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The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, asked whether the Government would insist on minimum standards of indemnity. I think that I have answered that question. As I said, the GMC will make the rules on this after consulting on them, and those rules will require government approval. She also asked whether employers could impose language requirements before employing somebody. Our guidance to the NHS requires them to do so. We are not aware that there is any lack of understanding by employers, or that when they need to assess someone's language competence they do not do so.
Concerns were expressed about the limited registration and what qualifications are acceptable. The qualifications accepted by the World Health Organisation will, as now, allow someone to sit the PLAB test, and the GMC will publish guidance about practice settings, so that we can ensure that those are appropriate.
The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, raised issues regarding changes to the Immigration Rules, which we have debated in this place. I do not doubt that we may have other debates on that. The important point in the context of this order is that any existing leave will continue under the conditions in which it was granted. If someone has valid leave as a postgraduate doctor or dentist, they can continue in their current post and take up any other relevant training posts that they have sufficient leave to complete, until their leave expires.
This is a complicated issue on which we have had wide consultation with the various interests. I recognise that some people wish that this had not been brought about, but it is important to bear in mind that the purpose of these changes was to ensure that the expanded number of UK medical graduates could proceed through the postgraduate training courses to specialist qualifications. It is important that we become more self-sustaining in our output of doctors, and do not rely on doctors from overseas being attracted here. That is not to say that we do not
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If I have missed anything, I will follow it up and write to noble Lords. That is my best attempt at answering the questions raised.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 2.40 pm.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 2.12 to 2.40pm.]
Police and Justice Bill
House again in Committee on Clause 17.
Baroness Henig moved Amendment No. 104:
Page 13, line 24, at end insert “, provided the councillor has first consulted the responsible authorities”
The noble Baroness said: I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 109 and 111 in my name. All seek to achieve a common purpose: to ensure that certain safeguards are in place before the proposed community call to action can proceed to the crime and disorder scrutiny committee.
First, I wholeheartedly support the aim of these provisions, to bring greater reassurance and responsiveness to community safety. However, I—and colleagues in the police service, police authorities and local authorities—have concerns about how this mechanism might operate. I appreciate that much additional detail will be in the regulations and guidance which will, in due course, be prepared to explain how this feature of the Bill will work. It does not take a particularly overactive imagination to see that there is great potential for misuse and mischief with this mechanism, however, whether by extremist political parties, single-issue fanatics or simply neighbours with a grudge. I fear that scrutiny committees could be overwhelmed with a demand for their services. Even where they are not, the public might have false expectations of what they can realistically achieve, and end up disillusioned.
The community call to action is intended as a last resort where other avenues have failed to produce results. My amendments simply seek to make this plain, and ensure that all complaints must be first referred to the local CDRP by a councillor or council executive. That would ensure that the CDRP is aware that there is a problem, and has an opportunity to address the issue, or explain why it does not believe it should. My colleagues in this House should be aware that complaints have often been forwarded by a single person several times. The CDRP must be given the opportunity to say that and to explain that a complaint has already been dealt with, possibly on more than one occasion. Only when the CDRP then fails to take action would the matter be referred to scrutiny. That is the important point.
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I am sure the Minister will reassure me that this will be addressed in the regulations and guidance envisaged by the legislation, because my noble friend is good at reassuring me that the problems I raise will be addressed. He will not be surprised to hear, however, that I would be happier if it was made plain in the Bill, which may reassure those alarmed at the potential for misuse that this mechanism could represent. I emphasise that I wholeheartedly support the community call for action. It will be an important part of local accountability, but its use must be sensibly, carefully limited. I beg to move.
2.45 pm
Baroness Harris of Richmond: I support the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig; in particular, Amendment No. 111. I shall speak to Amendment No. 113 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Dholakia.
The noble Baroness’s amendments are, as she has said, designed to inhibit the misuse or abuse of the community call to action in a way that would be detrimental to relationships between responsible authorities and communities, or different sections of communities. The Bill could allow the call to action to be used in an extremist, overtly political or other unintended way. It could also be used to try to hold police commanders directly to account, bypassing the police authority, the proper body to which the police are accountable.
The amendments ensure that the CDRP must be involved from an early stage if there is a perceived problem, and given an opportunity to rectify the situation before it can be referred to the crime and disorder scrutiny committee. This will help to avoid the overuse of scrutiny committees and consequent red tape, resulting in the early resolution of simpler problems and reserving the use of scrutiny committees for only the more serious, intractable problems.
Amendment No. 113 would remove the obligation on a body or individual about whom recommendations are made under a report of the crime and disorder committee to,
The previous paragraph already obliges them to respond to the committee, and outline what action they will take. Paragraph (c) therefore seems superfluous.
Viscount Bridgeman: I speak to the amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lady Anelay and myself. They cover a range of issues about the clause and the community call to action. As such, I hope that the Committee will have patience if I run through them.
Amendment No. 104, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, was tabled as an alternative way of raising the issues I had highlighted in the probing amendment, Amendment No. 106. That amendment would insert a new subsection to ensure that when a councillor is considering a matter brought to him as a community call for action, he must, where reasonably practical, make inquiries as to the person or child’s mental health and learning difficulties.
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It is by no means a perfect amendment, and I question whether a councillor should have access to such information, but we were raising the issue of inappropriately applied ASBOs. Will the Minister confirm whether the Home Office guidance on appropriate procedures to be followed includes any consideration of the rights and needs of disabled people? I am sure that he is aware of research compiled by Napo, showing strong evidence of children and young people with neurological disorders being inappropriately issued with ASBOs. I cite the following examples.
First, a 15 year-old boy with Asperger’s syndrome and no criminal convictions was given an ASBO with the condition that he was not to look over and stare into his neighbour’s garden. The neighbours had reported the boy to the police for persistently looking into their garden. The court was aware of his circumstances, but still issued the ASBO. Secondly, a 15 year-old boy with Tourette’s syndrome was given an ASBO with the condition that he did not swear in public. Thirdly, a boy who had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and his mother were evicted from their home and served with an ASBO because of the son’s “bad behaviour”.
This is a serious concern, not only in terms of finding the correct support for the underlying reasons for certain behaviour, but also because it shows a lack of understanding of specific medical problems in the general community, which perhaps also needs to be addressed. It adds to the concern expressed by children’s societies, in particular, that the call to action could, without sufficient safeguards, militate against the safety and welfare of children. As an aside, will local authorities be asked to include the voice of the child in designing these services, as the Childcare Bill has recently been amended to require?
Amendment No. 105 removes the exclusion of county councils from the definition of local authority in Clause 17 in order to probe the reason for their exclusion. Amendment No. 108 plays a dual role. The first is to question the drafting of the Bill. Would it not make sense to continue to refer to the member of the local authority as “the councillor” as in subsection (3)? Secondly, it asks for clarification about how the clause would work if the local government used a Cabinet-based system. The County Councils Network has expressed serious concerns regarding the exclusion of county councils from the definition of local authority in Clause 17 and thus from the community call for action. The community call for action aims to promote and improve local accountability, and the CCN argues that this exclusion compromises a county councillor’s democratic accountability to his local community and his existing relationships with local people. By limiting the function to district council members, but labelling those members as “ward members”, the Bill fails to recognise that county councillors also play a local representative role. The Minister will be well aware of that nuance.
One could suggest that the omission of county councillors may conflict with proposals for a strategic-level role for counties in terms of CDRPs,
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I now turn to Amendments Nos. 107 and 110 and to the consequential amendment, AmendmentNo. 112. Amendments Nos. 107 and 110 insert new subsections referring to Clause 17(3) and (5) to place a duty on the local authority member acting on a call for action to inform the person or, in the case of a child, his parents, against whom the complaint has been made and clearly to set out the procedures by which to respond to the allegations. Not only could this flag up mental or learning disabilities, which we discussed earlier, but it also supports a person’s rights to a fair hearing at local level. We must remember that there is a presumption that a person is innocent until he is proven guilty, although that is slowly being undermined by the Bill.
I do not claim that the drafting of these amendments is perfect, or even that this is the best way to address this issue. These are probing amendments. However, there are concerns that this clause could lead to complaints about young people being brought forward that involve allegations of misbehaviour based on a single incident or a rumour or that may be malicious. I hope the Minister can address the concerns that we have raised.
Lord Hylton: All the amendments in this group have their merits. The drafting of the whole clause could be greatly improved, and I hope the Government will attend to that. Subsections (3) to (11) are far too prescriptive and seem to be trying to write standing orders for local authorities in primary legislation, which is hardly desirable. I therefore favour the omission of subsections (3) to (11) of Clause 17.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate for the thoughtful way in which they have approached the issues that have been raised. That is extraordinarily helpful because we are trying to put forward a proposition in engineering the community call for action. The community call for action is designed to deal with difficult situations where members of local communities feel that they have been overlooked, that their local concerns and issues with matters such as low-level disorder are not high up the list of priorities of the local police service, and that of the local authority, and there is a genuine call from local community members to try to change that situation.
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I shall work through the amendments as best I can and then conclude by summarising where we are. My noble friend Lady Henig explained the amendments tabled in her name, which require that community safety partners involved in a community call for action are consulted at each stage of the process. I find that hard to disagree with. I can reassure her that consultation with the relevant partners is at the core of how we see the community call for action operating. Ward councillors, local authority executives and overview and scrutiny committees will be required to engage with the relevant authorities at each stage of the process. We will provide for that in the guidance on the detail of the operation of the community call for action. I hope that reassurance will satisfy her.
As the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said, there is always difficulty about how prescriptive one should be in legislation. We are trying not to make the legislation overly rigid and to provide flexibility. We can best do that by detailing in guidance the way in which we see the community call for action working through consultation.
Amendment No. 113 would amend the community call for action so that community safety partners would merely be required to respond to the reports and recommendations of overview and scrutiny committees and would not be required to have regard to their reports and recommendations in exercising their functions. It is not the case that having regard to recommendations will require community safety partners to give effect to them, it merely means that they must consider them when exercising their functions.
I am sure that noble Lords would agree that where the local community has raised concerns which have been investigated by the ward councillor and the scrutiny committee in collaboration with the community safety partners, it is only right that the partners should at least have regard to the report and recommendations of the committee. If there are well founded reasons for not acting on a recommendation—for example, because it would divert resources from another neighbourhood—the relevant responsible authority would be able to set aside the recommendation, but it would need to explain its reasons in front of the overview and scrutiny committee. I trust that the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, agrees that in those circumstances it would be appropriate to retain the duty to have regard to scrutiny committee recommendations.
The remaining amendments, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, relate to the operation of the community call for action in relation to individuals. Before I get into the detail of the amendments, it may assist the Committee if I explain how we envisage the community call for action working in practice. Let me make one thing clear: we regard the community call for action as a backstop, a final measure. If neighbourhood policing is working as it should and if crime and disorder reduction partnerships are operating as they should, they will be responsive to the needs of local communities. They will be addressing, in their day-to-day activities, the street crime, burglaries, drug dealing, alcohol-fuelled disorder or criminal damage that are the prevalent community safety concerns of particular neighbourhoods.
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Where appropriate, the police will be targeting known local prolific offenders, and the local authority will be targeting problem families with the tools at their disposal, including parenting orders and contracts and anti-social behaviour orders. If there is a genuinely responsive and intelligence-led approach to tackling crime and anti-social behaviour, local communities, I am sure, will have confidence that the issues of concern to them are being properly dealt with. There will, therefore, be no need to resort to the community call for action.
3 pm
However, the community call for action will be available where there is a persistent local problem that the police, local authorities and perhaps some of the other members of the partnership have failed to address. Such a problem might take the form of, for example, drunken behaviour late at night in a residential area, repeated criminal damage on a housing estate, perhaps drug-related activity or continuing anti-social behaviour by a group of young people.
In many cases the criminal or anti-social behaviour complained about may be committed by a person or persons unknown to the complainants. That will not exclusively be the case. If the disruption is, for example, caused by a particular problem family, the names of the alleged perpetrators may be known to local residents. But I expect that to be the exception rather than commonly the case.
We should consider Amendments Nos. 106, 107, 110 and 112 against that backdrop. These rather assume that the names of the alleged offenders will be known in all cases. Perhaps that is not the case, but that seems to be the assumption behind those amendments. As I have sought to explain, that is not necessarily the case. So, a general requirement on the councillor, the local authority or the overview and scrutiny committee to notify the person or persons who are the subject of the community call for action would not be appropriate. Moreover, I am not persuaded that it is properly the responsibility of the local councillor to engage directly with a named individual or individuals who are the subject of a complaint. The councillor will have, and, I would say, should have, a responsibility to refer the issue raised by local residents to the police and perhaps also to the local authority to see whether the matter can be resolved informally—that is, without reference to the overview and scrutiny committee.
I think that it would perhaps endanger the more general role of councillors if they were placed under an obligation to become directly and personally involved with an individual. In this instance that is not really an appropriate role for them.
If, on consideration of the issue, the police or local authority considers that action should be taken against a known individual or well known family, it will be their responsibility in the normal way, not the councillor’s, to make contact with the person or persons concerned. If the council considers that a parenting contract is appropriate, it will clearly need to enter into a dialogue with the parents concerned. If an ASBO is the right course, the person against whom
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We do not need to build additional safeguards into Clause 17. To the extent that it is necessary to touch on such issues in the context of the community call for action, we can do so in the guidance issued under Clause 18. I am mindful of the comments that the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, made about ASBOs and the NAPO report on those who have had mental health problems and have been caught up in the ASBO process. I acknowledge that that is an issue. I, too, have read newspaper reports of the same calibre and nature as those mentioned by the noble Viscount. I understand the issue. That is why we think it is probably more appropriate to deal with such issues in guidance rather than in the detail of the legislation.
Perhaps it is worth adding that one possible course of action is for the police to investigate the offence and arrest and charge the alleged offender. That may actually be the most appropriate way to tackle the issues. In such circumstances, informing the alleged offender, as the amendments propose, might actually inhibit any investigation.
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