Deregulation Bill

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Low of Dalston]

57: After Clause 39, insert the following new Clause—
“Prohibition of parking on verges, central reservations and footways
(1) The Road Traffic Act 1988 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 19 (Prohibition of HGVs on verges, central reservations and footways) insert—
“19A Parking on a road anywhere other than on the carriageway
(1) A person who parks a vehicle wholly or partly—
(a) on the verge of an urban road,(b) on a footway comprised of an urban road, or(c) on any other part of an urban road other than on the carriageway,is guilty of a civil offence, subject to the provisions of subsection (3).(2) An offence under this section shall be treated as a traffic contravention for the purposes of Part 6 of the Traffic Management Act 2004 and regulations made under it.
(3) Subject to subsection (6), a highway authority may by resolution, or in the case of the Secretary of State by such notice as appears to him to be appropriate, authorise, from a date specified in the resolution or notice, the parking of vehicles on or over a footway or any part of a footway as referred to in subsection (1).
(4) Nothing in this section shall apply to any road within Greater London.
(5) In this section—
“carriageway” and “footway” have the same meanings as in the Highways Act 1980;
“urban road” means a road which—
(a) is a restricted road for the purposes of section 81 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1980;(b) is subject to an order under section 84 of that Act imposing a speed limit not exceeding 40 miles per hour; or(c) is subject to a speed limit not exceeding 40 miles per hour which is imposed by or under any local Act;“vehicle” means a mechanically propelled vehicle or a vehicle designed or adapted for towing by, or to be attached to, a mechanically propelled vehicle but does not include a heavy commercial vehicle within the meaning of section 19 of this Act.
(6) The Secretary of State may make regulations as to any exemptions from the prohibition contained in subsection (1).”
(3) The Traffic Management Act 2004 is amended as follows.
(4) In Schedule 7, after paragraph 4(2)(g) insert—
“(ga) an offence under section 19A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (parking on a road anywhere other than on the carriageway);”.”

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I rise at 10.05 pm to move the amendment. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tope, who moved it for me in Committee, when I was unable to be present, and to all other noble Lords who spoke in favour of it then. It would introduce a general prohibition on pavement parking outside Greater London, where this has been the rule since 1974, with a power for local authorities to make exemptions on a street-by-street basis. After the noble Lord moved the amendment much more ably than I ever could, there is not a lot more to be said. It seems to be a no-brainer but, for the benefit of noble Lords who were not in Committee—there cannot be many of them left by now—I shall summarise the arguments briefly, given the lateness of the hour. That was not, I fear, a consideration that seemed to trouble many of the previous speakers, who have spoken unusually expansively for the time of night.

Five points need to be made. First, pavement parking is dangerous for pedestrians, especially parents with pushchairs and prams, wheelchair users and other disabled people who are forced into the road in the face of oncoming traffic, which, in the case of blind and partially sighted people, they cannot even see.

Secondly, it is costly. Pavements are not designed to take the weight of vehicles, so they crack and the tarmac surface subsides in consequence. This is also a hazard to pedestrians, who may trip on broken pavements, especially if they cannot see what has happened. Local authorities spent more than £1 billion on repairing kerbs, pavements and walkways between 2006 and 2010. Some £106 million was also paid in meeting compensation claims from people tripping and falling on broken pavements during the same five-year period.

Thirdly, the present legal position is extremely confusing. Parking is regulated by local authorities issuing traffic regulation orders under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, prohibiting parking in specific areas. This has led to a patchwork of different approaches being taken by different local authorities, which is very confusing for motorists. We need the consistency of a standard regime throughout the country. Given the hazardous nature of pavement parking for pedestrians, and the fact that a general prohibition with local power to exempt seems to have worked well in Greater London, it seems sensible that this should be the rule that prevails throughout the country.

Fourthly, an amendment along these lines has massive support outside this Chamber. Some 69% of 2,552 adults in England, Scotland and Wales surveyed by YouGov in March 2014 supported a law on pavement parking, as do some 20 organisations, including those representing local government, pedestrians, motorists and transport interests generally, as well as disabled and elderly people. The status quo presents challenges for drivers as well as pedestrians and cyclists. The British Parking Association and the RAC Foundation support the call for change. Some 78% of local councillors believe that there should be a ban on pavement parking. It would be hard to think of any other amendment that united such a diversity of interests that are normally at loggerheads.

Finally, as I said, the regime that this amendment would introduce appears to have worked perfectly well in Greater London for more than 40 years.

In Committee, the main objection to the amendment seemed to be that it was better to leave the question of pavement parking to local discretion. However, I have already pointed out the huge objections to this in terms of cost and consistency. I think the Government’s objections were principally founded on the fear that the amendment would take away all local discretion, but this is not the case. All the amendment does is reverse the presumption as between national standard and local discretion.

The Minister expressed reservations about this on the grounds that introducing the new regime would be costly and disruptive. But, as I have argued, the present system is costly in terms of repair bills and legal costs. Traffic regulation orders cost between £1,000 and £3,000 to introduce, when account is taken of consultation, signage and advertising. A national law on pavement parking would give local authorities the discretion to act as they see fit in a more cost-effective way.

As I said, the case for the amendment is strong. I beg to move.

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, I added my name to the amendment with great pleasure. Indeed, as the noble Lord said, I moved it in Grand Committee in his unavoidable absence. I did that in particular because of the experience that I had for 40 years as a London borough councillor. As it happens, my council chose to start enforcing the ban in our area in my first year as leader of that council. The area that was most directly and strongly affected by that happened to be the town centre ward that I represented for those 40 years. Many of the properties in my ward were built before the motor car was invented, and certainly before it was ever envisaged that anybody living in the houses in those roads would ever own a car, let alone two cars. Many of the streets were too narrow to allow cars to pass in both directions without parked cars being on the pavement, so we had to deal with all the exemptions, many of them in the ward that I represented.

Therefore, I support the amendment, particularly for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Low, but also because, as a councillor, I have had many years’ experience of the implementation and enforcement of this ban. As the noble Lord made clear, it is not a blanket ban; it permits sensible exemptions that then have to be properly marked on the pavement and with a sign. Therefore, I support the ban enthusiastically. I know that it can work where there is a will, and I know that it has worked for many years in the area that I know best. We really should be moving to a situation where, just as in London, the presumption is that parking on pavements and verges is illegal unless it is specifically exempted. Motorists would then know that they should not park on a pavement, for all the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Low, has given, unless it was clear that they were permitted to do so. That is the opposite of the presumption that exists in the country outside London at the moment, and it is an extremely important road safety and pedestrian safety measure that we should implement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate on the amendment. It demonstrates that there is no perfect system to allow traffic and pedestrians to move around entirely satisfactorily.

I shall start with the points made about London. Pavement parking in London is banned but people still do it. Enforcement of properly targeted local bans outside London would be more effective than a blanket ban that does not reflect local circumstances. On the more general points, local authorities already have the power to introduce footway parking restrictions where they consider it appropriate. They are in the best position to decide on local parking restrictions and need to consider all road users when taking such decisions. A national ban of the type proposed would require local authorities to remove all existing restrictions, then renew their urban areas where footway parking should nevertheless still be permitted, consult the community and erect new signage and markings. There could be a significant burden on local government.

The amendment proposes banning footway parking but would allow authorities to permit it where it is desired by simple resolution. Circumvention of the traffic regulation order—TRO—process would take away important protection for the public. The statutory TRO process requires authorities to undertake consultation and advertise their proposals before councils take final decisions. A noble Lord made the point about the TRO process being expensive and cumbersome. It is not true to say that the process is a barrier. Some local authorities make up to 200 orders a year for a variety of traffic management purposes with an average authority making between 50 and 60 orders per year.

The Department for Transport’s guidance to local authorities makes it clear that during the appraisal of their parking policies an authority should consider whether pavement parking is problematic in any part of that area. If it is, and it is not covered by an existing traffic regulation order, the authority should consider amending the existing order or making a new one. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, wrote to all English traffic authorities on 27 June to remind them of their existing wide-ranging powers to prevent people parking on the pavement where it is a problem.

The noble Lord, Lord Low, made a point about damage to pavements. The Government are committed to investing in our local highways, including the footways. We are providing local authorities in England with more than £3 billion over four years from 2011-15 for the roads and footways for which they are responsible. In addition, in June 2014, the Government announced that they were committed to providing just under £6 billion for local highways maintenance over the six-year period from April 2015 to March 2021. This equates to £976 million per year to local authorities for highway maintenance.

In conclusion, the Government have concerns about the burden on local authorities of managing a change of this scale, a point to which the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, alluded, especially when those authorities have comprehensive powers to ban footway parking. I have undertaken to have a discussion with the noble Lord, Lord Low, before Third Reading but I would at this stage ask him to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for her reply and to all noble Lords who have spoken, in some cases with very telling illustrations of the workability of the amendment. It certainly is not the belief of those who support this amendment that all pavement parkers are behaving anti-socially. The amendment’s inclusion of scope for local discretion to exempt specific areas from the general ban recognises that. I am sure that with good will we can find a formula which caters for the concerns both of those putting forward the amendment and the concerns which have been expressed about the erosion of local discretion. In response to the Minister’s indication that she is happy to have a discussion before Third Reading, at which I hope we can work together to find that formula, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 57 withdrawn.

Deregulation Bill

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will flag up a couple of points in the gap which will need further attention as we go through the Bill.

There is a dearth of accessible housing in the UK. As a result, one in six disabled people and more than half of disabled children live in accommodation that is not suitable for their needs. The need for disabled-friendly housing will only grow as the population ages, and providing good housing can reduce the need for care. The Government’s proposal to incorporate lifetime homes and wheelchair-accessible standards into building regulations is therefore most welcome. However, I am concerned that those standards will be only optional and concerned at the suggestion that planning authorities will be able to adopt them only where they can satisfy a rigorous needs test and show that they are strictly necessary and justifiable, not just desirable.

The GLA has committed to all new buildings matching lifetime homes standards and to 10% of all new homes being built to wheelchair-accessible standards. I would like to see the approach taken by successive mayors in London rolled out across the UK and I believe that the Bill should be encouraging that. Instead, I am concerned that it could actively discourage authorities from taking that positive approach if they are required to jump through too many bureaucratic hoops. I therefore seek the Minister’s assurance that the Government accept that the level of evidence gathered by the GLA is sufficiently rigorous to support the introduction of lifetime homes and wheelchair-accessible standards. I would also like to see an exemption from the community infrastructure levy for fully wheelchair-accessible housing and a reduction for that which meets the lifetime homes standard.

I turn to my second point. The Bill includes provisions on parking. Clause 38 amends the Road Traffic Act to prevent local authorities from issuing penalty charge notices through the post and using CCTV for parking enforcement in particular circumstances. I was glad to see that the Opposition have some reservations about this. The clause was inserted following a government consultation on local authority parking strategies. The Government acknowledged that a common theme in responses to the consultation was the need for a uniform approach to pavement parking, but this has not been followed up in the Bill. That is a major omission. Pavement parking is dangerous for pedestrians, especially parents with pushchairs, wheelchair users and other disabled people, including blind and partially sighted people, who may be forced out into the road where they cannot see oncoming traffic. Pavements are not designed to take the weight of vehicles and they cause pavements to crack and the tarmac surface to subside. This is also a hazard to pedestrians, who may trip on broken pavements, and particularly to blind and partially sighted people, who cannot observe the damage. It is also expensive. Local authorities paid more than £1 billion on repairing kerbs, pavements and walkways between 2006 and 2010; £106 million was also paid in compensation claims to people tripping and falling on broken pavements during the same five-year period.

Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, with the support of at least a dozen other organisations, is calling for laws across the UK prohibiting pavement parking unless specifically permitted, such as have been in place in Greater London since 1974. Local authorities report that existing measures are insufficient. In a recent YouGov survey, 78% of councillors supported a national law with flexibility for local authorities to make exemptions. The Transport Select Committee described the current system as unduly complex and difficult for motorists to understand. A Private Member’s Bill with cross-party support has been presented in the other place by Martin Horwood MP. There is considerable support for a law of this type, and I very much hope that the Government will give it serious consideration.

Elections: Weekend Voting

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

A whole range of places, including church halls, are indeed used for polling stations. It often happens, however, that the primary school is the most convenient place in a village or town district for people to get to and for disabled people in particular to be able to go into.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

Does the Minister agree that whether an activity is disruptive or not depends on the value of the activity? I do not find many people agreeing with me about how disruptive football matches are.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I merely reiterate that not all schools that are used as polling stations have to close entirely for the day of polling. There is some disruption, so it is a problem, but it is not a universal problem.

Leveson Report

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government well understand the strength of feeling among the public on the misuse of press freedom in recent years. We have not yet reached the end of the story—we are still moving and there are some hiccups on the way.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, what is the procedure for determining the precedence as between the two royal charters which are going before the Privy Council?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Press Standards Board of Finance submitted its petition to the Privy Council before the Government had presented their own royal charter. My understanding is that that therefore gives it precedence over the Government’s royal charter, but that the consideration of the draft royal charter nominated by the Press Standards Board of Finance should shortly be finished, and at that point we will consider how we move further.

Representation of the People (Election Expenses Exclusion) Order 2013

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Representation of the People Act 1983 lists a number of exclusions from election expenses, which this order seeks to amend. The order adds a further exclusion whereby payments made to disabled candidates from the Access to Elected Office for Disabled People Fund are also exempted. This means that recipients of the new fund will not be penalised for accepting grants that are intended to increase their electoral participation. Fund payments will not therefore be considered for the purposes of candidates’ spending limits.

There are more than 11 million people with a limiting long-term illness, impairment or disability in Great Britain, and they are substantially underrepresented in Parliament and other elected bodies. The Government strongly believe that elected bodies should be more representative of the people they serve.

To address this, the Access to Elected Office Strategy was launched in July last year to provide disabled people with training, paid parliamentary internships and grants through the Access to Elected Office for Disabled People Fund. The fund was established because one of the principal reasons disabled people are underrepresented in elected bodies is the fact that they face additional costs when standing for elected office—for instance, extra transport costs or the hire of sign language interpreters. These additional costs create an extra barrier to elected office for disabled people—one that other, non-disabled, candidates do not face. The fund therefore seeks to help disabled candidates to overcome these financial hurdles by covering the cost of their disability-related items or services, whatever they may be.

The fund provides grants to all disabled candidates, whether they are independent or represent political parties, provided that they are standing at UK parliamentary, English local authority, Greater London Authority, English mayoral or police and crime commissioner elections or by-elections. By offering specific disability-related financial assistance, the fund will place disabled candidates on an equal footing with the other candidates.

Unfortunately, under current electoral rules, grant payments awarded by the fund will count towards candidates’ election spending limits. This is not an issue for parliamentary, Greater London Authority or police and crime commissioner elections, where disability-related costs are likely to be treated as personal expenses and are therefore exempt under Section 76(5) of the Representation of the People Act 1983—a provision that I am sure Members of the Committee know off by heart—but for local authority and English mayoral elections, the rules place disabled candidates who are awarded funding from the Government in the extraordinary position of being penalised for accepting it. Of course, in local authority elections, the overall limit for spending is much lower and there is therefore potentially a much higher barrier. This is because any fund spending will reduce the amount that disabled candidates can spend on the usual election expenses, while unfunded candidates will have the entire election expenses limit at their disposal.

The situation is further affected by the fact that there are a number of high-cost needs for which many disabled candidates will seek funding, such as British sign language interpreters who can cost as much as £350 a day. In some circumstances, the fund could entirely consume a disabled candidate’s election expenses limit, which is on average just £1,000 for local authority elections. This order therefore seeks to remove these unintended effects of the fund by excluding grants provided by the Access to Elected Office for Disabled People Fund from candidate spending limits. Using an existing order-making power contained within Schedule 4A to the Representation of the People Act 1983 to amend the Act itself, a new tightly drawn exception to the definition of election expenses is thus being created. This exception will provide that any item or service financed by the fund would not amount to an election expense, and would not therefore count towards a candidate’s spending limit.

A three-part test must be met in order for the exemption the order provides to apply. First, a candidate must have incurred spending specifically in order to remove or mitigate barriers to seeking elected office—barriers which must be associated with his or her disability. Secondly, that spending must also have been incurred through the means of a grant awarded under the fund’s terms and conditions. Lastly, the spending must then be defrayed or reimbursed by the fund. The fund is intended to cover all the additional costs that disabled candidates face as a result of their disability. That can therefore include extra costs that arise from campaigning activity. For example, campaigning leaflets would not normally be considered for funding, but where a blind candidate might require Braille leaflets for proof-reading purposes, the extra cost of producing those leaflets in Braille will be met by the fund.

The order is also drafted with a sunset clause so that it exactly aligns with the short and temporary operating period of the fund. The fund has been set up as a pilot exercise only until June 2014, so its effectiveness can be assessed before the Government take a view on whether to introduce it on a permanent basis. If the resolution is passed, the Representation of the People (Election Expenses Exclusion) Order will be made to ensure that it comes into force by 26 March, the start of the regulated period for the next local authority elections. I hope noble Lords agree that the fund provides essential support to disabled people seeking to participate in elections and democratic processes, and that this order helps very considerably to enable that. I beg to move.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, as we have heard, the additional costs faced by disabled people in contesting elections—for example, the cost of sign language interpreters—can make running for elected office prohibitively expensive for them. Therefore, the Government’s decision to implement the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference on parliamentary representation through the setting up of the access to elected office fund is very welcome and much to be commended. This will go a long way to removing the financial barriers and ensuring that aspiring disabled candidates who have higher costs are not penalised, and should improve access to elected office for disabled people. Avoiding spending limits deterring disabled people applying for support from the fund would, as we have heard, require a change in the law to establish an exemption as to how the candidate’s expenses related to disability are treated. Therefore, I support the draft order which seeks to amend current election limit rules which pose problems for the operation of the fund.

It is important that we pass this order before the start of the regulated period for the forthcoming local elections in May this year. Given the breadth of the extra costs which could be faced by prospective disabled candidates, the fund does not provide an exhaustive list of expenses that would be covered and provides only an indication of the most common expenses that are likely to occur and would be eligible for funding. In fact, it would not be possible to provide an exhaustive list.

The Electoral Commission has, however, voiced concerns that the exemption which the order creates to the current limits on candidates’ spending is not sufficiently clearly defined. Following further discussion with the Government and the fund, it proposes the following actions to make the risks associated with this order manageable for the 2013 local elections. First, it proposes that the fund should ensure that all candidates accessing funding are referred to the Electoral Commission for individual advice on how their funding will be treated under the spending rules; and secondly, it proposes that the fund and the Government should set out a clear policy to clarify the operation and scope of the fund to reduce the uncertainty around interpretation of the order.

Scope, which has done a lot of work on the accessibility of elections for disabled people, believes that the exemption needs to be broad enough to allow for any potential expense that occurs because of an individual’s disability. It takes the view that the proposed drafting, which states that in order to benefit from an exemption, the expenditure must be designed to remove or mitigate barriers to seeking elected office, should be sufficiently mindful of this to achieve the desired purpose. In view of the high level of scrutiny that takes place around election expenses, the proposed exemption would need to be applied carefully and transparently to militate against the prospect of a subsequent legal challenge; for example, if another candidate made an allegation of overspending. Such allegations would be extremely detrimental to the future of the fund and would risk undermining the progress being made in improving access to elected office for disabled people. Accordingly, Scope has recognised that mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure transparency about how the exemption is operated in order to maintain trust that the fund is not being misused for political gain. It therefore supports the Electoral Commission’s suggestion of providing advice to disabled people to disclose expenses paid for by the fund on a voluntary basis on their spending return.

With these safeguards, which have been suggested by the Electoral Commission, I think that the risks can be sufficiently managed for the local elections that are to take place in a couple of months’ time. Work will continue after those elections to make sure that the exemption is working satisfactorily, and there is a sunset clause, as the Minister explained. With those safeguards, I support the order and urge the Committee to agree to it.

Mental Health (Discrimination) (No. 2) Bill

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Friday 18th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I rise to give my enthusiastic support to this measure. Given the conditions outside and what I am sure is the desire of noble Lords to get home as soon as possible, I can probably signify my support fairly formally—or, at any rate, briefly.

As someone who has had a bit to do with anti-discrimination and equality legislation in my time, I am a bit embarrassed that it should be necessary to bring a Private Member’s Bill to remedy the injustices this Bill seeks to correct. I suppose any piece of generic, comparatively unfocused legislation like the Disability Discrimination Act, and now the Equality Act, is bound to miss a few specific provisions—pockets of discrimination, which, to our shame, remain hidden away in the interstices of the statute book. We should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for winkling them out and bringing them to us today so that we can root out once and for all these anomalies, which, inappropriately in the 21st century, continue to disfigure our legislation and have unaccountably escaped the consolidator’s pruning knife.

Perhaps we should not be altogether surprised that these anomalies should have survived, because of course they reflect the particular stigma that mental illness has traditionally attracted, and still attracts—greater even that that attaching to physical disability. For that very reason, we should warmly welcome this Bill as sending a strong message that the outdated attitudes reflected in the discriminatory provisions that the Bill sweeps away are no longer regarded as appropriate in a civilised society.

Like other noble Lords, I do not propose to say anything about the specific provisions of the Bill, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, pointed out, are fully covered in the briefing which has been provided. Rather, I will simply give the Bill a warm welcome, thank and commend the noble Lord for bringing it before us today and express the hope that your Lordships will give it an enthusiastic Second Reading and speed it on its way.

Of course, that will not be the end of the story. As the noble Lord said, the Bill makes just an inroad in the problem of discrimination which still attends those who suffer from mental illness. Mind, Rethink Mental Illness and the Royal College of Psychiatrists point out that there is still a good deal to do before parity of esteem between physical and mental health is achieved. That means valuing those who suffer from mental illness equally with those who suffer from physical illnesses.

They say that several things need to be done to improve outcomes for those who suffer from mental illness. The notion of parity needs to be embedded in the NHS constitution. Mental health services should be funded to a level which accords with the scale of mental illness. Currently, mental illness accounts for 23% of all illness, but receives only 13% of the NHS budget. Waiting times for mental health treatments need to be comparable with those for physical illnesses. They recommend annual health checks for people with mental health problems, and enhanced training on co-morbidity to avoid people with severe and enduring mental health problems dying 20 years younger than the general population.

The Bill can be a springboard to end wider discrimination, which is still endemic in the delivery of mental health services, and to move towards the parity of esteem which the advocates for those who suffer from mental illness desire. Given that, this time around, the Bill has already passed all its stages in the Commons before reaching us, I trust that, with a fair wind and a helping hand from the Government, it will now reach the statute book with the minimum of delay.

EU: Scottish Independence

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we do not know. That is one of the things that everyone is longing to discover.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, would the UK have a veto on a Scottish application for membership such as General de Gaulle exercised in respect of British membership in former times?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are all mongrels. My father was a Scot; there are many of us here who have mixed Scottish, English, Irish and Welsh antecedents so we all hope that this question will not come up. If it did ever lead to separation, we would, of course, have to consider it. The Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom in 1922. Incidentally, that was relatively peaceful—although not within Ireland itself—and Ireland had to reapply to join international organisations.

Voluntary Sector and Social Enterprise

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, a couple of years ago we had a couple of good debates about the role of the voluntary sector. The subjects for debate referred more to civil society than the voluntary sector but people seemed to take the view that we were free to talk about more or less whatever we liked. That was a couple of years ago, so the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, is to be greatly congratulated on bringing us back to the subject, especially considering the prominent place that the voluntary sector has assumed in the Government’s thinking about the direction of society. I am taking it that the subject for debate today gives us a similarly free hand as to what we talk about.

ACEVO, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, says that a social enterprise is an organisation that trades for a social and/or environmental purpose and reinvests its profits in support of that social or environmental aim. As we have heard, a well known example is the Big Issue, the magazine that is sold for £1.25 to homeless vendors who then sell it for £2.50, achieving the social return of increased income and independence. The Annual Survey of Small Businesses UK 2010 estimated that there are approximately 68,000 social enterprises in the UK, which contribute at least £24 billion to the economy and employ an estimated 800,000 people. ACEVO would argue that it is unhelpful to draw a hard and fast distinction between charity and social enterprise. All charities need to be enterprising in their outlook, particularly in challenging economic times, and many pursue social enterprise models.

In a sense, social enterprise is something that an organisation does, rather than something that it is. For example, the charities Catch22 and Turning Point work with the private company Serco to deliver an anti-reoffending pilot at Doncaster prison on a payment-by-results basis, in which payment levels depend on the extent to which reoffending is reduced. This is replicating a social enterprise model in which investors are rewarded when a programme achieves targets. If this is what a social enterprise model is, I would have to flag up dangers. Just to be clear about my own position, institutional and ideological, I have 40 years’ experience of working in charities, great and small, ending up as a vice-president of RNIB, having been chair for nine years at the beginning of this century. I am also president of a number of others, declared in the register of interests, and have been president of others that I helped to found back in the 1970s but which have recently either merged or, sadly, folded.

I am thus a great believer in the big society, pace the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, as an expression of the voluntary effort that goes to make it up. The voluntary sector can add much in specific expertise and commitment to the comparatively blunt instruments that the state often has at its disposal, but it should not be contingent on a rolling-back of the state. We need them both; they are interdependent, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, made clear. We need the state to remedy the deficiencies of civil society in caring for the vulnerable and providing basic health, education and other services for the population at large. Some Ministers seem to base their view of what constitutes a healthy society—or a healthy economy anyway—on such a rolling-back. Thus the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, said:

“As the Government, we have to continue to reduce the burden of the state. If we do that, the economy will flourish”.—[Official Report, 22/3/12; col. 1031.]

We have to be careful that the payment-by-results model does not turn into exploitation. Volunteering is a wonderful thing—but there is also exploitation, as the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, reminded us. It is the exploitation of organisations rather than individuals that I want to talk about. Small and medium-sized charities such as Action for Blind People or the Shaw Trust may have the specialist expertise that is crucial to get those farthest from the labour market into work, but they can find it hard to compete with large private-sector organisations with deep pockets that can bear the upfront costs and uncertainty of the final outcome for the length of time that it can often take to get such people into work. Prime contractors, whose aim is to maximise profit by cherry-picking those who are easiest to place, are also failing to refer to the more specialised organisations those who need the specialist support that is far beyond their capacity. For reasons such as these, the Work Programme—the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, also touched on this—by which the Government set such store to support for getting into work those whom they have thrown off benefit, is just not working, at least for those whose disabilities have placed them at a particularly severe competitive disadvantage.

During the spring, ACEVO held a series of round tables and spoke with over 100 charity chief executives to hear their thoughts and concerns about the future across the different sectors and beneficiary groups. Common themes emerging included the point that cuts are significantly affecting the vulnerable beneficiary groups that voluntary organisations serve. These cuts are being implemented in a climate of little or no public scrutiny and a local democratic deficit. The devolution of power to a local level is not accompanied by greater accountability. With the scrapping of scrutiny mechanisms such as comprehensive area assessments in the Audit Commission and low levels of public engagement with local politics, there is a lack of accountability for local spending decisions. Charities would love to act as the armchair auditors envisaged by Eric Pickles, scrutinising local decision-making on behalf of their beneficiaries, but local authorities do not make the necessary data and information available. For example, Rethink Mental Illness recently attempted to ask local authorities how much of their social care budgets were dedicated to mental health and received incomplete information, or none, which made it mostly impossible to determine what funding had been allocated to social care of different groups, what evidence lay behind funding decisions and whether, and how, funding had changed year on year. Fewer than 50% of local authorities contacted provided the budgetary information requested.

Consequently, there is the danger of a forgotten Britain developing—a marginalised and underprivileged section of society that will be increasingly affected by cuts but goes largely unnoticed by much of society. ACEVO argues that the scrutiny deficit must be plugged. The Government have undertaken to evaluate the impact of cuts as several of their Bills have passed through Parliament. Charities can help to fulfil that role, but it requires genuine co-operation and engagement from the public sector.

Government: Commercial Lobbying of Ministers

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Low of Dalston]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will set up an inquiry into the nature and extent of commercial lobbying of Ministers, outside the normal processes of Government.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Ministerial Code sets out the ways of working for Ministers. On taking office, the Prime Minister committed to the quarterly publication of Minister’s meetings with external organisations and the hospitality received. He also strengthened the code in relation to former Ministers to include a two-year ban on lobbying Government and a requirement for former Ministers, for two years after leaving office, to obtain the advice of the independent Advisory Committee On Business Appointments about any job or appointment they wish to take up, and to abide by the committee’s advice, which is made public.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, following the Prime Minister’s request to him to investigate the former Defence Secretary’s conduct in relation to the Ministerial Code, the Cabinet Secretary wrote in his report that more allegations had arisen,

“which will be the responsibility of others to answer”.

If the Government do not intend to set up an inquiry, how do they propose to go about getting those answers, which I am sure both Parliament and the country will be anxious to hear?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there has been an inquiry on the Werrity affair, and I was not aware that we needed a further inquiry on it. The Government are committed to as much transparency as possible, not only in ministerial meetings—I assure the noble Lord that it relates to people as far down the food chain as me, in terms of what is required about my diary being published—but in the funding that is provided for various activities.

Social Policy

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester on securing this debate. It could not be more timely, as the new Administration begin to put in place a new strategy for shaping and delivering social policy. I apologise for missing the first minute or two of his introduction, but the quality of the greater part which I did hear was sufficient to show what an impressive introduction it was. I also welcome the Minister to her position on the Front Bench and, like the rest of us, I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wei.

The current fiscal environment demands that social policy and public services are recast to take account of the new economic reality, but the questions and challenges that that poses are immense. Not only is the scale of these issues already very significant, but, as the full effects of the recession play out, it will continue to grow. The Government are now looking at a situation where they will have to do much more with far less. Speaking as an advocate for the voluntary sector, I believe that must ensure value for money, efficiency and effectiveness of services in order to extract the maximum utility that we can from each pound of public spend. As a result, we must ensure that the policy frameworks around which those services are constructed are as focused and as appropriate as we can make them. I believe that civil society is in a unique position to help the Government to create those frameworks. The expertise and knowledge of the sector, whose strengths need to be harnessed, are an invaluable resource for the Government.

The Government’s big society agenda may well be able to provide at least a partial answer in meeting those problems. However, doing so requires recognition of the fact that building the big society needs not just civic action but organised civic action; that is to say, civil society organisations with business nous and financial capacity and a smart, strategic state working in genuine partnership with the sector. The danger that we face is a state that simply retrenches and leaves the big society to pick up the pieces.

There are two clear planks in the Government’s vision for a big society: empowered communities and more public services delivered by citizen-focused civil society organisations. Those ambitions are not without their history. The boundaries between what is done by the state and what is done by the voluntary sector have shifted backwards and forwards over the centuries. The state made a major advance in the 20th century, but it is now definitely in retreat. How headlong that retreat will prove to be is perhaps under negotiation, even as we speak. Over the past decade, there has been a growing political consensus on the strengths that civil society organisations bring to public services. Increasing levels of impact reporting are now formally demonstrating the immense value that the sector brings to shaping social policy and delivering services.

The key strength that the sector provides in shaping policy is in the role of the provider advocate. Due to the close nature of their relationship with their beneficiaries, civil society organisations are able to shape their services around individual need, and can then translate the lessons learnt from practice into policy. That exercise can be successful only when relationships of trust and mutuality exist—something which civil society is streets ahead of other sectors in creating. That knowledge must be used and applied by government in the design of effective social policy.

A major question is: how do we get from where we are today to where we want to be? How, practically, is the big society to be built, especially at a time when the state’s capacity will be hampered by massive public spending cuts? One thing is clear: success will depend to a large degree on the extent to which civic action can organise itself. Informal civil action—mutual support between family members and friends, for example—is the bedrock of our society, but clearly there are limits to what can be done through such informal activity

If you want volunteers helping children to read in school, reformed ex-offenders mentoring those released from prison to prevent reoffending or volunteers providing the elderly with company and conversation, you will need civil society organisations to manage and organise those volunteers. You will need those organisations to be efficient, professional and well led. If you want civil society organisations to deliver more public services, especially at a time when spending cuts mean that you also want efficiencies of scale and to pay providers only once they have achieved results, you will need those organisations to be businesslike, capable of scaling up and able to access working capital.

Furthermore, if you want civil society to shape policy, there will need to be formal conduits through which information and evidence of the impact of civic action can be collected, analysed and evaluated. Formalised organisations and networks are not necessarily a sign of inefficiency or waste. Infrastructure, both capital and organisational, is an important way of gaining efficiency, collating data and sharing best practice. It is imperative that that aspect is not ignored by the Government if they are truly keen on a big society.

How is civil society meeting those challenges? Consolidation is an obvious response to the need for greater cost-effectiveness. That is beginning to happen, still too tentatively, in a sector deeply imbued with traditions of organisational pride, but I predict that it will grow. Diversity is a good thing, but you can have too much of it. In the world of the visually impaired, which, as vice-president of the RNIB, I know a bit about, there are no fewer than 733 charities. The RNIB thus performs an invaluable service for government by bringing together the entire impairment sector—not just charities but the statutory sector as well, eye health and social care professionals and users of eye care services—around a UK vision strategy. That sets out a shared agenda which gives government and others a coherent and expert view of what the sector needs.

That both points to and facilitates a second requirement: partnership from the state. As David Cameron has said, building a big society will require a smart, strategic state, not one that simply retrenches. It will require a state that is proactive in supporting civil society—for instance, by acting fast to set up a big society bank. It will require a state that works with us in the sector to define the contours of the big society. Above all, it will require a state that does not think, even at the back of its mind, that the sector can simply pick up the pieces for free when the state decides to do less. It cannot, it will not, and in every sense the Government would pay a heavy price for believing the opposite.

Civil society organisations such as the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations have campaigned vigorously for the Government to take a mature partnership approach in policy formation. I believe that this is an offer that we should seize with both hands, particularly over the coming months when it will be critical to bring out the best in both sectors. Already the Government have courted controversy by ending the future jobs fund, an effective scheme devised by the third sector for producing real, long-term jobs, and the perverse decision to replace futurebuilders loans with grants. Dangerously, backward-looking councils have already started cutting grants to voluntary organisations. The sector and government must do more to work together in creating more positive social outcomes. Both sides are realistic and know that cuts in spending are coming, but a partnership approach in policy and delivery can ensure the least damage to vital front-line services. We should not underestimate this challenge, and now is no time to be romantic. However, I believe that a meaningful partnership between government and civil society is a vital plank in developing a more effective and appropriate social policy.