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Housing: Home Information Packs

11.40 am

Lord Addington: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare a small interest in that a member of my family has just completed this training.

The Question was as follows:

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Andrews): My Lords, the home condition report will remain part of the home information pack, but as an authorised document rather than a mandatory item. There are significant employment opportunities for those in training as home inspectors, and properly trained inspectors will be needed to produce energy performance certificates required for packs. This is in addition to the number of inspectors needed to meet the demand for voluntary full home condition reports.

Lord Addington: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, does she not accept that most people undertook this training on a gilt-edged assurance from the Government that there would be a mandatory demand for their services? They have undertaken long, extensive and expensive courses. Do not the Government have at least some duty of care to make sure that they get either some reimbursement or that the scheme is brought back in—if that is a wise idea?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, let me start by saying that we are aware of the difficulty caused by the announcement of a change in the implementation policy. My honourable friend the Minister of State is writing to express her regrets and apologies to the people who embarked on the course. However, we want to make it absolutely clear that we believe that there are major employment opportunities in this area. We are committed to making a success of the

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voluntary rollout of this programme and we are working very closely with the industry to ensure that we do so. We have an obligation to home inspectors to ensure that the rollout of this programme is a success. We believe that we can do that.

However, we also have an obligation to the consumer. When we went into the detail of the process of implementation, it became clear that there were disadvantages, partly because the industry was not ready and partly because we were not sure about the numbers coming forward for training and completing their training on time in the right parts of the country. Various factors had to be taken into account and we have done so.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, when I asked the noble Baroness a few weeks ago about the point of having home information packs when it was clear that the building societies were not going to accept the surveys for mortgage valuation purposes, she assured the House that talks were taking place, the deadline would be met and there would not be a problem. What on earth is the point, other than saving the Government’s face, of imposing this bureaucratic system on the public and on those selling their houses with all the costs associated with that when it clearly has no value whatever? When will the Government learn to take note of the warnings they had from the industry and from this House instead of proceeding in this arrogant manner, which has cost many people hundreds of thousands of pounds?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I do not think it is a weakness for the Government to have listened to voices telling us that we should consider the effects on an industry which considered itself not to be ready. We have listened to that. Perhaps if the previous Government had done a little more listening they would have been a little more successful; for example, in the rollout of the railways. There is, indeed, a very good case for the home information pack. If the noble Lord reads the debate he will see that both the Conservative and the Liberal Democrat Opposition in the House of Commons have congratulated us on the decision we have taken. The Liberal Democrats said that they were very grateful. The home information pack includes everything, except the HCR, which people will need for more security and transparency in transactions which, under the present system, cause wastefulness and distress. It remains a valuable product and we support it equally. When the home condition report is tested with consumers it is extremely popular. We have made a commitment to ensure that the voluntary rollout is successful.

Lord Desai: My Lords, does not my noble friend agree that it is better for the Government to have thought before implementing something like this and withdrawn it, rather than—as the party opposite did with the community charge—insist on it and ruin themselves and the country?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I completely agree. When, under our system of conveyancing, one

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in three sales collapses because of inadequate information and the like, we are right to try to find a system which will improve on it. This will provide information up front and make the whole process more certain and less stressful.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am sure the House will be grateful to the noble Baroness for being frank and forthright in what she has said. None the less, one needs to dwell on the fact that when the Bill was first introduced into the House the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was kind enough to accept that the research as to the practical effects of the pack was simply not adequate. Is there not lesson here for legislation as a whole that it is far better not to have to withdraw a Bill on the point of implementation but better not to bring it forward unless it has been thoroughly researched?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I am very pleased that the noble Lord is in his place today to ask this question. I regret that he will not be in his place as we complete the successful voluntary rollout as his contribution to this House is formidable. He is absolutely right: we need evidence-based policies for all we do. He was one of the people who called upon us to carry out area-based trials, which is very difficult to do for all the reasons that we have exchanged over the Dispatch Box. However, we will now carry out area-based trials, with the support of the industry, as best we can. We have to test out the home condition report in place and its impact on consumers. It was difficult to do that in the dry run because of the volume of packs on which we have had to base our evidence, but we shall certainly do it.

The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I, too, declare an interest as one who fought against this measure but undertook the training. I can assure the noble Baroness that there is not a surveyor I know who will undergo further training on this scheme because they cannot trust the Government after they have reneged on it and cost us thousands of pounds. Under the new circumstances, can we continue to sell houses as soon as we are instructed and not have to wait for the remainder of the home information pack to be produced?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I am sure that when the noble Earl receives the letter from the Minister of State expressing her regrets, he will understand more about why we have taken the decision. We have not reneged on the policy. As I have said, we are completely committed to both the home information packs and to the value of HCRs. As to the question he asks, in a Written Statement the Minister of State in the other place said:



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Life Peerages (Disclaimer) Bill [HL]

11.49 am

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to authorise the disclaimer of a life peerage; and to provide for the establishment of a mechanism to replace a disclaimed life peerage. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Phillips of Sudbury.)

On Question, Bill read a first time, and ordered to be printed.

Criminal Defence Service (Representation Orders and Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2006

Criminal Defence Service (Financial Eligibility) Regulations 2006

Criminal Defence Service (Representation Orders: Appeals etc.) Regulations 2006

Data Protection (Processing of Sensitive Personal Data) Order 2006

11.50 am

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs (Baroness Ashton of Upholland): My Lords, I beg to move the four Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper.

Moved, That the draft regulations and order laid before the House on 13 and 22 June be approved [30th and 31stReports from the Joint Committee and 39thReport from the Merits Committee] [Considered in Grand Committee on 18 July].—(Baroness Ashton of Upholland.)

On Question, Motions agreed to.

Education and Inspections Bill

11.51 am

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills (Lord Adonis): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Adonis.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[The LORD SPEAKER in the Chair.]

Clause 79 [Provision of food and drink on school premises etc]:



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Baroness Sharp of Guildford moved Amendment No. 214A:

The noble Baroness said: We have tabled a series of amendments relating to school food because we felt that Clause 79 needed some debate. AmendmentNo. 214A is a minor amendment and carries forward our wish to see academies, city technology colleges and city colleges of arts and technology included within the general provisions that relate to other maintained schools. We have spoken at length to such amendments, and I do not wish to speak to them again at any length.

Amendment No. 214B is the substantive amendment in this group. It would reinstate school milk for all primary schools and ensure that schools provide sufficient refrigerated storage capacity to keep it fresh for the period required. That is because last time this was tried, the objection was that these schools no longer had refrigeration facilities to keep the milk, although many of us who had school milk in the 1950s and 1960s will remember that there seemed to be fewer refrigeration facilities in those days.

Back in the 1970s, the right to school milk was withdrawn. I cut my political teeth marching down Whitehall with a pushchair that had two little girls in it and carrying a placard that said, “Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher”. We have come a long way since then. There is a scheme which subsidises milk for young children in schools, but it can be taken up only by those under five, at nursery school. It is not generally taken up by primary schools. The scheme is funded through the European Union; it provides a fairly substantial subsidy for providing roughly half a pint of milk for each child every day. It aims to provide either free or highly subsidised milk for all primary school children.

Section 512ZB of the Education Act 2002 contains a provision whereby children eligible for free school meals are also eligible for daily free milk. But it is not mandatory—indeed, the wording is fairly loose, stating:

The problem is that the LEA does not have to provide free milk; it has to be requested, and many parents do not know that they have the right to request it. If the school does not provide milk to any of the children, it does not have to provide it to any of those eligible for free school meals. So there is a many a slip ’twixt cup and lip, one might say, on this issue.

Those schools that provide milk often do so only as an option at lunchtime and do not provide enough milk for all children to benefit from it. On those occasions, they often provide only to those eligible for free school meals, and many of those do not take up the option. If children are not urged to drink it, they often do not drink it.



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We are not arguing for full cream milk to be provided. Indeed, the guidelines that have now been issued about school food lay down that it should be either semi-skimmed or skimmed milk. If it is to be drunk as milk alone, semi-skimmed is probably more acceptable for children to drink.

The European Union scheme also provides a subsidy for cheese to be provided in schools, but Britain has never made use of that, although in 1997 the Labour manifesto made promises to bring back both the free school milk and the cheese. French children benefit from the cheese subsidy and eat a great deal of cheese that is provided and subsidised very extensively by the European Union.

There is a strong case for the school milk provision to be applicable also to secondary school children. Some 25 per cent of teenage girls have such a calcium deficiency already that they will not achieve peak bone mass without some sort of intervention. This increases the risk of bone deterioration in old age.

We should be aware, too, that it is estimated that some 50 children in every secondary school, which equates to 5 per cent of the secondary school population, have nothing to eat all day. They arrive at school, having had no breakfast at home, with no money and no free school meal entitlement. Save the Children did a report a couple of years back called Bread is Free, and many years ago the British Nutrition Foundation researched the issue. Some schools make free bread available for hungry children, and some make loans available to children so that they can buy school meals. But that does not help very much, in fact, because those children often come from homes where they are worried about telling their parents that they have taken the loan, because they feel that their parents simply cannot repay it, which really just makes things worse at home. Most schools simply turn a blind eye to the fact that children come to school without breakfast and go without any food all day long. They ignore the plight of these children—and then they wonder why the children behave badly.

The issue of children turning up at school without any sort of breakfast is a very big one. I know that the Government, in the extended schools programme that they are introducing, have extended the number of schools where breakfast is provided—particularly to children without free school meals. This is a big issue. Using the subsidy that we can get from the European Union to provide them with free school milk is something that it seems madness not to take up and use, yet we make it as difficult as we can for schools to do so. I urge the Government to make it much easier for schools. We would like to see the right for all primary school children to have school milk again.

Amendments Nos. 214C and 214D raise a different issue. Amendment No. 214C is purely probing. We suggested leaving out these lines because we were uncertain as to precisely what sorts of foods were being prohibited. I have to say that since beginning work on this amendment, I have been inundatedwith vast amounts of material about all kinds of regulations on school foods. What sorts of foods are to be banned from school is more explicit. Generally

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the regulations seem quite sensible, but a number of nutritionists have expressed doubts about the Food Standards Agency’s traffic light system. They have criticised it for sometimes being too hard on thesugar and neglecting the salt, or vice versa. Tosome extent we are anxious to raise this issue and probe the Government a little about how they have derived these standards and what the thinking is behind them.

Noon

The final issue is the sort of food that can be brought on to school premises. Discussion in the Commons on the issue of school food raised the bogeyman of schools being unable to hold cake stalls or tombolas at school fairs because that would mean bringing forbidden foods on to school premises. Again, in the draft regulations that have been issued there is a generous list of exceptions, which excludes celebrations, fundraising fairs and a number of other such occasions—staff parties, for example—but we received a letter from a school governor who was clearly worried by the sorts of regulations being introduced. I shall read from it, because it illustrates the concerns about having to implement these regulations:

as school meals are a regular issue for governing bodies. It continues:I shall not suggest that we have detailed parliamentary scrutiny of school meal regulations—that would not be a useful use of parliamentary time—but this suggests that the regulations that are being issued are something of a worry to governing bodies, and create some problems out there. I beg to move.

Lord Lucas: I think we are being a little old-fashioned in harping on about milk. Why should we spend our money on a substance that is composed largely of saturated fats and sugar, which many people find difficult to digest? The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, was much more on track when she was talking about breakfast. It is terribly important that kids come to school with something in their stomachs and that they are reasonably fed throughout the day. If we are going to spend money, let us spend it on making sure that there is bread around at breakfast time and something to enable these children to have enough energy and attention, rather than going back to what she and I both remember as the intolerable business of being forced to swallow half a pint of extremely sour milk in the mid-morning break.



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The crucial question when it comes to fluids is surely making sure that all schools provide water and allow it in the classroom. I do not know where we are on that yet, and I would be grateful if the Minister could update me.

Baroness Howarth of Breckland: I support what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said. I am somewhat surprised that the noble Baroness did not talk about a balanced diet. I commend the work of the School Meals Trust, which is working hard to make sure that children in our schools have a balanced diet, and of all those schools that are introducing breakfast clubs. I hope that through these regulations the Government can ensure that that happens right across the board. Although my noble friend the Countess of Mar is not in her seat, I also point out that cheese is pure fat, and one should eat it in moderation. To talk about subsidising cheese for children is difficult.

I suppose that I should declare an interest as a board member of the Food Standards Agency, and say that I am sorry that the noble Baroness has not looked in detail at the traffic light system and availed herself of the information. Quite complex discussions are going on between those who want GDAs and those who want simplified traffic lights to find away through the whole debate. All the consumer organisations are clear that mothers who find it difficult to work out percentages—and I could join them, with some of the difficulties I have in reading some labels—have found it much easier to use the traffic light system.

I hope that the Minister will talk in his reply about balanced diet, about continuing the work that the School Meals Trust is doing to reach that balanced diet, and certainly about continuing the “five a day”—encouraging children to eat more fruit in schools. And I am not very keen on too much milk.

Baroness Buscombe: I shall speak very briefly to a point that I feel relates directly to the amendment on nutrition. Following the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, I agree that milk and cheese may not be the right direction—although I loved school milk and ended up drinking most of everyone else’s; but I think that I was in the minority. My concern is about the Government’s programme Building Schools for the Future. I understand, with some regret, that not all these schools have been built with dining rooms. It is quite difficult to have a balanced diet if the provision is not there. Perhaps the Minister can comment on that and reassure the Committee that I am incorrect in what I have been told.

Moreover, I have also been informed that some who wish to build academies have been told that the Government have changed the rules and that those people cannot now have a say or be in charge of the design and development of those schools, but that that is for the local authority. Some feel that design and their wish to ensure that, for example, dining facilities are available for all schoolchildren are being ignored by local authorities. Perhaps the Minister can also reply on that.



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Lord Adonis: The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, is a member of the Food Standards Agency, and I am sorely tempted to leave her to reply to the debate; she has given a partial reply already. We have of course consulted the Food Standards Agency as we have developed the work that we have taken forward with the School Meals Trust—on which we are spending a very large sum to ensure that schools have much better information on best nutritional standards, how they go about improving the quality of school meals, and how the resources available to them have been increased to provide precisely the balanced diet that she recommended. We are spending £220 million over three years on the School Meals Trust. As Members of the Committee will have realised, we are engaged in a programme of work that has had the close co-operation of Jamie Oliver, who has closely at heart all the interests that were set out.

Perhaps I can take the amendments one by one. On Amendment No. 214A, we entirely agree that food standards should apply to academies, and the requirement for academies to meet nutritional standards will be made through amending the funding agreements.

The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, mentioned academy design. We are not removing the scope for sponsors of academies to play a substantial part in the design. However, we are making it possible for academies to be built and delivered through the Building Schools for the Future programme, which we believe will promote cost-effectiveness and best practice in the delivery of academies. However, that will be in the context of sponsors still playing a role in the design—as indeed do schools within the Building Schools for the Future programme at large. There is not a single template that they have to observe.

Amendment No. 214B deals with the provision of school milk. The decision on whether to provide school milk rests with local authorities and schools. Where milk is provided, schools and local authorities can, if they choose, reclaim part of the cost of that milk from the EU school milk subsidy scheme.

The noble Baroness mentioned the reduced subsidy levels available under the scheme after January 2001. Ministers from my department, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Department of Health agreed jointly to meet the costs of the annual £1.5 million shortfall that these EU changes would create. This decision was taken to avoid any increase in the cost of milk to local authorities, and thereby lessen the risk of reduced provision. We believe that local authorities and schools are best placed to decide whether their pupils should be offered milk and whether to claim any subsidy on that milk. We do not wish to remove that discretion. However, the new school food standards will specify milk as one of the few drinks that local authorities and schools will be permitted to provide, and more schools may voluntarily choose to offer milk to their pupils in consequence.

The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is quite right about the importance of breakfast clubs, which we highlight too, and the provision of breakfasts, which is now increasingly taking place in schools. Of course, the

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provision of a balanced diet is essential within a school. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said that she was starting to come to terms with the regulations and guidance in this area. I have pages of it here which I could read out if the Committee wished, but I do not think that it does. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, that there are substantial references to balanced diets, and not least to the importance of fruit and vegetables in schools as part of that. For example, the standards for school lunches will specify that there should be no fewer than two portions per day, at least one of which should be salad or vegetables and at least one of which should be fresh fruit, fruit tinned in juice or fruit salad. I could go on; it is all there. We have taken best professional advice on the establishment of those standards.

I have partially covered Amendment No. 214C. The amendment would remove the power that would allow regulations to ban the provision of certain foods and drinks. We regard this as an important power as it gives us the flexibility we need to keep pace with the findings of new children’s dietary research, which might indicate that a revision of our nutritional standards would benefit specific groups of children.

Finally, on Amendment No. 214D, I am glad to say that regulations will relax the standards to exempt schools from the requirement to follow the standards for food and drink provided at occasional fund-raising events. This can be done as an exception under new section 114A(1).

Baroness Buscombe: Will the Minister reassure me, if not now by letter, that all new schools that are being built as part of the programme will have adequate dining facilities?

Lord Adonis: I was not aware that there was not a requirement for dining facilities, unless those facilities are, as it were, multi-use facilities which can provide for dining in the context of other provision. The issue that has been raised with us in the past, including in this House, concerns kitchens. The Building Schools for the Future guidance does not have an absolute requirement for kitchens because in some cases—in small primary schools and so on—it may be more cost-effective for food to be provided without a kitchen. But schools and local authorities have to consider kitchens in each case. I will write to the noble Baroness with chapter and verse on that.

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