Examination of witnesses (Questions 60
- 74)
TUESDAY 5 MAY 1998
THE RT
HON MR
ROBIN COOK,
MP, and MR
PETER WESTMACOTT
60. It raises the point about the next question
which is are you satisfied that Montserratians are receiving prompt
and effective assistance in social security, housing and also
education?
(Mr Cook) Satisfied? I think it would be an unwise
Minister or Member of Parliament who expressed any complacency
over what has happened. A large number of people from Montserrat
arrived here in an urgent state, distressed by the fact that they
had lost an awful lot of what they had built up. They arrived
here to the same rights to housing and social services and benefits
as people currently in Britain. I would not, though, suggest for
one moment that the experience of all of them was one that they
would regard as satisfactory. We have made sure that they have
the same rights and it is in policy terms difficult to contemplate
giving them greater rights. We are now, through the Home Office
project, able to make sure that those who are still in need do
actually get those rights and, as I said, over 500 households
have now been directly helped by the team which is working with
the Montserrat community and through the community, but anybody
who at their own surgery in their constituency deals with cases
of people looking for housing and social services, offering them
support, knows perfectly well the difficulties there and those
difficulties undoubtedly have been encountered by the people from
Montserrat as well as the people in Britain.
61. Will the special grant scheme for local
housing authorities be extended beyond the 31st March of this
year?
(Mr Cook) I am afraid I cannot answer that question
without notice. Do we have any information on that, Mr Westmacott?
We do not know that, but we will get a note to the Committee[7].
Chairman
62. Secretary of State, these people are
being treated by local authorities and indeed by the Department
of Environment, Transport and the Regions as homeless, and they
came here on the promise or the undertaking of the British Government
that they would be housed, not as homeless people, but as people
whose homes had been burnt in Montserrat and who, therefore, were
promised that they would be provided with housing. The treatment
that they have had at the hands of officials in the various housing
departments has been, I think, disgraceful and something which
I feel that the Montserratians should not have been asked to go
through. Do you agree?
(Mr Cook) I could not assent to such a broad approach
that treatment by officials has been disgraceful. I am quite sure
that many officials up and down the country have tried to do their
level best to provide housing to those from Montserrat who are
applying to them as they try to provide housing to those people
who are homeless within Britain. The reality, as many of us know,
is that housing officials find themselves frequently faced with
more demand than they have houses.
63. Sure.
(Mr Cook) And, in those circumstances, it is not
fair to blame the officials if they cannot solve the problems
of the people on the other side of the desk. We did give a commitment
that they would be entitled to houses and we did give them the
status of "homeless persons" within the meaning of the
statute. Now, that gives them priority over other people on the
waiting list and creates an obligation on the local authority
to find them housing, and local authorities have, to the best
of my knowledge, sought within what is a very difficult and pressurised
certain environment in which they work to honour that commitment.
The status of homeless person is important to the people from
Montserrat because of the additional priority it confers. I am
not sure that we would not have got into an entirely different
set of problems if we were to have given them a status which gave
them priority above homeless people who were already on the list
within Britain and registered statutorily homeless.
Chairman: But these
people have been through the trauma of a volcanic eruption which
has destroyed their homes, their agricultural land or that which
they tilled. They have been left with nothing but the clothes
they stood up in and some without much clothing at all. They are
different and should they not have been treated differently?
Dr Tonge: And their
savings.
Chairman
64. And their savings, and their whole livelihood,
yes.
(Mr Cook) I repeat what I said, that the category
of "homeless persons" gives you a priority, a statutory
priority above other people on the waiting list. It is not clear
to me, to be frank, from your question what additional status
could have been given to them which would have given them greater
priority on the waiting list. It is the reality, and those of
us from urban areas know only too well and some rural areas as
well, that there is acute pressure on local authority housing
at the present time. There is not, and it is regrettable, a large
amount of surplus stock in attractive areas for new numbers on
the waiting list, and we all know that, but those people from
Montserrat did get the top priority for housing allocation and
were, as far as I am aware, overwhelmingly offered accommodation
within the local authority sector. I appreciate that that may
well not have been necessarily the home that many of them might
have wished to have, but they were made the offer of the housing
that was available to local authorities.
65. But can I point out to you that in another
Dependent Territory when a volcano erupted, St Helena, what the
Government of this country did was to evacuate the whole island
and provide them with special accommodation in this country of
a good standard. Contrast that with what your Government have
done.
(Mr Cook) I am told it was Tristan da Cunha not
St Helena.
66. Yes, Tristan da Cunha.
(Mr Cook) To be honest, I am not myself familiar
with the background of what happened in the housing case there.
Certainly I can enquire and find out.
67. I can tell you that they were provided
with an army barracks and they were housed and looked after in
a responsible and respectable manner which was what I do not think
we can say we have done to provide housing in Montserrat.
(Mr Cook) We can investigate what happened in
Tristan da Cunha but I am not familiar with that case nor is there
any reason why I should be because it precedes my ministerial
responsibility. I am not terribly sure that army barracks would
be anything other than a short term emergency response.
68. Very considerably better than some of
the housing offered to Montserrat as evidence given to this Committee
by Montserratians.
(Mr Cook) They were offered housing available
to the local authority. I am not going to pretend to you that
the housing stock which we have inherited is necessarily perfect
or attractive housing. By the way I should put it in perspective
and say that there was a total of 300 evacuated at Tristan da
Cunha, we are dealing with ten times that number.
Chairman: Sure. Andrew
Robathan, would you ask the last question.
Mr Robathan
69. Yes, finally, still on housing, when
you went to Montserrat in February it was reported in The Times
that you had given Mr Brandt "a personal assurance that you
would ask the Department for International Development to purchase
90 acres of new land in the island's northern safe zone that could
then be bought by those made homeless by the volcano". Could
you give us a progress report on that or was The Times
incorrect?
(Mr Cook) We have, indeed within a few days after
that, delivered our commitment to 150 houses. I am not, I have
to say, clear where we are on the question of the purchase of
the land for those who wish to construct but we can provide a
note on the progress. We will be happy to do that[8].
Chairman
70. Can I ask how many Montserratians with
special needs have been brought to the United Kingdom and how
many remain in Montserrat?
(Mr Cook) There was a special plane which was
chartered by the Government which did bring across to Britain
I think something of the order of 150 with special needs[9].
There is a number of people in Montserrat, of course, at present
with special needs and there are 52 currently in long term social
service accommodation. I am not aware of any substantial numbers
who now seek transfer to the United Kingdom, that pressure seems
to have gone.
71. Where are the special needs' people
living in the United Kingdom?
(Mr Cook) They arrived, if I recall rightly, in
Durham. They have been assessed for their needs, some of them
are still being catered for by Social Services in Durham but most
of them have been placed in what was judged to be appropriate
accommodation at the time. One should say that some of those seen
on the plane as requiring special needs were not necessarily people
who would require residential care, for instance some of those
we took on the plane were in wheelchairs who plainly do have special
needs but like many other people in wheelchairs it is not necessarily
a special need for residential care.
Ann Clwyd
72. I understand from the Montserrat Aid
Committee that they are increasingly being asked to assist their
carers by social services as both those with learning difficulties
and their carers are finding it difficult to adjust to the new
environment. Obviously that needs to be looked at at a local level
but obviously needs some direction centrally.
(Mr Cook) It may well be that the Home Office
Project Team could be of assistance here because they have now
acquired quite considerable expertise in dealing with social services,
putting people in touch with those who can assist them. If there
are individual cases of that character, I would be very happy
to draw them to the attention of the team. It is, as I said, 18
strong and it has a lot of dedicated experienced staff.
Chairman
73. Can I thank you Foreign Secretary for
coming this morning. There have been three questions which we
have put to you this morning which were not covered in the Government
response to our report. I wonder whether you could point that
out to officials who deal with Select Committee reports because
they ought to cover the ground that the report reports on thoroughly
which would then mean that we do not need to bring back ministers
to get some response to what we have recommended. Secondly, can
I ask you in conclusion what is the future of the Dependent Territories
Office in Barbados, DTRS, I think it is known as, in the view
of what you have said to the Committee this morning?
(Mr Cook) First of all, I will take it as a positive
sign that I have provided more information to the Committee.
74. It is very welcome.
(Mr Cook) In fairness to officials I am giving
evidence now three months on from the publication of the response
and it may well be some of the things I have said are things which
have occurred since then but I fully agree with the point you
principally made and will be happy to draw that to the attention
of those who drafted the response. On the question of DTRS, the
DTRS is being wound up and its expertise has been transferred
back to London. Its resource and its expertise will be available
within the new Dependent Territories Department within the FCO
and where appropriate within a similar unit at DfID. I think it
is a better development that we have that expertise on hand as
part of our new integrated structure rather than in an outpost
which worked well for a time but was unable to respond under the
particular pressures which arose from the emergency situation
in Montserrat.
Chairman: Thank you
very much indeed, Foreign Secretary. We have detained you for
longer than we anticipated. I do thank you on behalf of the Committee
very much for coming to talk to us this morning about this business.
7 See Evidence p. 16. Back
8
See Evidence p. 16. Back
9
Note by witness: The chartered plane brought to Britain
35 people with special needs. Back
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