Children’s Services: Funding

Debate between Lord Bassam of Brighton and Lord Young of Cookham

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 Bassam of Brighton and Lord Young of Cookham

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 Bassam of Brighton and Lord Young of Cookham

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 Bassam of Brighton and Lord Young of Cookham

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.