Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Thursday 19th July 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I have a real difficulty with the amendment because it seems to be another example of trying all the time to limit localism. There are too many mechanisms for that. One is to stop it being localised in the first place and the other is to make it so difficult for people by having to report in so many ways that you remove the whole advantage.

For me, the advantage is that localities make their own decisions. If there are circumstances in which the Secretary of State feels that concern is so widely held that he ought to find out more about it, he has all the powers to do that. We really do not want a situation where every time we give powers to localities, the clever Dicks from the centre say, “We can’t let them get away with it. We have to have a whole series of ways to make sure that they report on everything”.

My real objection is that this is all part of a pattern that we have seen for years. We promise localism, but do not quite give it to them. If we get away with a bit of localism, then let us make sure that that there is a whole lot of reporting, measurement and all the rest of it. I would like local authorities to make their decisions about this. Only if there is a real reason and a real concern should we take any further action at all. When there is a real reason and real concern, I am all in favour of immediate action, but putting this sort of thing into operation is otiose.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I take a rather different position, as the noble Lord would probably expect. Some of us here are refugees from the Welfare Reform Bill, which sat for what felt like many years, but certainly for many months. One of the few things that we achieved on that Bill, partly in response to amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Best, was a commitment to monitor various aspects of the changes.

That is important, regardless of what the noble Lord has just said. We are making a big change to the basic safety net by removing it from being a national benefit to being a local one. At the very least, we need to know as a Parliament what impact that is having on some of the poorest people in our communities. I am sure that the Minister will do this, but I cannot believe that the Government have no plans whatever to collect some form of information so that we know what effect it will have, especially if the DWP take-up statistics are now in doubt.

If we can achieve nothing else in this Committee, it would be good if we could achieve some commitment to monitoring the impact of what is a very significant change. My noble friend Lady Hollis has explained very well why it is such a significant change to our income maintenance provisions.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Monday 16th July 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, gave us a rousing speech, but I did not hear him address the argument made by my noble friend Lady Hollis, which is that the needs arising from vulnerabilities are not locally determined, they are the same, regardless of where a person lives. I wonder whether the noble Lord would argue that the Government were wrong to protect pensioners from above, because for some reason, pensioners are being treated as part of a national scheme whereas people below pension age, who may be just as vulnerable, are not being treated as part of a national scheme.

[Lord Deben]

I thought that I made it clear that the assessment of vulnerability does not necessarily have to be central . I do not happen to think that if it were local it would be any less unpleasant or pleasant than if it were done centrally. As to the comment about whether the Government are protecting this group rather than another, I was suggesting that this is at least one step in the direction in which local people can have some real control over what they want to do.

The idea that they will all be less generous than the Government seems to be rather rude about locality and it shows that in the end people do not believe in localism because they always think that people at the top will make a better decision than people at the bottom. I just happen to think that Suffolk County Council does it much better.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I certainly do not want to be rude about local authorities. Some things should be locally determined, but this is not one of them. I am sure that my noble friend Lady Hollis will return to that much better than I could.

I want to raise one point that I know will cut absolutely no mustard with the noble Lord: the position of people who move between local authorities, which some government policies encourage them to do. If there is no national guidance on vulnerability, they will not know how they will be treated when they move from one authority to another. The researchers in the report that I quoted earlier by Demos and Scope, said that they were struck by an “oppressive sense of uncertainty” that many disabled people were living with which,

“clearly jeopardised their emotional wellbeing”.

Without clear guidance, that uncertainty will be aggravated.

It is not only disabled people who feel uncertainty; it is part of living in poverty. There is a sense of insecurity and uncertainty. At least national guidance would allow people to know how they would be treated when they moved from one authority to another.