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Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, it seems trite to say that our thoughts are with the people in the area who have had these blows following so many others. For myself, I do not think that I can get my mind into the place where theirs must be. I absolutely understand the point made by the noble Baroness that we must not be too precipitate, but on this occasion we have to frame our points as questions. Therefore, does she
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Baroness Neville-Jones: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and the right reverend Prelate have made points on which I think that we all agree; that is, primarily, at the moment we need to think about the situation of the people of Cumbria and the resilience that they are having to show in considerable adversity. Not only was there the recent bus crash, but previously there was devastating flooding. This goes to the heart of close-knit communities which may not be particularly prosperous, where recovery is a long process, both materially and physically. Our hearts go out to them and the House will want to continue to express its solidarity with the people of Cumbria.
The noble Baroness also raised a relevant point. We do not know precisely what was in the mind of the perpetrator of these acts. Whether we shall get to the bottom of that is not clear. But the National Health Service certainly has to pay as much attention to mental health as it does to physical.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on the measured response to this extremely tragic incident and hope that we do not react too quickly. I am a little concerned by the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, on whether the local police were properly equipped to deal with this. If that resulted in large numbers of armed police in Cumbria, I could see accidents happening, which would be extremely regrettable. I am one of the few people who voted against the ban on handguns after Dunblane. At that time we pointed out that many more guns were held illegally than were held legally and did not think that a ban on legally held guns would make any difference. That has been proved tragically right, in that handgun crime has risen inexorably ever since Dunblane.
Baroness Neville-Jones: My Lords, to add to what has just been said, I am sure that we should not be precipitant. Obviously, we need to draw conclusions when it is right to do so. The time will come possibly after we have had a report from the chief constable and the Home Office has had a chance to consider it. Then we can look at the next steps. If it is necessary to do more on the firearms front, although I think that we should be cautious about changing the law yet again, we will look at that.
Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, I have no doubt that in the next few days and weeks there will be shrill cries from tabloid editors for immediate action. I know that the Government will steel themselves against the temptation to surrender to any such demands. I associate myself with the most sober and sincere views expressed in every part of the House in relation to this appalling tragedy.
This is certainly not the time to come to any decision, but when the police report has been fully considered and analysed, will the Government give thought to setting up an in-depth inquiry to consider whether, of the scores of thousands of persons who hold firearms and shotgun licences, and those many thousands who
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Baroness Neville-Jones: My Lords, this is a very interesting idea on the part of the noble Lord. We will certainly take that away. As everyone in your Lordships' House knows, we have strict firearms laws, which are probably some of the strictest in the world, and there are relatively few licensed firearms holders. Of course, that is a separate issue from the number of weapons that may be in the country illegally. Whether it will be right to take the whole question of the basis on which people hold those licences further is a matter that we will consider when we get the report and can see the circumstances of the episode.
Lord MacKenzie of Culkein: My Lords, everyone is touched by the horror of what happened yesterday in Whitehaven. Perhaps those of us who have connections with that part of the world feel it even more so. I lived in Whitehaven for a number of years. Some of my children went to school there. I trained as a nurse at West Cumberland Hospital, which treated many of the patients who were tragically injured yesterday. As a theatre nurse there I participated in major incident planning, but in our wildest dreams one could not have envisaged anything like what happened. Our hearts go out to everyone concerned.
While I accept entirely that a knee-jerk reaction would be completely senseless, does the Minister share my concern, or perhaps my distaste, at the gun lobby rushing to the airwaves yesterday seeking to limit any possible review of gun licensing and the holding of these weapons?
Baroness Neville-Jones: I entirely agree that it was highly inappropriate.
Lord Inglewood: As the Minister said, mass murder as we experienced it yesterday is fortunately extremely rare in our country. It is also extremely rare in all countries. Does she agree that the issues that this tragedy in my home area has thrown up require consideration, bearing in mind that many of the arguments deployed more generally in respect of guns, gun crime and safety from gun crime may not necessarily be pertinent?
Baroness Neville-Jones: My Lords, I take the point made by the noble Lord. It is not only the general proposition that we have to consider but also the local circumstances. Clearly, we need to know a great deal more about the background to this before it is sensible to draw conclusions for the whole country.
Lord James of Blackheath: My Lords, I wonder whether we should ask official sources and the press to consider a possible amendment to a word that appears in statements on our screens at the moment. After two former tragic events, an aircraft crash and a railway crash, I have found that the use of the word "incident" is hugely offensive to local communities. For others, it talks down the significance of what has befallen them.
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Baroness Neville-Jones: I am sure that the House will take note of what the noble Lord has said.
Queen's Speech
Debate (5th Day) (continued)
1.10 pm
Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I start by offering my congratulations to the two new Ministers at the Dispatch Box today and indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Freud, whose areas of responsibility are covered in the debate. I acknowledge the two excellent maiden speeches and look forward to two more. I intend to focus my remarks on the labour market and benefit proposals in the Queen's Speech.
Our starting position-hitherto shared around this House, I believe, if our recent debates on welfare reform are a benchmark-is the centrality of work, good work, as a means for people to stay out of poverty, improve their self-esteem and well-being, and meet their aspiration for a fuller life. It follows from this that we support a system in which nobody should be written off and which helps people get into work or move closer to the labour market-that is, a system in which people are better off in work than on benefits; one that places reasonable conditions on individuals to take up or prepare for work when they can and supports them when they cannot; indeed, a system that is built on partnership between government, employers, local authorities and providers, including the third sector.
That is what changes to the benefits system, including tax credits, have been about since 1997, why worklessness has fallen and why the action that the Labour Government took has prevented a big increase in inactivity during the current recession. It is why fewer people are on inactive benefits now than in 1997 and why we halved the number of people on tax and benefit rates of 90 per cent plus. But you do not have to take my word for it. Indeed, it was the noble Lord, Lord Freud, himself who stated in his 2007 report that:
"The Government has made strong, and in some respects, remarkable progress over the last 10 years. The New Deals ... have been enormously successful".
Given this assessment of our approach, it is shocking to see that one of the earliest acts of the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition has been to withdraw support for the Future Jobs Fund, in breach of pre-election promises, axing some 40,000 jobs for young people this year alone.
The coalition promises us an investigation of the benefits system to simplify it in order to improve incentives to work. This is not the first such investigation and no doubt it will not be the last. No doubt we will see the re-emergence of our old friend the iron triangle. However, as we debated earlier this year during the passage of the Child Poverty Act, we need to be cautious about the simplistic application of an economic model that looks at the relationship between the level
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We have heard from Ministers about plans to reassess everyone currently on the old-style incapacity benefit according to the work capability assessment. This was already in hand with a major programme to assess 10,000 people each week in addition to handling new claims. Is it proposed to continue with this migration process at the pace originally proposed or at a different rate, and what are the resource implications? Of course it is not just a case of assessing customers in receipt of incapacity benefit. We recognised that whatever progress had been made, more had to be done to tackle long-term worklessness. That is why we proposed back in March further changes to the assessment, with new help and stronger conditions to accompany them. The introduction in 2008 of the work capability assessment and ESA marked a new beginning in how people were assessed and supported, focusing on what people can do rather than what they cannot.
Concerns have been raised in this Chamber, most notably by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, about how accurately the WCA assesses individuals, and more recently it has been challenged by Citizens Advice Scotland. So I urge the coalition Government to proceed with the improvements identified following an internal review of the WCA, and in particular for there to be greater recognition of fluctuating conditions within the assessment, to expand the support within ESA to cater for those with certain communications problems and those with severe mental health conditions.
As for sanctions, we will have to unpick the detail from the rhetoric, but I had a sense of foreboding last Sunday when I thought I heard the Secretary of State say in an interview that sanctions were not being properly applied or, indeed, being applied at all. In part as a result of arguments advanced in your Lordships' House, we secured in primary legislation the recognition that good cause for acts or omissions includes the availability of childcare and a person's health conditions, physical or mental; that victims of domestic violence should have extended exemptions from JSA conditionality; and that JSA and ESA agreements and action plans must have regard to the impact on the well-being of any children. We have otherwise secured that parents with young children have the right to restrict their availability for work to school hours. I take it that all of these are sacrosanct. If not, we will look to make common cause with all those who supported and pressed us on these matters.
There is much else to keep us occupied in this agenda: the creation of a single welfare-to-work programme, the realignment of provider contracts, and progress on the DEL-AME switch. The devil, of course, will be in the detail. If the effect of all this is to make progress on ending child poverty-I welcome the commitment, and it will be interesting to see what targets are used in that endeavour-to help more
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1.17 pm
Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I make this speech for the first time from the government Benches, in the first coalition Government for many years. Coalitions are commonplace in local government and are nothing to be afraid of, and this one has been welcomed by at least two-thirds of the population. It is only a pity that some of the more vicious national press lags behind public opinion. I therefore congratulate my noble coalition partner, the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Oareford, on his new role and his maiden speech. He will find that we, his partners on these Benches, will play our part in helping to guide the elements of the coalition agreement through this House. In listening to one or two of the speeches over the past few days, the image has been brought to mind of the apocryphal Japanese soldier who staggers blinking out of the forest several years after 1945 under the impression that World War 2 is still under way, unaware that peace has broken out. I am not one of those; the war is over, long live the peace.
So let me start my comments on children and schools by welcoming some important policies from the coalition agreement. First, I am delighted that we will scrap ContactPoint, change the rules on collecting and storing DNA, and ensure that children are no longer fingerprinted in schools without their parents' permission. But could I ask the Minister whether the erection in public places of the notorious mosquitoes, which make a high-pitched noise which only children can hear, will also be banned unless there are very good public interest reasons for them? They are discriminatory and restrict the freedom of movement of law-abiding young people, and have been condemned by many organisations that speak for children, as well as by children themselves.
I also welcome the commitment to the overseas aid target on which so many of the world's most vulnerable children depend, and the coalition Government's continued commitment to ending child poverty by 2020. This policy was one of the best actions of the former Government. I am also pleased that the Government have stated their continuous support for Sure Start, another of the previous Government's achievements for children.
Noble Lords may recall that I have always regretted the reduction in the health visitor service. Health visitors, as a universal service, avoid any stigma for the family visited, are trusted by mothers and are a useful signposting mechanism to other services. Therefore I am delighted about our commitment to increase their numbers. However, I am keen that we get the balance right. The Sure Start peripatetic outreach workers have done a valuable job in reaching those families with multiple problems who other services have found hard to reach. I want to be sure that the new health visitors will be trained to reach out into the community, identify problems and direct the appropriate services towards families. At a time of economic belt-tightening, we need to make every pound work hard, and early intervention provides the best value for money.
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One of the declarations of which the coalition can be most proud is that children will no longer be detained for immigration purposes. This was an unnecessary blot on the record of the previous Government, who did so much for children, and got in the way of this country implementing fully its duties under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Every step towards full implementation of the convention is a step in the right direction.
On criminal justice, I welcome the proposal to conduct a full review of sentencing policy to ensure that it is effective in deterring crime and reducing reoffending. The rate of reoffending, in particular among teens and early 20s, is appalling. The evidence for the effectiveness of rigorous community sentences and restorative justice initiatives is compelling. So many young offenders have themselves been failed by society and need treatment, therapy and education to get them back into useful lives. I hope the evidence from these initiatives will be taken seriously in the review. I also hope it will consider the evidence for restoring the age of criminal responsibility to its pre-1998 age of 14.
In the section on the NHS I find little about children's health, apart from the welcome reference to children's hospices, which do such a wonderful job. What concerns me is the lack of any reference to child and adolescent mental health services. I am aware of the financial problems the Government have inherited but I would urge Ministers to consider the long-term financial savings that could result from early intervention for children with mental health problems and personality disorders. Emphasis on child poverty and family support can avoid some of those problems but we still need to improve what has been a Cinderella service. If we do, we will reap financial as well as human benefits.
Time does not allow me to say much about schools but I shall get my opportunity to do that on Monday. I have already pointed out the educational disadvantage of many young offenders, for example, so it is vital that all our children get the best possible education we can provide. Despite the economic problems, the Government have declared that schools will not suffer and neither will 16-to-19 education. Indeed, the commitment of my party to providing the financial premium needed to enable children from the most deprived backgrounds to overcome their disadvantage is one of which I am most proud. I am delighted that our coalition partners have agreed that this cannot be done without a commitment to that funding promise. It is for the long-term future of our country, as well as a basic human right for our children.
The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, asks where the money is coming from. It really is breathtaking when the Opposition shoulders no responsibility for where the money went. We will be coming to the Second Reading of the first of two education Bills on Monday, so I shall not say much about academies here. However, I will be playing my part in ensuring that the objectives of the Bill are achieved without jeopardising the coalition's declared intention of providing the very best for the most vulnerable children. Their welfare as well as their education is of paramount importance-and that includes those with SEN, disabilities, those in public care and
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Both our parties have often said that we should trust the professionalism and dedication of teachers. However, there is currently excitement and concern among teachers and heads about the Government's plans and we must ensure that these concerns are taken into account. If we are to enable schools to improve, we can do so only with the commitment and energy of our teachers, and so it is vital that we listen to them.
I commend this programme of government to the House and I will work with my partners to ensure that, as usual, legislation leaves this House in a better state than when it came in.
1.25 pm
Baroness Greengross: My Lords, everyone in your Lordships' House will welcome the Government's intention to push forward the reform of health and social care and, in the case of social care, the establishment of an independent commission on the funding of long-term care and the breaking down of barriers between health and social care funding to incentivise preventative action. The greater rolling-out of personal budgets to both older and disabled people and carers will give more control and purchasing power, and the increase in direct payments to carers and better community-based provisions to improve access to respite care will also be warmly welcomed.
As for the health Bill, no one will argue that a sustainable national framework for the NHS which supports a patient focus on outcomes and delivers on the commitment to reduce bureaucracy by strengthening the voice of patients and the role of doctors is not a good thing. I hope that eliminating the top-down structural approach will make doctors and nurses accountable to patients and their carers, rather than to layers of NHS management. However, while welcoming this new accountability and patient focus, and supporting the reduction in bureaucracy, I speculate just how the removal of one quango layer, the strategic health authorities, and their replacement by another, the NHS board, will improve things in the short term. The expanded roles of both Monitor and the CQC should go some way to assuage those concerns, but we need more detail as to exactly how these agencies will work with the new board and I hope the Minister will be able to give us a little more information about that.
While welcoming the fact that the Government are also going to prioritise public health, I look forward to more detailed plans for this area, which I hope will emerge before too long. Whether this Government are able to tackle the economic and social determinants of poor health and reduce health inequalities will be a test of whether they can work effectively across departmental boundaries, something which, sadly, eluded their predecessors.
Often it is older people, in particular, who can find themselves on the front line of experiencing health inequality at first hand. An unacceptable variation in the quality of dementia care on general wards in
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