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My final note on a detailed answer for the noble Lord, Lord Laird, is on funding for the Ulster-Scots Agency. The budget for 2006 is sufficient for it to meet its objectives and targets laid out in the corporate and annual business plan, which was approved after consultation. I understand that the budget for 2006 is £2.132 million, an increase of 17.9 per cent on 2005. The Northern Ireland contribution is £1.6 million.
There is no discrimination against Ulster Scots in government policy on funding. The Ulster-Scots Agency sought an increase of £487,000 in its budget for the 2006 business plan. My colleague, the Minister David Anderson, agreed an additional £200,000 for the agency as part of a package of confidence-building measures. I understand that the department in the south provided an additional £67,000, in keeping with the agreed funding ratio. It does not quite meet what they asked for, but is nevertheless substantial extra funding.
I am conscious that I have been unable to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, on waste and refuse, but I shall come back to him in writing; as, indeed, I shall with other issues on which I have been unable to go into detail today. I know that the rally is the subject of some of the parliamentary Answers I have given the noble Lord, Lord Laird, and I will come back to him on the other points of detail.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Water and Sewerage Services (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006
4.45 pm
Lord Rooker rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Water and Sewerage Services (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006.
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The noble Lord said: The order paves the way for Government’s wider programme of investment in, and reform of, water and sewerage services in Northern Ireland. It also strengthens legislative controls on the abstraction and impoundment of water. I say at the outset of my remarks—which will not take too long—that this is not the order bringing in the water charges. That will come later this year.
The reform of water and sewerage services will improve water quality, give more robust environmental protection and clearer rights for consumers, and enable sustained infrastructure investment which has been sadly lacking. The draft legislation which provides the framework for the reforms was recently published for consultation on 1 June. That is, of course, currently undergoing consultation.
The wider reform proposals include the introduction of domestic water and sewerage charges. That is a contentious issue in Northern Ireland—a fair and honest way to put it. During the general election, not knowing what I was going to be doing afterwards—it certainly never crossed my mind that it would be Northern Ireland—I remember watching an interview on “Newsnight”, when Mr Paxman kept going on about security and the constitution. Whoever it was from Northern Ireland—I forget—kept saying, “Forget that. The biggest issue in Northern Ireland is water charges!”. I thought “What’s all this about?”, as Mr Paxman attempted to say that it was a local issue. The politician in question made it clear. It is therefore a contentious issue.
The Government have responded to concerns about low-income households by proposing an affordability tariff which will benefit nearly a third of Northern Ireland domestic consumers. The measures contained in Articles 3 and 4 of the order ensure that the Government’s commitment to assist people who need help with the new charges is delivered. Basically, they enable the sharing of information between government departments in Northern Ireland. The creation of an accurate billing and contact system for all customers will be facilitated, and up to 200,000 domestic consumers will benefit from automatic payment of the proposed affordability tariff.
We have a duty to protect information in our possession, reflected in the introduction of criminal sanctions for unauthorised disclosure. The purpose of this transfer of information is to put together a process and package which will help poorer people, but this discloses personal financial information and must therefore be protected. The order will come into operation on 1 August, allowing time to put systems in place. The arrangements will be superseded by the main water reform legislation in April 2007.
Article 5 strengthens the department’s enabling powers under the Water (Northern Ireland) Order 1999 to introduce regulations to control water abstraction. It is over seven years since these powers were introduced, and the proposed changes are necessary for the department to introduce a modern and comprehensive abstraction licensing scheme in line with other environmental licensing schemes. The enabling provisions were added to the draft order after it was issued for public consultation, when it became clear that it would be necessary to use
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The introduction of new controls on water abstraction will help to facilitate the wider process of water reform in Northern Ireland and will also ensure that the Government can meet its European obligations and provide increased protection for the water environment. It is a valuable asset in Northern Ireland’s environment and deserves to be protected for the future. The order is very narrow and is the first relating to water charges. It is purely to have the powers for Northern Ireland government departments to talk to each other and set up a system to be able to help the poorer section of the community in alleviating the water charges. The other is a result of, more or less, European Court decisions to bring a more modern system of abstraction licensing. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Water and Sewerage Services (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006.—(Lord Rooker.)
Lord Glentoran: I thank the Minister once again for clearly introducing this order. I support it in principle, particularly Schedules 3 and 4—which I hope that I have got right. I hope that whoever is put up as the rate charging agency—RCA—performs considerably better than the agency that currently collects rates. It has failed on a number of occasions and has caused myself and itself embarrassment on a personal front, which I will not go into.
Speaking as a farmer, I hope that the enforcement of this order and future orders on water and sewerage will be more readily, more quickly and more thoroughly enforced. We have some pretty bad examples of sewerage and chemical discharges. We had very fine publicity for one of the worst beaches in Europe not long ago, if I remember correctly. That sort of thing is simply intolerable for Northern Ireland, particularly with its growing and badly needed tourist industry. In principle, I support the order. I just raise the issues of better enforcement, stronger enforcement of the environmental regulations associated with water and sewerage, and better attention to leakages. I have also had problems with significant leakage and being charged for water that my and other people’s cattle could not possibly have used, but the comeback is unbelievably cumbersome if one tries to improve anything. I sincerely hope that that will not happen. I imagine that communities, if not every house, will be fitted with water meters in due course. I wonder what the costs of that will be and where it will lie. Having said that, I support the order.
Lord Smith of Clifton: I, too, thank the Minister for introducing the order. I fully recognise that this is
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We accept the need for improved water and sewerage services, but ratepayers are not to blame for historical underinvestment. Home owners have paid their rates. It would be a cruel injustice if they were expected to pay twice. Therefore, depending on what the Minister has to say, we will reserve our position on this order until we have heard what he has to say when he sums up.
Lord Trimble: I, too, thank the Minister for his introduction on the matter. It is, as he says, a fairly modest measure. I am glad to see that finally some steps are being taken to comply with European directives. In the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland there is a serious backlog, and has been for a long time.
As the Minister says, the measure paves the way for water charging in the next year or so. I do not want to get involved in arguments about levels of local taxation in England and Wales and comparing them with those in Northern Ireland. I am familiar with the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, has put forward about there being a payment for water in the rates. That is accurate, of course. Then there are arguments about comparability between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
The point I want to make to the Minister is a different one. The local taxation rate in Northern Ireland is increasing sharply. In the previous debate, the Minister remarked on how it had to be increased more than Ministers would have wanted. All the indications are that it will continue to go up sharply over the next few years, and water charges will be introduced on top of that. Although there may be arguments about lower levels of local taxation in Northern Ireland compared with the rest of the United Kingdom, I ask the Minister to ensure that people are looking at the rate of increase in Northern Ireland. We still have many people who are on lower incomes than here. To increase the combined rates and water charges so steeply over the next few years will cause considerable hardship and will manifest itself in considerable discontent. We do not need that at the moment.
Baroness Blood: I am grateful to the Minister for introducing this matter. I pick up on a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. Can we be sure that metering will go in eventually? The noble Lord is
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Lord Rooker: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, and my noble friend Lady Blood for raising the issues and giving us a chance to put some information on the record. We are committed long term to widespread domestic metering. The intention is that as soon as possible every household will be able to choose whether a metered tariff is best for it, but that will take between five and 10 years. In the short term, the availability of domestic metering will be targeted on pension households who request an installation.
The noble Lord, Lord Trimble, made a highly relevant point. I do not have the figures with me. He is quite right to say that there was a hike in the rates; that was the 19 per cent figure. We were very mindful of that when planning the two-year Budget. The commitment was that the water rates should have started this year. That is why the Treasury made the assumption it did and we had a £50 million gap in the Budget. That caused us a little difficulty. The plan is for the water rates to start from next year, and it will be phased in. It is not intended that that large increase in domestic rates will be repeated, simply because if it was, and you brought in water rates on top, you have a recipe for a bit of a problem.
We do not accept that people are paying twice. Everywhere I turned on a tap, water came out; basically that was Stormont and Hillsborough. I did not turn taps on anywhere else. The Water Service in Northern Ireland, with the best will in the world to the people working in it, is, compared with the rest of the UK, a rubbish service. That is the reality. You have to put it as boldly as that. There are areas in Northern Ireland where people turn on the taps and water does not come out. That is, in a way, because of the funding arrangements.
I am not saying there is a magic solution to this, as has been said twice in Question Time in the past week. The Water Service is currently funded out of general taxation. It would take almost the entire Northern Ireland rate to fund the water and sewerage services, so one can see how much extra money is required. Therefore, we have a dilemma; Northern Ireland has the highest rate of public spending per head and the lowest levels of revenue in the UK. Something has to give. The short answer is that Northern Ireland households are not contributing enough to sustain investment in public services. I know that averages can be very misleading, but I have global figures for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. They show that in Northern Ireland the average level of household taxation—that is, property charge per household as well as water rates—is £668. For England and Wales, it is £1,337 and Scotland it is just over £1,200. There is a substantial difference there. There is not a figure for water; the water is not being paid for to the amount that it should be even out of local charges.
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This will be a bone of contention, but the prize is getting a decent water service, which will require a good level of investment. It is on target for the economic level of leakage for next year. The Northern Ireland water company will be subject to full normalised environmental regulation; it will not benefit from Crown immunity as the Water Service currently does, which is basically how it has got away with providing a less than good service. Over the five-year period up to 2007-08, over £1 billion in capital investment will have been made available to upgrade the water and sewerage infrastructure. The water reform is about enabling that investment to be sustained, which we will not be able to do unless we can find other streams of income; doing it out of general taxation will not work.
On the rate of increase, of those entitled to the affordability tariff 80 per cent are entitled to full housing benefit and do not therefore pay rates. We have developed a unique affordability tariff to assist those households with water charges, so there is an important element of changing over. Also, we are hoping to do it automatically, because when people have to apply for something, you always find people who do not apply and then lose out. At the end of the day, in terms of paying for what you get, metering is the long-term objective, to answer the noble Baroness. There must be a vastly improved Water Service. When people are paying more, they must see a much better service; but we need more resources for that.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006
5 pm
Lord Rooker rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006.
The noble Lord said: The purpose of the draft order is to take account of two decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and therefore bring Northern Ireland law back into line with the European Convention on Human Rights. It will be helpful if I comment briefly on the background to the order and say a few words about its substantive provisions.
In the case of A v the United Kingdom in 1998, the European Court of Human Rights held that the United Kingdom had breached Article 3 of the convention by failing to provide a young boy with adequate protection against inhuman and degrading treatment in the form of beatings from his stepfather. When the matter was before the domestic courts, the stepfather had relied on the defence of reasonable chastisement. Following the judgment, the United Kingdom undertook to review the operation of the defence and to introduce measures that would prevent a repeat of the violation found by the Court. Article 2 of the order effects the required amendments.
In the case of B and L v the United Kingdom, the European Court ruled that the United Kingdom law breached Article 12, which refers to the right to marry, by placing limitations on the right of parents-in-law to marry their former children-in-law. Article 3 of the order remedies this breach.
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Article 1 sets out the title and interpretation provisions of the order, and provides that the order will come into effect two months after it has been made. Article 2, which relates to children, largely follows Section 58 of the Children Act 2004. It restricts the defence of reasonable chastisement to a charge of common assault and precludes its use for more serious charges, such as wounding, causing grievous bodily harm, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, or cruelty to persons under 16. It also precludes the use of the defence in a claim for civil damages where the harm caused amounted to actual bodily harm.
Article 3 repeals the offending provisions of Article 18 of the Family Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 1984, which prohibits a man from marrying his former daughter-in-law unless both his son and the mother of his son are dead. The article removes any restriction on the marriage of in-laws.
Article 4 repeals corresponding provisions preventing a man or woman from forming a civil partnership with the former spouse or civil partner of his or her child. These civil partnership provisions were not commenced on 5 December 2005, and the order provides an opportunity to remove these redundant provisions from the statute book.
Article 5 also tidies up the statute book by removing legislative provisions relating to prohibited degrees that have been superseded by subsequent amendments. Article 6 makes a minor technical correction to Schedule 16 to the Civil PartnershipAct 2004, which applies only in Northern Ireland, to ensure that courts of summary jurisdiction have the full range of powers to vary orders for financial relief on relationship breakdown.
The order provides necessary law reform in these two areas, both of which result from European Court judgments, to ensure the law in Northern Ireland is compliant with the convention. Article 2 in particular is a vital step towards offering added protection to children. It has been a long time coming, and there has been a good deal of debate about it, but I hope that, with the passing of the order, we will comply with the European Court of Human Rights and offer children in the United Kingdom approximately the same protection wherever they live. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Grand Committee do reportto the House that it has considered the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland)Order 2006.—(Lord Rooker.)
Baroness Walmsley: As the Minister said, Article 2 largely replicates Section 58 of the Children Act 2004 by restricting the defence of reasonable chastisement, but it does not remove it altogether. Children in Northern Ireland need protection equal to that enjoyed by adults under the laws on assault, but in fact Section 58 does not give it to them. Although we welcome the fact that the Government are now turning their attention to protecting children in Northern Ireland, why has it taken since 2004 to address the matter? The Government have claimed that Section 58 makes them compliant with their
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I have received a copy of a formal letter of complaint that was sent to the Office of Law Reform in Belfast, from a group of children’s organisations with the support of the Children’s Commissioner for Northern Ireland. The group points out in a letter that:
“The Office of Law Reform is bound under section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to comply with the Department of Finance and Personnel’s approved Equality Scheme. Paragraph 3.5 of the Department of Finance and Personnel’s approved Equality Scheme states that,
- ‘Consultation with groups and individuals will begin as early as possible and the Department is committed to carrying out consultations in accordance with the Equality Commission Guiding Principles. The Department will consult with the bodies listed in Annex C in relation to Section 75 duties, screening and the Scheme itself ...’.
The Children’s Law Centre, Children in Northern Ireland (formerly Childcare NI), Parents Advice Centre and Save the Children are specifically listed in Annex C of the Department of Finance and Personnel’s approved Equality Scheme as organisations which should be consulted with at policy screening stage. There has been no consultation on the screening of the proposals to introduce article 2 of the Draft Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions)(Northern Ireland) Order 2006. This is in breach of the Department of Finance and Personnel’s approved Equality Scheme and the failure to consult as part of screening decisions is stated as one of the list of matters that could potentially amount to a breach of an approved scheme at paragraph 5.12 of the Equality Commission’s Guide to the Statutory Duties Revised February 2005 ... Having screened in the proposal to replicate Section 58 of the Children Act 2004, the Office of Law Reform is bound to give consideration to carrying out an Equality Impact Assessment ... The Office of Law Reform did not make a recommendation to proceed with the carrying out a full Equality Impact Assessment”.
If it had done so, it would have found that,
- “there is a clear adverse differential impact on children by the replication of section 58 of the Children Act 2004 in that the defence of reasonable chastisement is not removed from common assault but only from the offences set out in Article 2(2) of the Draft Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions)(Northern Ireland) Order 2006”.
- “request the Office of Law Reform to halt the progress of the introduction of article 2 of [this order] pending the outcome of this formal complaint under Schedule 9 paragraph 10 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998”.
Noble Lords may wonder why these organisations representing children are opposed to a measure that purports to protect them. It is because they and hundreds of other organisations across Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK believe that it represents a step backwards in the campaign to satisfy our human rights obligations by affording children equal protection under the law on assault in all parts of the UK. They believe, as I do, that Section 58 is unjust and unsafe and is bad law. If they had been properly consulted, they would have had the appropriate opportunity to express those feelings. They have six brief reasons and I shall not detain noble Lords long in detailing them.
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