Anne McGuire
Main Page: Anne McGuire (Labour - Stirling)Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Anne McGuire Excerpts
Jo Swinson
May I say what a great pleasure it is to see you back in the Chair after your time away, Madam Deputy Speaker? I am sure the whole House will wish to echo that sentiment.
As has already been discussed in this place and the other place, the measures in this Bill aim to promote long-term growth and reduce regulatory burdens on business. Consideration in the House of Lords has led to important changes to the Bill, the great majority of which the Government believe strengthen and improve it, and we will consider those changes when we discuss the second group of amendments. The first group of amendments deals with the few issues where the Government do not support the change proposed in the House of Lords. We have reflected carefully in the light of the strong views expressed and I will take each issue in turn.
As I outlined on Report, we want a strong, independent Equality and Human Rights Commission, and a great deal has already been achieved since we last debated that matter in the House. We have appointed a new chair of the EHRC, who has been welcomed by Members from all parties, and six new members to its board. We have announced a budget, agreed with the EHRC, to enable it to continue its important work.
Under the leadership of Baroness O’Neill, we are confident that the organisation will go from strength to strength, but for any organisation to be successful, it must have clarity of purpose. The general duty is not a core purpose; it is a much more vague and aspirational statement. Although I am sure that people can agree with the sentiments it expresses, it does not help the commission or anyone else to understand clearly, in a focused way, what it is there to do and, importantly, what it can achieve. That is why we are seeking to repeal the general duty. The change will not hinder the EHRC’s ability to fulfil its important duties and responsibilities.
We are also changing the commission’s monitoring duty to ensure that it reports on its core functions, rather than on the state of society generally. That will enable the EHRC to continue to promote equality of opportunity, tackle discrimination, and protect and promote human rights, but more effectively than before. It will also enable the EHRC to gain the that respect hon. Members want it to have as our equality body and national human rights institution.
Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)
Will the hon. Lady explain why there is a contradiction between the EHRC’s core objectives and that aspiration?
Jo Swinson
The EHRC’s objectives are clearly outlined in sections 8 and 9 of the Equality Act 2006. As I have said, although section 3 of the Act and the general duty paint a broad overarching vision, they do not focus specifically on equality, diversity and human rights as outlined in sections 8 and 9, which is what the EHRC needs to focus on day to day.
The House should remember that the commission will still have the responsibility and duty to promote understanding of equality and diversity; to encourage good practice in relation to equality and diversity; to promote equality of opportunity; to promote awareness and understanding of rights under the Equality Acts; to enforce the Equality Acts; to work towards the elimination of unlawful discrimination and harassment; to promote the understanding of the importance of human rights; to encourage good practice in relation to human rights; to promote awareness, understanding and protection of human rights; and to encourage public authorities to comply with section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998. Therefore, the EHRC duties that remain are significant and wide-ranging—its remit is wide and it has a huge amount of work to do—but they are not the broad, overarching and rather more vague aspirations outlined in the general duty.
Sir Peter Bottomley
The issue of caste was very well covered yesterday on the BBC’s “Newsnight” programme, and I hope the Government will take up the suggestion that there should be discussion over the next few days about how the points made can be incorporated into the aim to get fairness. My reaction on watching people describe what it was like to be told by someone junior to them that they should not take orders from them because of something that happened in their family past was that that was ludicrous.
Ghandi called the untouchables the children of God over 70 years ago—in the 1930s, I think—and we ought to find some way of picking that up and echoing it in our country.
I could speak on a number of issues, but I will stick to the issue of agents, and in particular leasehold managing agents. I hope that when the Select Committee looks at this, it will address not only the letting of residential tenancies but the 3 million leaseholds in this country, many of which are held by people who are old, frail and on fixed incomes. My hon. Friend the Minister may be right to say that the majority of managing agents behave well. In the past, however, many of them, and especially those who were associated with the freeholder, ripped off their leaseholders left, right and centre. Such agents are a minority, but they hold the majority of the responsibility for managing leasehold properties, and the faster they are brought out into transparency and openness, the better.
I pay tribute to the Minister for Housing. Through his efforts and the co-operation of his colleagues, the Government have come forward with a welcome initiative. I am not arguing it is completely right—I would be surprised if it were—but its 10 measures deal with a variety of issues, the most important of which is openness.
Having a redress scheme requires having a code. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has a good code, as do some of the associations of letting agents. This explains why most people have argued for licensing, which would include an ombudsman service and a redress system. As things stand, we are going to get the redress system, but we are not necessarily going to get the code.
I hope Ministers, either in this place or the other place, can assure the Houses of Parliament that they agree that having redress requires having a code, and that managing agents will not be able to practice if they have been struck off or cannot give adequate assurances that they meet the code and will abide by decisions if they are held to have offended against it.
Ordinary disputes are one thing. I ought to declare that I have an interest in a small leasehold flat—I am now a freeholder—and our managing agent and freeholder behaved impeccably with the six leaseholders. I have no complaint about that at all. I have taken advantage of the present system, but many people have not.
In Oakland court in my constituency, a group of really old people took action against their freeholder as they were being charged for a warden’s flat when there was no warden. Eventually, when they could get to the leasehold valuation tribunal, there was an effective judgment that would have given back to them—although sadly many of them had died—not only tens of thousands of pounds but possibly £100,000. Eventually, they came to a settlement and I pay tribute to the freeholders for doing that.
To have clever lawyers, some of whom will appear at LEASE—the Government-approved agency for giving advice on leaseholds—advise managing agents on what can be done with leaseholders within the law does not strike me as balanced. I ask the Government to ask LEASE to ensure that at least one of the two people I will name is invited to join its board. One is Sebastian O’Kelly, who runs the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, and the other is Martin Boyd.
Martin Boyd got involved because he was one of the leaseholders who took on the Tchenguiz brothers. It is not for me to get involved with whatever happened, right or wrong, with the Tchenguiz brothers, the action to which they were subject and the separate action that they are now taking—although I would have thought that a handshake and an apology would solve that. I am saying, however, that the Tchenguiz brothers do not have the best reputation for how they deal with leaseholders. Sometimes, they appear to charge rather high sums if someone wants to sublet a leasehold property and sometimes they want to sell it. A whole series of other issues should, I believe, be fully examined under parliamentary privilege.
It seems to me that officials in the Departments involved have had to work really hard to produce the five pages of new clauses that we are discussing, so I shall not add to their burdens by trying to go through them in detail.
The permanent secretaries at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Ministry of Justice have a responsibility to add to the numbers of people involved, because Parliament will ensure that the issue gets proper attention—not just the 9 million tenancies, but the 3 million leaseholders. That will require serious effort in Government and by Parliament and I hope that in time the injustices that are rampant will have evaporated, partly through transparency and partly through legislative action.
Let me give an example of transparency. I challenge every managing agent to tell every leaseholder now what commission the freeholder is getting on the insurance premiums to cover the value of the properties. Those commissions go up to 65%. In my view, they should not be more than about 5% or 10%. Let us get that out in the open, and we will get the rest of the muck out afterwards.
Mrs McGuire
I want to make a few remarks about the abolition of the general duty.
It is sad that we are repealing the general duty under the Equality Act 2006. It was not plucked out of mid-air and something that the then Government suddenly decided to put into an Act of Parliament. Progress towards the Act was long and conciliatory and it worked for this Parliament and organisations outside it, yet under the guise of deregulation we are seeing the undoing of many years’ work, much consensus and much acceptance that the general duty laid out a set of values and principles for the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
I find it doubly sad that the Minister, who has apparently built up a reputation as a champion of equality, is having to justify this proposal today. The general duty sets out a unifying vision for society, which the EHRC must work towards. I find it disappointing that she dismissed the idea that aspiration could sit comfortably with some of the other specific duties of the EHRC. Unlike the Minister, I think that the general duty is fundamental to how the EHRC operates. It sets out the guiding principles and values of the EHRC. It had cross-party support and I suspect that if I checked the voting record of the Minister, I would probably find that she wholeheartedly supported that general duty in 2006, as did her party. Seven years on, what was achieved by working with her party and members of the other party in the coalition is dismissed as a burden on us all.
John Hemming
Does the right hon. Lady agree that the key thing about the general duty is section 12 and the requirement to monitor the progress of society towards the general duty? That is where it has a practical effect.
Mrs McGuire
Yes and, as I understand it, the monitoring period has been extended from three years to five years. The hon. Gentleman has identified an important aspect. We should get away from the idea that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is merely the sum of its compliance powers. It is more than that. It should be working with the wider community to establish a society that has equality and human rights at its heart. The Government’s disregard rejects the view that the EHRC has a role working with the wider community.
My hon. Friend the Member for Streatham mentioned Baroness Campbell of Surbiton. The House owes the baroness a great debt of gratitude because she has a long record of working on human rights and equality issues—far longer, probably, than some of the younger Members of this House have been alive. She knows what she is talking about, and her charge to the Government was that they have yet to prove that a commission with fewer powers and tools at its disposal will be more effective than one with the role and powers bestowed on it by Parliament some six years ago.
The Minister has failed to make that case. I hope she will think again. If she is not prepared to do so, I hope Members in all parts of the House who believe that the Equality and Human Rights Commission has a role beyond its compliance powers will support Baroness Campbell and the House of Lords, and will support their amendment when it comes to the vote this afternoon.
Alok Sharma
I will restrict my comments to the discussion of caste discrimination. As I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), I think we can all agree that caste discrimination is wrong and abhorrent, as is any form of discrimination. I welcome the fact that the Government are making a real effort, taking the issue seriously and putting in place a programme of education.
I hope that the hon. Member for Streatham would agree that, before introducing legislation, we should ensure that there is an evidence base for doing so. As I am sure he will be aware, the NIESR report was incredibly comprehensive. As I understand it, NIESR approached CasteWatch UK and Voice of Dalit International and looked back at cases that were up to 10 years old, yet it came up with a relatively low volume of caste-related incidents. I have no wish to trivialise any of those incidents, and clearly they were incredibly hurtful to the individuals involved, but I will just make the point that, ultimately, if we are to introduce legislation, we need to ensure that there is a broad evidence base for doing so. I understand that 32 people were interviewed for the NIESR report and 23 were used as case studies. Those 23 people reported 36 separate caste-related incidents.