Queen’s Speech

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, I will begin where the right reverend Prelate finished, with the modern slavery Bill, which I welcome. Like him, I think it is broad in scope and we need to ensure that as it passes through the House the detail encompasses all the aspects he has mentioned. I welcome the increased maximum sentence of life imprisonment for this crime and the enhancement to confiscate criminals’ assets. I also welcome the anti-slavery commissioner. It is not very often that I would say that because I have a rather cynical view sometimes of these job titles that are attached to people. But I think that in this case it is a very important role and one that could make a big contribution. Of course, children’s need for child trafficking advocates will be very important.

Like the right reverend Prelate, I am concerned about people who enter this country as employees through a legitimate route but are domestic servants and very often can be identified as slaves. I hope that my noble friends on the Front Bench will ensure that in those circumstances diplomatic immunity of the employer will not allow people to slip through the net and find that they are not subject to the law of this land if they are treating people as slaves within their households.

I also welcome the Serious Crime Bill, in particular the emphasis on the National Crime Agency and other law enforcement agencies, which, as the Bill recognises, need the tools to effectively tackle serious and organised crime, including cybercrime and the illegal drug trade. At First Reading last week my noble friend read out all the Bills that need amending in order for this Bill to proceed. That tells us very clearly, particularly in those areas of cybercrime and the illegal drug trade, how fast technology and information move. We need to change our legislation to keep up with them and to ensure that we are putting on the statute book laws that will allow us to bring people to justice and ensure that in those areas we have a system that is both effective and a deterrent.

I would like to briefly mention something that, to my mind, covers most of the big issues that this debate focuses on: crime, education, health and justice. It seems to me that over the years we have rather lost our way when it comes to how we view the ways in which these big public bodies are organised. Therefore I take this opportunity again to say to my noble friends on the Front Bench that, in any reforms in which we seek to improve the services and the way in which we execute those policies in this country, I hope we will have learnt the lesson that there is a difference between management and leadership. There has been far too much focus on management in previous years.

I put my hand up as somebody who worked as a manager in many ways in a previous existence. I am very happy to accept the term “manager”. But management in our public services has rather led to a culture of tick-boxes, centrally set targets and people who start to lose the authority, initiative and creativity needed to progress in any organisation, whether commercial or public sector. Therefore, in reforming our public services, let us encourage and train people to lead so that our public services are exemplars around the world. I fear that in all the subjects we are discussing today we have tended to slip behind—I am not talking about the people who work in them but the way in which we run them. It is a responsibility of government to set that framework and make sure that that happens.

Finally, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Patel, about the care industry. I am not asking for a Bill on health—I think my noble friend Lord Howe could do with a bit of a rest, as could, perhaps more so, the people who work in the health service. However, we must address the care industry and the need to make sure that vulnerable people are no longer subject to being cared for by people whose accountability can sometimes seem somewhat questionable.