Children’s Services: Funding

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Thursday 10th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they intend to ensure that there is sufficient funding for local government children’s services.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, funding for children’s services is made available through the local government finance settlement. Local authorities are being given access to £45.1 billion in 2018-19 and £45.6 billion in 2019-20—an overall increase since 2017-18 of £1.3 billion. Core spending power is largely not ring-fenced, allowing local authorities to decide how best to direct their funding. Local authorities used this flexibility to increase spending on services for young people and children to around £9.2 billion in 2016-17.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, which sounds remarkably like the Written Answer I received over a month ago. He says that local government has all this money to spend, but he will be aware that this is the total funding available for 800 different services that local government delivers, of which children’s services is just one. The National Audit Office says that local government funding has been cut by 50% in real terms since 2010, and the Minister’s figures show that local authority spending on safeguarding and looked-after children continues to increase year on year. What assessment has the Minister made of local government’s capacity to remain at this level of spend on vulnerable children, particularly in the light of the LGA’s analysis that councils are facing a funding gap of around £5 billion by 2020, of which £2 billion is in children’s services? Does the Minister deny that councils, such as my own in Brighton and Hove, have had to close Sure Start centres and youth services and end play provision and supervised parental contact? A crisis is emerging in children’s services.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am glad that the figures are the same as the ones in the Written Answer given a few weeks ago. The noble Lord is right to say that, over the past eight or 10 years, local authorities have had to manage with fewer resources from the centre. I think that local authorities of all colours have done well to maintain good-quality services with access to reduced resources. They have done that by improving back-office services and front-line delivery. More recently, the Government have recognised that those constraints need to be relaxed: we have raised the cap on council tax increases to 3% before the referendum trigger is activated; we have put £2 billion into social care, taking some of the pressure off local authority services; and, as I said in my reply, we are putting more resources into the grant. On top on that, local authorities have access to £21 billion in reserves, up 47% since 2011. We believe that they now have the resources available to continue to provide good-quality services to children.

Local Elections: Voter ID

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am not sure that the presence of a uniformed police officer would guarantee the absence of impersonation in every case. The steps that we are taking in line with the recommendation of the Electoral Commission are the right way to go. The noble Lord asked a specific question; the answer to it is not in the folder in front of me, but I will endeavour to get it and write to him.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister perhaps give us some advice on the terms of reference and the way in which the Electoral Commission will produce its report? One of the particular concerns being expressed on our Benches is that voter ID schemes will be used to depress turnout. Will an evaluation of the impact on turnout come through from this study and, in particular, will the Electoral Commission look at that issue and compare, say, Peterborough with adjacent areas that do not have the obligation to produce voter ID when people go to vote?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Not only will the Electoral Commission be able to do that—I am sure that it will—but anybody could look at the turnout. As I said in my opening Statement, there is no evidence in Northern Ireland or in many other countries that have moved over to voter ID that this has depressed turnout.

Housing Associations

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Thursday 8th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Of course the Government believe in social housing, which is why, as I said in my reply, more than £9 billion has been allocated to it. In the last seven years, more affordable homes have been built than in the last seven years of the last Labour Government. We are committed to more social housing. The Green Paper on social housing is expected in the spring.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, with some 40% of council homes that were sold under right to buy now owned for rent by private landlords, does the noble Lord not agree that the sale of council houses has ceased to be a policy promoting low-income home ownership and that it would be wise, given our shortage of affordable homes, to suspend right to buy and allow sales only if they can be replaced on a like-for-like basis?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The stock of social housing fell by 420,000 under the last Labour Government. More council houses—social houses—were sold than built. We have reversed that: more social houses are now being built than sold and the stock has increased by 86,000 since 2010. The receipts from right to buy are reinvested in social housing. Far from the policy of generating receipts disadvantaging those on the housing list, by generating more receipts for local authorities to reinvest it increases investment in social housing.

Public Bodies: Appointments

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Thursday 25th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. He may be aware that we published a diversity commitment back in December with a declared target of increasing to 50% the number of public appointees who are women by 2022, and to 14% those from black and minority ethnic communities. At the moment, I think the figures are 43% and 10%, but if one looks at the most recent year for new appointments, 2016-17, the proportion of new appointments for women rose from 34% in 2013 to 49% last year. We will be publishing statistics regularly about the progress we are making to those declared targets for 2022.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, in view of recent revelations, can the Minister explain to the House what specific account the Government take of historical social media output when considering public appointments?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I welcome the noble Lord to the Back Benches, although it means that Ministers are now exposed to the forensic questions for which he is renowned. I believe he is referring to Toby Young. Perhaps I may make it clear that although Toby Young is the son of a life Peer, he is not the son of this one but of Michael Young, founder of the Consumers’ Association and the Open University: a good and great man, notwithstanding his support for the Labour Party.

On the serious issue that the noble Lord raises, the Commissioner for Public Appointments, whom I mentioned in my reply, is reviewing the Toby Young appointment and has already referred to the need for due diligence about social media. We await his report with interest, and it may be that we need to revise the Governance Code on Public Appointments, which at the moment has a section on standards in public life and handling conflicts and includes something on the lines of potential embarrassments and so-called skeletons in the cupboard, before anything goes to Ministers. We are aware of the growing importance of social media in this respect.

Political Parties (Funding and Expenditure) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Bassam of Brighton

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 10th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

What about reducing the number of Peers?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

We tried to reduce the number of Peers in the previous Parliament, as I know to my cost, but it did not have the consensus that we needed.

Often, the starting point of our discussions is that the spending of political parties should be reduced and that, in the absence of stricter rules, an arms race is taking place between the parties. Research published by the CSPL in August 2016 showed that this is not the case. There has been no arms race in party funding in recent years. My party spent less in the 2015 general election than in 2010—and that was a lower figure than in 2005. The less we spend, the better we seem to do. Taking into account inflation, the CSPL research showed a steep fall in central party spending since 1997. Neither of the two main political parties in the 2015 general election came close to its spending limit.

Like other recent attempts at reform, the Bill suggests complex and, at times, controversial structural changes to the party funding system. Talks that have focused on these ideas have so far always failed. Perhaps real progress could be made if the focus was instead on smaller reforms that might gain cross-party support.

Here, I return to the parallel drawn by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, with Lords reform. As I know to my cost, heroic attempts to reform your Lordships’ House failed because there was basically no consensus between the two Houses and within the two main parties. Subsequently, there has been useful incremental reform, with two Private Members’ Bills reaching the statute book and the possibility of further incremental reform coming from the Lord Speaker’s Committee.

Indeed, I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Burns, who has tackled difficult subjects such as hunting with dogs, the Trade Union Act and Lords reform, might thereafter apply his resourcefulness and ingenuity to this subject. As with incremental reform of our House, I think we should adopt the same approach to party funding: moving ahead with smaller reforms that may command broad support, rather than trying and failing to achieve an all-or-nothing solution, as this Bill does.

I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Bew, said, in the debate on 9 March. Commenting on my party’s evidence to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, which suggested smaller reforms rather than an all-or-nothing, big-bang solution, he said:

“That is an interesting observation. We could address certain aspects of what is a very difficult problem in its totality, in the event that we do not within this Parliament achieve the big-bang solution. These smaller reforms could include finding practical ways to encourage more and smaller donations from wider audiences”.—[Official Report, 9/3/16; col. 1377.]


He repeated that suggestion this afternoon.

These smaller reforms could include finding practical ways to encourage more and smaller donations from wider audiences. As the Minister for the Constitution said when he appeared before the Constitution Committee earlier this week, the Government are open to constructive debate and dialogue on small-scale measures that could command broad support, if there was a positive reaction to such a potential step from the main political parties. I think that today’s debate has shown that there is such an appetite, and I shall return to that in a moment, when I have addressed some of the issues raised in the debate.

The noble Lords, Lord Bew and Lord Rennard, raised the issue about the lack of transparency in donations in Northern Ireland. On 5 January, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland announced that he would write to Northern Ireland political parties seeking their views on ending the current arrangements on donations and loans to political parties. He asked whether now was the right time to move to full transparency, and he remains keen to make progress on the issue of donations to political parties now that the election has concluded.

The noble Lord also asked about the review of third-party campaigning by my noble friend Lord Hodgson. The Government welcomed that review of campaigning in the 2015 general election, and welcomed the noble Lord’s conclusion:

“Restrictions on third party expenditure at elections are necessary”.


He recommended a balanced package of measures; some would tighten the rules and some would relax them. We are considering his recommendations carefully, along with the Electoral Commission’s response to them.

My noble friend Lord True raised two important issues. Firstly, on impermissible donations, he rightly said that all three parties had been affected but focused his comments on the Michael Brown case and asked whether the Electoral Commission should be able to secure the return of donations which are later found to be the proceeds of crime. The Electoral Commission has recommended that the rules on company donations should be reviewed following its investigation of donations made by 5th Avenue Partners Limited to the Liberal Democrats in 2005. We are considering that issue alongside a number of other issues related to donation matters.

My noble friend also raised the matter of reports about a £250,000 donation being offered to the Green Party before the Richmond by-election. This was denied by the Green Party, and the Electoral Commission records for the relevant period do not show any such donation being made. Laws around such donations relate largely to ensuring that they come from a permissible source and that they are properly declared to the Electoral Commission to comply with transparency requirements. If the donation in this case had complied with those requirements, it is unlikely to have broken any laws. But my noble friend raised an interesting question as to whether the law applied to parties as well as to individuals. That is an issue that we need to reflect on further.

The noble Lord, Lord Wrigglesworth, made a valid point about social media and the changing landscape of political campaigning. I agree that it would be better if all parties were less reliant on large donations and we had a broader base of membership donations on which to rely.

The Bill proposes a number of reforms to political party funding, including caps on donations and new schemes for public funding. These are complex structural reforms which could be taken forward only on the basis of a cross-party consensus. No such consensus exists at this time, so the Government believe that it is premature to consider a Bill at this time.

However, anticipating that there would be an appetite in today’s debate to make progress and try to break the logjam that we now have, I spoke to the Minister for the Constitution earlier this morning. He would be happy to have a meeting with the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, to see whether we can find a way forward along the lines that I have suggested of incremental reforms that achieve cross-party support.

That may not be the giant step forward that the noble Lord hoped for in his opening remarks, but I hope that he accepts it as a constructive response to the debate and a helpful way forward, even though we cannot take his Bill very much further forward today.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Monday 14th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

As we have heard in earlier debates, every house that is being sold by a local housing association is being replaced and every house that is being sold by a local authority is going to be replaced so I simply reject the thesis the noble Baroness has put forward.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

My Lords, I have an amendment in this group. It follows immediately after the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. I am grateful for the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Young, because it has widened and opened up a fundamental debate. The noble Lord described social housing now as “residualised housing” because that is what it is. We are getting to the last knockings of social housing. I do not think that that is right or appropriate. The problem that we have is spiralling rents in the public sector, spiralling rents in the private sector and a diminution of supply. The noble Lord says that there will be like-for-like replacement. So far during the Conservatives’ time in government since 2010, we have not had anywhere near like-for-like replacement. I think that the figure is one in 10. That is a great shame, although the aspiration is absolutely right.

When I chaired a housing committee, with the capital receipts that we accrued we had the opportunity to get some of the way towards like-for-like replacement. Now, we are nowhere near it and that is part of the problem. We need to expand public sector housing provision on a massive scale. That will help to drive down rents in both the public and the private sectors, and we can get back to the point where social housing is no longer viewed as residual housing for the poorest in our communities and for those who are struggling to get on to the housing ladder.