continue to play a key role in screening and treating people with alcohol misuse problems, and it is vital that they are incentivised to do so.

The quality and outcomes framework is a vital primary care lever to ensure that GPs prioritise specific conditions. At present there is one very limited QOF indicator on alcohol to provide lifestyle advice to patients with hypertension. The Government have indicated that 15 per cent of the QOF funding will be assigned to public health and primary prevention indictors from 2013. However, at present all of the proposed public health indicators are focused on smoking, and the indicator on screening for alcohol misuse has, regrettably, been rejected.

What is clear is that integration of services will be the key to ensuring that people with alcohol misuse problems are not lost in the system and that the various agencies involved in care work together. The amendments in this group make the important case that people who understand alcohol misuse and alcohol services should be involved in health and well-being boards and in producing health and well-being strategies. Health and well-being boards seem to present significant opportunities ahead, but only if alcohol is made a clear local priority.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I rise with some trepidation as this Bill applies to England only, although there are some consequential effects on Wales. As I was speaking in Grand Committee on the Welfare Reform Bill upstairs a moment ago on initiatives in Wales which should be copied in England, I hope that initiatives in this area will be copied by the National Assembly for Wales and I very much hope that the spirit of the amendments, some of which I have my name alongside, can be taken on board by the Government, even if the wording is not perfect.

I welcome the address made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, in opening this debate and pay tribute to the work that she has undertaken in this context, which is recognised all round. I come from a generation in Wales where we used to have to smuggle ourselves out to the pubs because of the general ban on alcohol that used to exist. In previous generations, understandably and rightly, there had been a clamping down on alcohol use in Wales. My parents’ generation referred to whisky, for example, as medicine and very rarely used it. In fact, the pledge was a general feature of society there. My generation was responsible for a movement in another direction. The pendulum swung and is still swinging in that direction and it is time to start it swinging back.

I have no doubt at all that alcohol is one of the greatest problems that we have in our society today. I say that not as a teetotaller although I restrict myself two months of the year to not touching the stuff because it is so important that we have self-discipline as well as discipline that may come from the statute book. But in terms of violence, the break-up of families, poor performance at work—one remembers David Lloyd George’s initiatives in the First World War to try and clamp down on alcohol because of the effect on the war effort—criminality, injuries and the pressure on accident and emergency departments in hospitals, and the social disruption that arises from it, we can see the effect all around. The effect seems to be hitting people younger and younger. Children at the ages of 11, 12 and 13 are showing the effects of alcohol. That cannot be acceptable.

I realise that in an area of social responsibility such as this it is sometimes difficult to legislate. However, there must be pressure to turn the tide in another direction. Amendment 202 refers to establishing a duty to reduce alcohol harm. Amendment 328 covers the assessment of alcohol damage in local communities. Amendment 329 would provide appropriate places for representatives of alcohol services. These modest steps, taken together, would add up to a message that would come across. I implore the Minister, even if he cannot accept the amendments, to accept the thrust of the argument that lies behind them, because we have to do something about this great scourge of our society today.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I hope that the noble Earl will accept these amendments. In many respects they are very modest. I have grave doubts about the extent to which we will be able to influence the course of events in this arena with the changes that we have before us. I am grateful to him for responding in his long letter of 20 October to all of us who raised a variety of questions at Second Reading. He endeavoured to address some of the topics that I had raised on alcohol, labelling, licensing and so on. However, I still believe that ultimately the major issues on alcohol policy will need to be addressed at the centre.

One can do nothing about the cost of alcohol at local level. It must be done centrally. That is being addressed—but inadequately. The marketing of alcohol is something over which local authorities and well-being boards will have no control whatever. The drinks industry is increasingly marketing on the internet and targeting youngsters, particularly in the social networking sphere. I heard recently that one-third of young girls aged 13 to 16 surveyed in Essex are suffering blackouts from excessive drinking. If they continue to drink like that, they will not be ill immediately—they will have good fun and games—but within 10 years, when they get to their late 20s, they will have real problems. What will health and well-being boards be able to do about that? I have been pestering the noble Earl on the labelling issue for quite some time. Nothing can be done about that at local level.

There is one issue that we could have done something about at local level, but we missed our chance. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, will recall that when we debated the Police and Social Responsibility Bill, we addressed the freedom that people now have to issue licences on a much more liberal basis than used to be the case—we now have a proliferation of off-licences everywhere—but were unable to effect any changes that would have given local authorities greater powers to limit the way in which licences are granted locally. Again, nothing can be done by health and well-being boards.

These are major topics and I wonder how much power there will be to change the course of events. These issues all link to related topics such as obesity and diabetes. It is important that we do not delude ourselves into believing that there will be massive changes without a strong drive from the centre. The nudge-nudge approach will not work with the big drinks industry. Neither, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, mentioned this morning, will it work in the context of food, with salt, fats and sugar. These are real problems for people and very little change will be effected at local level; it must all be done centrally.

I come back to the amendments before us. They are very modest and I see no reason why they cannot be accepted. In particular, I will look at the endeavour to achieve change at GP level. Many GPs have been very innovative. Initiatives have been offered to them to effect changes and a number of them have taken up the cudgels and worked adventurously to identify the problems at local level in their communities. Many more have not been doing anything like what should have been done. The Government have declined to accept the screening possibility that was mentioned. Again, I hope that they will be prepared to review their position on that.

Overall, I urge the Government not to reject the modest changes here, but to accept the amendments.