Grand Committee
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Skelmersdale) (Con)
Good afternoon, my Lords. The Grand Committee is due to consider five statutory instruments and one Question for Short Debate. During that time, if there is a Division in the House, the Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes.
Armed Forces (Remission of Fines) Order 2013
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Astor of Hever
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Armed Forces (Remission of Fines) Order 2013.
Relevant document: 12th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Astor of Hever) (Con)
My Lords, there is one instrument for the Committee’s consideration today. The Armed Forces (Remission of Fines) Order 2013 is required because, having introduced arrangements to set a term of imprisonment as a means of ensuring that fines are paid, we must also be able to reduce that term in proportion to any reduction of the financial penalty at a later date. This order does that, reflecting the position of the criminal courts.
Fines are meaningless unless there is a mechanism to ensure they are paid. The risk of imprisonment will help to deter those who otherwise might default on their fines, but for those who fail to pay their due, it is only fair and reasonable for them to expect any consequential terms of imprisonment to be proportionate to their fine. To put this into the service context, the alternative period of imprisonment comes into play only when a financial penalty enforcement order is made.
The services have mechanisms in place to recover fines from serving personnel through deductions from their pay. Financial penalty enforcement orders are the mechanism to recover fines from those who have left their service. Financial penalty enforcement orders apply to a person who is neither subject to service law nor a civilian subject to service discipline, but they also apply to certain personnel who are subject to service law as a special member of a reserve force.
Financial penalty enforcement orders may be made by the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency when such persons have failed to pay all or some of a financial penalty that has been awarded against them. The financial penalty enforcement order may be registered with the relevant court—in England and Wales a magistrates’ court—to be enforced, and in due course, if the fine continues to remain unpaid, the person may be imprisoned for a time in proportion to the fine outstanding.
By way of background, the Crown Court in England and Wales must fix a term of imprisonment to be served in default of any fine imposed on a defendant aged 18 or over. This is necessary and right to enable fines to be enforced. Separately, the civilian courts also have the power to reduce or remit entirely a fine following a review of the offender’s financial circumstances. Where the court does so, and a default term of imprisonment has been fixed, the court must proportionately reduce that default term of imprisonment.
I turn to the service courts. The court martial already has a similar power to reduce or remit a fine, but it has not, until now, been required to set a default term of imprisonment when fining a defendant. The Armed Forces Act 2011 inserts new Sections 269A and 269B into the 2006 Act. The first of these new sections requires the court martial, when it imposes a fine on a person aged 18 or over, to specify a term of imprisonment to be served if the fine is not paid and an enforcement order is made. Similarly, the second new section enables the court martial, when making a service compensation order against a person aged 18 or over, to specify the maximum term of imprisonment which may be imposed if the compensation is not paid.
These new provisions, which have come into force, are modelled on those in the equivalent civilian legislation. This order completes the necessary legislative framework for the services in dealing with financial penalties.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his explanation of the need for this order and the objective that it is intended to achieve. I take it from the documentation that we have received and from what he has said that it is only a court martial that is now required under the new Section 269A to fix the term of imprisonment if the fine that it is imposing is not paid, that this does not apply if the fine is being imposed after a hearing before a commanding officer and that, consequently, only cases originally heard by a court martial will be covered by the terms of this order in respect of the term of imprisonment being proportionately reduced if the fine is subsequently remitted in whole or part.
I also understand that the reference in paragraph 8.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum to financial penalty enforcement orders being enforced in “prescribed civilian courts” applies in cases where the offender has left the Armed Forces or is no longer a civilian subject to service discipline and, if the fine was not paid by an offender still in the Armed Forces or by a civilian still subject to service discipline, enforcement would be a matter to be dealt with in the service discipline procedures and arrangements.
Finally, was the discrepancy between the requirements on the service courts and civilian courts in respect of a proportionate reduction in the term of imprisonment one that we well spotted, or did it come to light as a result of an actual case?
We have no objections to this order or to its objective of bringing the service provisions in this specific area in line with the equivalent civilian provisions.
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I am grateful for the support that the noble Lord has given to the order, which brings the Armed Forces Act 2006 into line with equivalent civilian provisions.
The noble Lord asked me three questions. The first was whether this measure applies only to the court martial and not to the summary hearing. The answer is yes, only a court martial is required. His third question was on whether the discrepancy was well spotted; the answer is, yes, it was not an actual case. As for his question about paragraph 8.1 and whether it would apply to an offender who had left the Armed Forces, the noble Lord was correct in his assumption on that. I hope that that clarifies those questions. If I may, I shall study what the noble Lord said and write if I have missed anything to add to our exchanges.
Motor Vehicles (International Circulation) (Amendment) Order 2013
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Kramer
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Motor Vehicles (International Circulation) (Amendment) Order 2013.
Relevant document: 12th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)
My Lords, the order will allow car transporters to carry out unlimited cabotage operations in Great Britain during the peak registration periods. Road haulage cabotage is domestic goods operations carried out on a temporary basis by haulage operators registered in another EU member state.
EU Regulation 1072/2009 revised the previous EU rules governing road haulage cabotage with the intention of clarifying the minimum extent to which carrying out cabotage in another member state is allowed. Translated into domestic law, this results in non-UK goods vehicles being limited to carrying out no more than three cabotage operations in the seven-day period following the last delivery on the incoming international journey. Once the limit has been reached the vehicle must leave and re-enter with a new international load in order to undertake further cabotage.
Generally, the clarity provided by the 2009 EU rules has been welcomed by industry in place of less certain application of the former rules on “temporary use”. However, the explicitness of the new rules has had an appreciable and restrictive impact on the ability to move sufficient motor vehicles in the new car registration peak periods each March and September in Great Britain.
Car-transporting vehicles are highly specialised and are not suitable for general haulage. Whereas the core demand outside the peak periods is satisfactorily met by UK vehicles operating domestically, at times of peak demand vehicles from other member states have traditionally been used to supplement the UK fleet. Regulation 1072/2009 has the effect of restricting the amount of work that non-UK hauliers can legally undertake on each visit. When there is a shortage of haulage capacity to move cars and vans, they accumulate at factories and ports during these peak periods. This lack of capacity in the supply chain becomes a bottleneck for UK manufacturers distributing vehicles for domestic consumption and export.
My department considered various options to address this problem and concluded that relaxing the cabotage rules at the peak periods via secondary legislation was the most viable option. We consulted on these proposals and the majority of responses, especially those from motor manufactures and retailers, were very supportive. This order, together with the related Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) (Amendment) Regulations 2013, makes regulatory changes to allow vehicles, essentially car transporters, to carry out unlimited cabotage operations moving cars and vans during the peak registration periods.
This order amends Article 5 of the Motor Vehicles (International Circulation) Order 1975, which exempts from excise duty certain vehicles brought temporarily into the UK. Relief from excise duty is already available to vehicles used for cabotage operations in the UK in accordance with the limits of EU Regulation 1072/2009. This order additionally exempts vehicles which are being used only for or in connection with the carriage of motor vehicles in Great Britain from excise duty when carrying out unlimited cabotage operations during the permitted peak periods.
I should also draw attention to a minor slip in Article 2(4) of the order. The Committee should have a correction slip for this which makes clear that the additional definitions are inserted after the definition of the “date of importation” and not in the middle of it. It is simply a typo.
This is quite separate from the new HGV levy charge. From April 2014, these operators will be liable to pay the new HGV levy charge for the period they are in the UK, paying up to £10 per day and £1,000 per year. The related Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 created an additional exemption from the need for the user of a goods vehicle to have an operator’s licence under the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995. This came into force on 15 August 2013.
These changes are intended to assist UK car manufacturers and retailers by allowing unlimited cabotage operations by car transporters at the peak periods. I commend the order to the Committee.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
First, I thank the Minister for her explanations of the order we are discussing. I have a number of points and queries.
The impact assessment refers to policy options under consideration, but it does not include the option, or the feasibility, of removing the cause of the trouble, which is the GB system of having new registration numbers every six months, and with it the quite dramatic peaks in car registrations in March and September compared to the rest of the year. The impact assessment dismisses this point, when it says on page 3 that:
“The peak registration periods themselves are nothing to do with any regulations”.
Frankly, I would have thought the peak registration system had everything to do with this order. Will the Minister tell us whether the peak registration system is in the interests of growth, since growth is obviously an important issue for the Department for Transport? This order supports the growth agenda, as the Explanatory Memorandum itself states, without answering the question as to whether the arrangement it is seeking to prop up is also in the interests of growth. Would the car industry, including car transporter firms, be better off with a much more even flow of cars being produced and sold each month than is the case at present?
Figure 4 on page 5 of the impact assessment indicates that, apart from some 10 weeks of the year around March and September, capacity in the haulage fleet comfortably exceeds—in some weeks far exceeds—demand for moving new and export cars. I hope the Minister will give us the facts and figures to show that the GB system of having new registration numbers every six months, and its cost consequences, are justified by the additional cars sold compared to what the position would be with a much more even number of car registrations and sales through the year. Frankly, if this cannot be shown, why are we introducing this order?
The impact assessment also dismisses the registration peaks issue on page 8, on the grounds that any changes to the system would be too complicated to implement. However, should we not be trying to do something about peak periods for the longer term, if that is what is causing problems for UK transporter firms, rather than getting in extra UK haulage capacity at peak times, possibly at greater cost? Can the Minister say whether other vehicle manufacturing countries—such as France, Germany and Italy—have the same problem as us over car transporter capacity because of their own systems of registration numbers?
The impact assessment refers to the effect of this order in allowing Ministers to relax selectively the application of EU cabotage rules in Great Britain. What is the maximum number of weeks in the year that we are allowed to do this? The Explanatory Memorandum states that the Association of European Vehicle Logistics and the Ford Motor Company both suggested that any relaxation period should start two weeks before the peak months; that is, it should be the last two weeks in February and August. The Government do not appear to have agreed to that suggestion, since the relaxation periods will begin on 22 February and 25 August respectively. The department agrees that it is sensible to allow the relaxation periods to commence before the start of the two peak months, but does not indicate in the Explanatory Memorandum why it would be inappropriate to agree to the last two weeks in February and August, which was what was being sought. Can the Minister say why not? I note that even the Government’s proposals will put additional heavy vehicles on our roads at a peak holiday time, around a bank holiday weekend at the end of August. Perhaps the Minister can comment on the wisdom, from a safety point of view, of doing that.
We are told that there were three negative responses. They were not exactly from lightweight sources. The traffic commissioners pointed out that foreign goods vehicles were generally more likely to be non-compliant than domestic vehicles. They said there was a risk to road safety and fair competition from the proposal. The commissioners referred to random fleet compliance surveys conducted by VOSA, which show that domestic hauliers attract a prohibition rate from mechanical defects of 10.4%, whereas the average for all foreign hauliers is more than double that, at 21.8%. The impact assessment goes on to say:
“Nevertheless, the Department is not convinced that this is likely to be a significant issue. Car transporters are highly specialised and costly pieces of equipment and we believe they are less likely to be non-compliant with routine roadworthiness requirements than the average HGV”.
That is really not a satisfactory response when rejecting the concerns of the traffic commissioners. The “we believe” school of policy-making is not on a very firm footing compared to policy-making based on evidence and facts. I ask the Minister to provide the non-compliance rates with routine roadworthiness requirements of, first, domestic car transporters and, secondly, foreign hauliers’ vehicles covered by this order, which would provide a factual basis for the department’s statement that it is not convinced that this is likely to be a significant issue.
Although the impact assessment appears a little imprecise on this point, I am assuming that the effect of the order is that more non-UK transporters will be in this country in the peak periods than are currently. That is because the impact assessment talks about the order removing bottlenecks and about exports no longer being delayed or factories put at risk because end-of-line compounds become choked. One of the negative responses came from a UK-based car transportation company which said that it would have to reduce the size of its fleet if transport operators from other member states were able to operate in Great Britain without restriction for two months of the year. Bearing in mind that outside these two months capacity exceeds demand, it seems likely that the months in question are ones when car transportation companies have more business—and more income coming in—than at any other time of the year. How can the department be so sure that non-UK hauliers being able to operate without restriction during those two peak months for business for UK car transporter firms, as a result of this government order, will not have an adverse impact on the UK firms?
The impact assessment states that the cost of non-UK hauliers would be greater. What is the difference in costs between hiring non-UK transporters and hiring their domestic equivalents, both now and under the revised temporary arrangements provided for in this order? How sure is the department that the statement in the Explanatory Memorandum that non-UK transporters will be,
“used by the sector only when the domestic supply is exhausted”,
is correct? On page 8, the impact assessment states:
“DfT Legal could aim to draft the new Regulations in a way that would make it easier to capture further categories of vehicle at a later date by simple secondary legislation”.
Is that actually what the Government intend to do, and if so, why? What other sectors have reported problems with the present arrangements, and would such a step have a detrimental effect on UK hauliers? I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm what I believe she said—that there is no link-up between the thrust or implications of this order and the issue and consultation on the road user levy.
On its first page, the impact assessment states that the review date for the policy change will be April 2018. Why is four and a half years from now considered the appropriate date for a review? Subject to the Minister’s response, we are not particularly enthusiastic about this order, but we will not seek to oppose it.
Baroness Kramer
I very much thank the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for a series of entirely pertinent questions. Let me try to take them roughly in the order in which he presented them. His primary question was about whether it is possible to level out or do away with these peaks of registration. As he will be aware, until 2000 there was just one registration date, which was each August, and the peak period was even more pronounced than it is today. Indeed, it was in response to pressure from the motor industry that the DVLA consulted on the registration periods. Subsequent to that consultation, it introduced a system of registrations each March and September. It spread the peaks over two periods. The general assessment of the industry is that the system has worked well and there has been no pressure from the industry to change the system in recent years.
I am sure that the noble Lord will agree that it is to every advantage to have a system that is effective for the UK’s very robust car manufacturing and retail industry. Were there to be any review, it would probably be a BIS-driven review, because it would be to ensure that that is working effectively both for the manufacturing and retail industries and for customers. The department’s job is to minimise transport problems related to the system.
Lord Rosser
I take the noble Baroness’s point that that may have more to do with BIS than the Department for Transport. I asked whether in fact having the peak in car registrations in two months of the year was conducive to encouraging growth. I repeat one part of my question in this context which I think is a matter for the Department for Transport: do other car-producing countries in Europe—Germany, Italy, France—have the same problems as we do because of the registration number system?
Baroness Kramer
As the noble Lord will know, Ireland does that on a once a year basis, so it has something closer to our older form of a single peak. Otherwise, that is not the pattern in continental Europe, but then buying patterns are very different in various countries within the EU. I am sure that the noble Lord would not recommend that we change our system in order to follow continental buying patterns which may not fit buying patterns in the UK. I suspect that he would also agree that this has to be an industry-led consideration, because the goal is to ensure that it works well for the British manufacturing and retail industry and for customers.
The noble Lord talked about an adverse impact on the economy. He will appreciate that if we were to have a generally higher fleet at all times, there might be an associated economic cost. There are both winners and losers for the road haulage industry as well in changing the peak.
The noble Lord asked whether there is a maximum time for which the relaxations can apply. Exactly as he said, the relaxations are over two fixed periods, from 22 February to 31 March and from 25 August to 30 September each year. However, there is flexibility, because the normal EU cabotage rules permit non-UK car transporters to carry out up to three cabotage operations in the seven days prior to the relaxation period coming into force. In effect, it allows for up to six weeks of cabotage operations without having to leave the UK. I think that that responds to the issue raised by the industry when it asked for an extra week, because there is that normal process in the period prior to the actual start of the specific exemption. That provides the coverage that meets the requirements of the car manufacturers.
Lord Rosser
I think that I have understood the noble Baroness’s point, but is she saying that the earlier week before the provision comes into force is covered by the existing arrangement that you can do three trips within seven days, and that you can then switch straight to the relaxation—that that vehicle will not then have to go back to its own country, load up again and come back to the UK?
Baroness Kramer
The noble Lord is exactly correct. That is why providing an additional week, as originally requested by the industry, was unnecessary because it is covered by that element. If we added two weeks on, as he asked, we would have yet another week added on, and I do not think that that would be either necessary to the industry or particularly desirable for the system as a whole.
The noble Lord asked about the impact assessment. There is no review date in the SI itself, but the department will be putting in place arrangements to review the impact of the regulatory changes, and I will ask that he is kept informed as that process goes ahead.
The noble Lord asked about language within the impact assessment that might suggest that the DfT is looking at extending the arrangement beyond car transporters. It is not. I agree that the language was somewhat confusing, so I asked questions about it myself. If the noble Lord looks at the SI, he will see that the way in which it is written means that if there were need to look at an exemption in another area, it would be quite easy to do a mirror SI, simply changing the description of the problem and the vehicle. The issue before us is the only one being addressed. Any further exemption would still be required to go through exactly the same parliamentary procedure as this exemption. There is no change in parliamentary procedure but a reduction in the time that legal counsel would have to sit down and work on the written language. That seems a sensible step when we are constantly trying to cut down costs within government. That is all that is implied.
Lord Rosser
I thank the Minister for that explanation, but are there other sectors raising queries over the existing arrangements, or is this the only sector?
Baroness Kramer
This is the only sector.
On safety concerns raised by the Freight Transport Association, the noble Lord will be aware that minimum vehicle road-worthiness requirements exist across all EU member states, and the Commission is looking to harmonise standards in the future. The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency, or VOSA, carries out regular spot checks of foreign and UK vehicles to ensure that they are roadworthy and can take enforcement action, including issuing immediate or delaying prohibitions, and in the most serious cases can impound vehicles.
The issue of safety is partly addressed by that, but the noble Lord picked up on the point discussed in the impact statement; namely, that vehicles able to access the UK because of this exemption will be car transporters. As he knows and reaffirmed, those are highly specialised, very costly pieces of kit. I do not think that anyone has done the work for the UK domestic market or for non-UK resident hauliers to compare their accident rates versus other forms of haulage. VOSA will keep a sharp eye out and monitor car transporters more closely, and that applies to both domestic and overseas vehicles; but it is generally expected that these highly sophisticated pieces of kit will be less involved in collisions and raise many fewer safety issues than the haulage industry at large. VOSA is on to that and will keep an eye on it. There is no experience that suggests that we should have any particular alarm related to the exemption being provided for under this statutory instrument.
Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, whether there is anything that I have missed in the questions that he raised, just to make sure that I cover them.
Lord Rosser
There are one or two, but I am not pushing the Minister to give a reply today. One argument advanced by one of the car transporter firms is that it might have to reduce the size of its fleet. I think that the Department for Transport’s answer to that is, “No, you won’t, because the costs of the non-UK hauliers will be greater”. What is the difference in cost for non-UK transporters in hiring domestic equipment under the present arrangements and under the proposed arrangements? Presumably, the argument will be that it may cost less than it does now to hire a non-UK transporter.
Baroness Kramer
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, is exceedingly helpful; I thank him for triggering my memory on both this and another question. Only one UK road haulier raised this issue. It is expensive, quite frankly, for the UK industry to have to carry the additional equipment—it is expensive equipment, as we said earlier—to meet peak. From an economic perspective, therefore, I think that most road hauliers regard it as an advantage to know that the peak can be met from elsewhere without a requirement that they carry equipment which would have to sit redundant for much of the rest of the year. As the noble Lord will see, the argument works both ways on this issue.
Lord Rosser
The argument is that if you had the flow of registrations more evenly across the year, the industry would not be faced with the problem of having enough vehicles for capacity in the peaks.
I am not from the industry, but as I understand it, the other argument that has been put forward is that those two peak months are probably the time when companies take in most of their income. What guarantee is there that at the busiest and most profitable—or at least, highest income—time, companies will not find non-UK hauliers over here taking away some of that business, on which their finances for the whole year may depend?
Baroness Kramer
Again, I confirm the point that the noble Lord made himself, which is that, because heavy and highly specialised equipment has to come from overseas—you cannot just throw something together to bring over to provide a service to a motor manufacturer—the costs make overseas hauliers more expensive.
Lord Rosser
The comparative cost is one of the questions I asked. I should have thought that it would have been in this information, because it is part of the DfT argument that the cost of bringing in vehicles from abroad will be higher. Presumably, under the new arrangements, the costs may well be less than they are now for the reasons that we have been discussing.
Baroness Kramer
Yes, under the system that we had in place before we had the new European legislation, but we can look at that. I will ask the department to write to the noble Lord with more detail. Again, much of the evidence has come from the industry itself, rather than merely being put together by the DfT, so that may give him some measure of comfort.
The noble Lord raised another question that I want to answer, which is: what would happen if we did not permit those vehicles, so that every three trips within the seven days they would have to go back to the continent and come back over? That is an exceedingly expensive strategy. That is the situation as it would be today without the exemption order. Unfortunately, the cost of that would get passed on to car purchasers within the UK and to UK manufacturing industry. So the noble Lord will see that there is an attraction in avoiding additional cost. He also raised the issue of peaks on the road in August. Sending all those transporters back on the ferry and then bringing them back again, gives a far worse traffic result than keeping them here and having them service that peak domestic need.
I hope that that covers the issues. I understand that the noble Lord has questions; I have said that we will write to him on those which he feels were not satisfactorily answered by my comments; but I am glad that he has given his support to the statutory instrument.
National Health Service (Approval of Licensing Criteria) Order 2013
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, the Health and Social Care Act 2012 requires that all providers of NHS healthcare services that are not exempt must hold a licence from Monitor. This is in addition to the existing requirement to register with the Care Quality Commission under the Health and Social Care Act 2008. Existing foundation trusts were licensed on 1 April 2013, and NHS trusts acquiring foundation trust status will be granted a licence on acquiring that status. Independent sector providers will be licensed from 1 April 2014, subject to the agreement of Parliament to this draft order.
The 2012 Act also establishes Monitor as the sector regulator of providers of NHS-funded healthcare services. In this role Monitor will grant licences and will regulate providers under the conditions of the licence. This builds on Monitor’s previous role as the regulator of foundation trusts. The provider licence is a key tool that Monitor will use in carrying out its functions of regulating providers to protect patients’ interests.
As is right in establishing a new regulatory framework, the Act requires the approval of the Secretary of State to some key aspects of the new licensing regime in order to provide a check on their appropriateness. Monitor sets the criteria that providers which are not exempt must meet to be granted a licence by Monitor. Monitor’s power to set those criteria is, however, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State for Health. In the case of the first set of criteria, it is also subject to the affirmative parliamentary procedure—hence the draft order which is the subject of today’s debate. The criteria proposed by Monitor, and which have been agreed by the Secretary of State for Health, are set out in the schedule to the draft order.
Monitor has already set the licence conditions, a set of ongoing obligations, with which providers must comply once licensed. Monitor published its first set of standard licence conditions in February this year after approval by the Secretary of State for Health as required by the Act.
As the Committee will remember, not all providers of NHS services are required to hold a licence. The Secretary of State has set the exemptions from this requirement and these were considered by this House on 25 July 2013.
This order is concerned with the licensing criteria. These criteria set the requirements which providers of NHS healthcare services must meet in order to be granted a licence. The licensing process is the entry point into the regulatory regime and provides Monitor with the tool to regulate providers. The licence conditions, the exemptions and the licensing criteria will give Monitor the tools to operate a regulatory framework on a large but defined pool of providers. It will enable Monitor to fulfil its main duty to protect and promote the interests of people who use healthcare services by promoting healthcare provision which is economic, efficient and effective and maintains or improves the quality of services.
In this context, Monitor has taken a proportionate and balanced approach to proposing the licence criteria and setting the licence conditions. Monitor undertook extensive engagement and consultation on its approach in order to arrive at a framework which protects patients’ interests by ensuring that providers are subject to proportionate regulation.
Monitor has proposed two criteria, which correspond broadly to two of the ongoing standard licence conditions. The first criterion requires providers to be registered with the Care Quality Commission, if required by law, in order to provide NHS services, and acts as an objective measure to assess compliance with standards of quality and safety. In order to meet this criterion, applicants for a licence must be registered with the Care Quality Commission, if required by law to do so, when the licence is granted.
The second criterion focuses on providers’ fitness. The purpose of this criterion is to ensure that people involved in overseeing the organisation and influencing the provision of healthcare services meet certain fitness requirements. In particular, no person who is a director or governor of a provider, or is performing an equivalent or similar function, may fall within the specified description of an unfit person. The description of an unfit person is designed to ensure that individuals performing these functions must comply with the statutory fitness requirements which are equivalent to those set out for directors and governors of NHS foundation trusts, and certain requirements on directors of companies. Examples of these requirements are that an individual must not be an undischarged bankrupt; have undischarged arrangements with creditors; be subject to a moratorium period under a debt relief order; have received a prison sentence of three months or longer during the previous five years; or be subject to a disqualification order or undertaking.
The criterion also requires that any corporate body which holds the position of director or governor of a provider must not be subject to the insolvency proceedings or arrangements listed in the order. Such proceedings might indicate that the company is not effective in governing the applicant and managing the applicant’s financial affairs. Providers must be able to meet these criteria in order to be granted a licence, but they must also continue to meet them to keep their licence, along with other licence conditions designed by Monitor to protect and promote patients’ interests. The department agrees that these are robust, appropriate criteria for Monitor to assess providers against, and I therefore commend this order to the Committee.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Earl for that very full explanation of this order. In the context of the order, I should declare my chairmanship of an NHS foundation trust, which is subject both to Monitor and the Care Quality Commission.
I thought that the noble Earl’s full explanation of the order really reinforced concerns about the complexity of Monitor’s role and potentially the conflict between its licensing responsibilities, its independent regulation of pricing of NHS services and the general support that it gives for NHS foundation trusts. Now that Monitor has had time to consider these matters, since the passage of the 2012 Act, can he explain how it avoids conflicts of interest between these three separate roles? He will be aware that we discussed that issue when we debated the Bill.
Clearly, a lot of responsibility in Monitor rests on the leadership of Dr David Bennett. The noble Earl will be aware that in the pre-scrutiny hearing in the other place, the Health Select Committee—after examining Dominic Dodd, who had been proposed as chairman of Monitor—said of David Bennett that he,
“was appointed as interim Chief Executive in April 2010, and appointed as substantive Chair in March 2011. Since then he has filled the roles of both Chair and Chief Executive—effectively Executive Chair—and has led Monitor through the whole process of change brought about by the Health and Social Care Act 2012. This has been a period of great uncertainty for Monitor, with the nature of its role in the new system being unclear for most of the 18 months between the introduction of the Bill in January 2011 and its passing in 2012. Dr Bennett has both shaped and interpreted the role that Monitor now plays in the system which makes the transition to another individual taking on the Chair an especially difficult one. We do not think Mr Dodd is the right person to undertake that difficult transition”.
I understand that, following that, Mr Dodd withdrew his nomination, or at least his nomination was withdrawn.
In the context of this order, which sets the framework in which licensing will be undertaken by Monitor in future, can the Minister say a little more about the Government’s intention with regard to leadership, particularly the continuing role of Dr Bennett as both chairman and chief executive? As the Minister will know, in normal corporate governance terms that is not normally encouraged.
My third question relates to the Explanatory Memorandum, rather than the order itself. I was interested to see that, under “Policy Background”, paragraph 7.2 sets out three key functions of Monitor. I have already referred to them as,
“working with NHS England to provide independent regulation of pricing … protecting patient choice and”,
addressing,
“anti-competitive behaviour … and … working with commissioners to secure continuity of services”.
I just wondered where integration had got to. Have the Minister’s officials forgotten that? We debated this at great length and the Bill was amended to ensure the importance of integration. The noble Earl will recall that Monitor was given that express role. I am very disappointed to see that it is not referenced in the policy background but I am not surprised because, frankly, we have seen very little work on integration coming out of the various bodies concerned with the health service.
There has, however, been an awful lot to do with competition. As the noble Earl will know, in evidence to the Health Select Committee—I think it was only two weeks ago—the chief executive of the NHS railed against the way in which competition was being introduced in the health service. He knows, as everyone working in the health service knows, that a huge amount of money is being spent because of the enforced tendering of services that is undoubtedly taking place. It is very important that the Government reconsider the architecture that they have now put in place.
In addition to Monitor, we have the CQC, the NHS Trust Development Authority, the NHS Executive—I am sorry, I meant NHS England; that was a Freudian slip—and Ministers. Compared to the previous Secretary of State, the current Secretary of State takes a very different view of his role, and so we have a very confusing architecture. We also have the Office of Fair Trading making extremely unhelpful and unwelcome interventions, which again seems to act against the appropriate integration of services. It really needs to be sorted out.
I have no doubt that we will talk about this in a few minutes, but after Monitor’s welcome report on walk-in centres—I do not know whether it was as welcome to the noble Earl as it was to me—we have a situation where NHS England has undoubtedly been encouraging clinical commissioning groups to close down walk-in centres to make savings. However, yet another part of the architecture has come out with a report essentially saying that this has been a big mistake and has added to the pressure on A&E departments. One is entitled to ask: who on earth is really driving the policy at the moment?
Although I welcome the Monitor report, I was interested to know why it has produced it. At paragraph 1.2 on page 9 of the report, Monitor says:
“Our decision to review walk-in centre provision is grounded in our main duty as health care sector regulator: to protect and promote the interests of patients by promoting the provision of health care services that is effective, efficient and economic and that maintains and improves the quality of services”.
Well, yes, but is Monitor’s role really to look at this area of service provision? Fine—it is a good and welcome report, but it is confusing as to where one regulator’s role stops and the other starts. I have this great impression of five or six large, powerful bodies, all with well paid executives and strong boards, vying for influence. What that does at a time of huge pressure in the health service is to create uncertainty about who is leading, who is setting the policy and who is responsible for its implementation.
Finally, I come back to the question raised by Don Berwick in his very interesting report on patient safety, which the Government commissioned. In that report, which was published only a few months ago, he said:
“The current NHS regulatory system is bewildering in its complexity and prone to both overlaps of remit and gaps between different agencies. It should be simplified”.
It certainly should be simplified. He went on to say:
“The regulatory complexity that Robert Francis identified as contributing to the problems at Mid Staffordshire is severe and endures, and the Government should end that complexity”.
Does the noble Earl agree that the order he brings before us today is simply a sign of greater complexity? I do not think that we have had a response from the Government on this recommendation. I know that the noble Earl has a regulatory Bill up his sleeve for the next Session. Given what Don Berwick said and the evidence that Sir David Nicholson gave to the Health Select Committee, does he not agree that it might be sensible to go wider and look at this whole business again, to get much greater clarity into what is a complex situation?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for his questions. I start with the issue that he raised initially, which was about the role of Monitor and what he perceives as the conflicts within that role. I address that by saying that there is no fundamental conflict, although he is perfectly right to say that Monitor has distinct, separate functions. Different executives within Monitor lead on each of those areas. Monitor has a board, which functions to ensure that David Bennett’s dual role as chair and CEO works effectively. At the same time, the Department of Health, as the steward of the system, keeps Monitor’s performance under review. It does that through quarterly accountability meetings. I suggest that the conflicts that the noble Lord perceives are much more in the perception than the reality. There are mechanisms in place within Monitor to ensure that the functions are kept distinct and that, where appropriate, Chinese walls operate.
The noble Lord referred to the nomination of Dominic Dodd as the chair of Monitor and the Select Committee’s view that he was not the right person to lead the organisation. That was a view which Mr Dodd himself accepted, and he volunteered to step aside. In the light of that, we are currently considering options for a sustainable solution to Monitor’s leadership. We will make an announcement as soon as we can on that, but, meanwhile, I emphasise that we have complete confidence in David Bennett’s leadership of the organisation.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I meant no criticism of Dr Bennett in his role. I just point out that if one goes back to Cadbury and all sorts of reports since then, the evidence is clear that it is undesirable to have the same person carrying out both roles.
Earl Howe
I completely take the noble Lord’s point. We will of course be looking carefully at how best to proceed. It was, of course, with a view to appointing a separate chair that Mr Dodd’s name was put forward.
The noble Lord referred to the importance of integration. He is of course right that we debated the issue extensively during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act and have done so since. The Health and Social Care Act established Monitor as the sector regulator of healthcare. That involves a duty placed on Monitor to protect and promote patients’ interests by promoting provision of NHS services which is economic, efficient and effective and which maintains or improves the quality of those services. Within those broad headings, integration fits neatly.
The provider licence is a key tool which Monitor will use in carrying out its duties and in influencing and regulating the provision of NHS services. Specifically, the licence enables Monitor not only to set prices for NHS-funded care, which it does in partnership with NHS England, but to enable integrated care. The fact that that is not explicitly referenced in the Explanatory Memorandum is not something to which noble Lords should attach particular significance. Integration is part and parcel of Monitor’s overall duties.
Age-Related Payments Regulations 2013
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Newby
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Age-Related Payments Regulations 2013.
Relevant document: 11th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, the draft regulations before the Committee today confirm the rules surrounding the proposed payments to holders of Equitable Life with-profits annuities which began before 1 September 1992.
This version of the regulations supersedes a previous draft which was debated in this House in July. As a result of that debate, a drafting error was identified in the regulations. The policy as announced by the Chancellor specified that a single payment would be made to each eligible policyholder regardless of the number of relevant policies they held. However, the previous draft allowed for multiple payments to be made to policyholders if they held multiple policies. The previous draft has now been withdrawn. I thank the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for identifying the error, and I apologise for our having made it in the first place. However, all policy decisions surrounding the regulations remain the same, and only technical changes have been made to the regulations.
I briefly remind the Committee of the background to the decision to make these payments. As noble Lords will be aware, this Government established the Equitable Life payment scheme in 2010 to make payments totalling up to £1.5 billion to about 1 million former Equitable Life policyholders who suffered financial losses as a result of government maladministration which occurred in the regulation of the Equitable Life Assurance Society.
Since the establishment of the scheme, the Government have received representations suggesting that a specific group of elderly policyholders who bought their with-profits annuity from Equitable Life before 1 September 1992 should be included within the scheme. The Government remain of the view that there is no basis for their inclusion. In short, this is because the scheme is based on the understanding that those investing with Equitable Life relied on regulatory returns that were subject to government maladministration. As such, they had lost the opportunity to make a fully informed decision. If they had had this opportunity, they might have invested elsewhere. The first returns that would have been different if maladministration had not occurred were those of 1991, which would not have influenced policyholders’ decisions until September 1992. Therefore, investment decisions made before this time are not included in the scheme.
It is clear, however, that this group of policyholders is under significant financial pressure in their later years, as they have not received the income that they planned for from their Equitable Life annuity that they bought more than 20 years ago. In this year’s Budget, the Chancellor announced that the Government would make an ex gratia payment of £5,000 to those individuals who bought an Equitable Life with-profits annuity before 1 September 1992 and were aged over 60 on 20 March 2013, the date of the Budget. An additional £5,000 is available to those policyholders who are also in receipt of pension credit.
I can reassure noble Lords that the revision of the regulations has not caused any delay to the planned timing of these payments. We appreciate that many of the pre-1992 with-profit annuity policyholders are very elderly and in financial hardship, so the Treasury intends these payments to be made soon after the parliamentary process has been completed. We are very grateful to the Prudential, which makes ongoing annuity payments to this group of policyholders, for its support in making these one-off payments.
In September, the Treasury wrote to all those who are expected to be eligible under these regulations to give more detail on the payments and to encourage people to check their pension credit status by 1 November with the Department for Work and Pensions. As a result, the Department for Work and Pensions has recently begun work to identify which pre-September 1992 annuitants are in receipt of pension credit. This will allow the payments due to them to be increased from £5,000 to £10,000 without the need for them to make any application. Under the regulations, we also have a provision that should an annuitant be eligible for pension credit on 1 November but is not on the DWP’s records for some reason on that date, they can apply directly to the Treasury for the additional £5,000 due to them.
As I explained on a previous occasion, should an eligible annuitant have passed away after the Budget announcement on 20 March 2013 before receiving their payment, this payment will be made to their estate. As these payments have a more complex administrative process, the Treasury has already begun the process of writing to the personal representatives of those deceased policyholders with details of how to apply for this payment. I hope that the Committee will join me in supporting the regulations.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the regulations, which engender a sense of déjà-vu. We note that the error in the original regulations has been corrected to ensure that only one payment of £5,000 is due regardless of the number of relevant with-profits annuity policies held by a qualifying annuitant.
Other than the possible delay in payment—I think that the Minister said that this re-run of the regulations would not mean a delay—it would seem that no individual has been disadvantaged by the re-run of the regulations. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that because I think that the same parameters operate for pre-1 September 1992 with-profits annuity policies; that is, that the individual should have been aged over 60 on 20 March 2013 and should have checked their pension credit status by 1 November 2013. If the re-run meant that payments were later than they otherwise would be, there could be a very narrow category of individuals who might have survived to receive pension credit but did not survive to receive the additional payment, but I do not think that that arises if there is no delay in the payments.
We went over some of the convoluted background to the Equitable Life saga. I do not propose to revisit it today as the Minister gave us a summary. Perhaps the Minister will clarify the status of our earlier debate. I cannot remember whether it was reported to the House or whether it just withered on the vine. I do not know whether the Minister has anything further to add to our exchanges on the tax profile of recipients. If he does, perhaps he can do that this afternoon.
Lord Newby
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his constructive comments on the scheme. I shall do my best to answer them, but there may be one or two things that I need to follow up on in writing.
I understand that no individual will be disadvantaged as a result of this slight delay because we have moved to write to people and to get the process in motion. On timing, the noble Lord raised the fascinating question of how many payments might be made before the current financial year. That is an extremely interesting question to which there is probably an obvious answer.
There are two things on which I may need to write. On applications, 5 July and whether that is a deadline, I think that it is but, if I am wrong, I shall write to him. By 5 July, given that people will have been contacted already, we would have expected them to have responded. The noble Lord asked a number of questions about the Equitable Life scheme, particularly on publicity around the closure of that scheme. I am not in a position to give a detailed answer to those questions now, but I will write to the noble Lord, and I hope I will set his mind at rest.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
On the July 2014 date, if I understood what the Minister said, we could have a situation where the Treasury, based on the engagement of Prudential, has made an error in not making a payment to somebody yet the potential recipient has not applied within the deadline—between April and July is a fairly narrow period—and would cease to have any entitlement. Where the origin of the problem is an error by Prudential or the Treasury, that seems a little harsh.
Lord Newby
Can I write to the noble Lord on that point and set his mind at rest?
Categories of Gaming Machine (Amendment) Regulations 2014
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bates
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Categories of Gaming Machine (Amendment) Regulations 2014.
Relevant document: 10th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
Lord Bates (Con)
My Lords, these regulations are intended to increase existing stake and prize limits for some, but not all, categories of gaming machine. Gaming machines are an important source of revenue for many sectors of the gambling and leisure industries, and these measures will provide support for businesses which continue to experience difficult trading conditions.
The challenges faced by individual sectors, including family entertainment centres, bingo clubs and pubs, have had a marked effect on gaming machine manufacturing and supply businesses. According to the Gambling Commission, the total number of machines in the regulated industry fell by around 10% between 2010 and 2012. The Government consulted earlier this year on proposals to increase stake and prize limits for some categories of gaming machine. The Government received many representations in support of their proposals and remain confident that increases will not risk the licensing objectives in the Gambling Act, which rightly include the protection of children and vulnerable adults from being harmed or exploited by gambling. In fact, the Government have secured commitments from the gambling industry to develop, trial and implement strengthened player protection measures to help to build and maintain the public confidence necessary to accommodate the increased stake and prize limits. Such measures are particularly relevant to the casino industry, where gaming machines offer significantly higher prizes than other sectors of the industry.
Increases to stake and prize limits vary depending on the category of machine and the premises in which they are located. The level of increase is highest in casinos, which represent an appropriate venue for high stake and prize gambling given the stringent regulatory controls they are required to uphold. The new limits provide greater consistency with the level of gambling that is expected to take place in a casino and will stimulate capital investment in the industry, allowing it to compete more effectively internationally.
For machines found in clubs and pubs, the level of increase is lower. The Government are persuaded that these increases will provide support to businesses while remaining consistent with the licensing objectives. The Government propose to maintain stake and prize limits for all types of machine found in seaside arcades and travelling fairs, with the exception of penny-fall machines, where a small increase is proposed. This will minimise any potential risk to public protection from gaming machines accessible to children.
These regulations have been considered by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, and I am grateful for its contribution. The committee quite rightly identified the importance of minimising problem gambling, particularly in the context of young people, and requested the Government to keep this issue under close review alongside their efforts to help the gambling industry.
I assure noble Lords that the Government closely monitor the problem of gambling and welcome the contribution of the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board and the Responsible Gambling Trust, working with the industry to strengthen existing mechanisms to monitor the impact of gaming machines, stake and prize limits both economically and socially.
Overall, although it is an important growth measure for many struggling businesses, I believe that this package of measures strikes the necessary balance between creating the conditions for industry growth and maintaining the licensing objectives which underpin the Gambling Act 2005, and I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of the changes. I am also extremely grateful to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which has taken such an interest in these proposals and raised many of the questions that I might otherwise have asked.
First, I make clear that I welcome the decision to have a triennial review. It is obviously useful to keep stakes and prizes under review in a structured and timely manner, so that is a useful development.
Secondly, however, I share the concern of many who responded to the consultation, as well as the Scrutiny Committee, that the research evidence on the effects of those forms of gambling on poverty and addiction is so sparse. Given that we are dealing with important aspects of social policy, it is not good enough to argue that because something is unproven, we should carry on as before. Surely, the onus should be on the industry to prove that there is no causal link between the use of gambling machines and addiction before asking us to increase the stakes, and therefore their profits. Is the Minister happy that sufficient research is taking place? If not, what further steps do the Government have in mind to deliver substantive and compelling evidence on these issues? Thirdly, I believe that it is important to have a wider cost-benefit analysis on the impact of those changes than simply measuring the economic advantages of jobs in the sector.
In answer to a question by the Scrutiny Committee on the potential public sector impact on young and vulnerable people who are harmed by gambling, the Government replied that public protection will be secured if the industry delivers on its social responsibility and player protection commitments. However, it is not clear what mechanisms the Government have in place to secure those commitments from the sector. Surely, the evidence so far is of an industry reluctant to act against its own interests in maximising player participation and therefore potential profits. What levers do the Government intend to use to hold the industry to account on social responsibility and player protection?
Turning to the specific proposals in the regulations, I first ask the Minister about the increased stakes proposed for category D coin-pusher or penny-fall machines. I accept that the increase is small and that the impact may be minimal, but what justification is there for encouraging children and young people to gamble at an early age, given the acknowledged link between early gambling and problem gambling later? In reply to the Scrutiny Committee, the Government say that coin-pushers are generally played for amusement and are provided in a family environment. Although that may be true, is it not also true that those machines are usually sited next to other gambling machines that children might then also be tempted to play? A renewed attraction to those relatively small-scale machines cannot be seen in isolation if it is encouraging a more general gambling habit. Why is it necessary to take an added risk when there is a known connection between early gambling and problem gambling?
Finally, I would like to discuss the major concerns over B2 fixed-odds betting terminals. The Minister will know that there is increasing evidence of the harm that those machines are having on individuals and local communities through the proliferation of high-street betting shops, which are increasingly reliant on the profit from those machines. These machines are the source of some of the worst examples of gambling addiction. It is possible to lose up to £100 every 20 seconds, which is £18,000 an hour. The speed of play is faster than a roulette table, and it can happen without any staff contact or intervention. Meanwhile bookmakers containing these machines are being clustered in some of the poorest high streets in Britain, and local authorities have limited control over their expansion as in planning law they are classified in the same class as banks and building societies.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I welcome this order and echo many of the concerns mentioned by the noble Baroness with regard to the social protections we need to have in place for young and vulnerable people. But this is a regulated sector in which job losses, business closures and competition with jurisdiction overseas are to be found on virtually every page of the Explanatory Memorandum. Two hundred and ninety arcades have closed since 2009-10, with 900 jobs lost. These arcades are part of the character of so many of our traditional seaside resorts, and we should do everything we can to keep them competitive.
My principal reason for intervening on this order is because of the importance of consultation with sports clubs, which are mentioned in this document. I hope that sports clubs have welcomed this order, and I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say on that subject. Sports clubs’ major task is to retain members and increase participation. Substantial investment is needed in sports clubs so that they stay competitive and attractive, whether by floodlighting their premises, segregating their changing rooms or upgrading their facilities—three items on which the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, has always been eloquent and occasionally vociferous. Today, I am sure she will agree with me that licensed gaming machines, properly controlled, are an important source of income for some of our sports clubs, and we need to provide interest in those machines and demand for them from the membership. For that reason, it is important for sports club to view this order, see the changes that are being made and, I hope, welcome them. As I understand it, sports club machines come in category B4, or possibly B3A—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong. The proposal is to increase the minimum stake from £1 to £2 for those machines, and potentially the prize money from £250 to a maximum £400, to make it more attractive to players and, in turn, to generate more income for the sports clubs.
The noble Baroness rightly mentioned, and I echo her comments, due social protections should be put in place, with proper regulation in the clubs and protection of young and vulnerable people. With that, it would be right to support the order and recognise that both sport and sports clubs will benefit, in a difficult economic environment. Ultimately, I hope that we will see the goals that many of us who will participate in the next debate, albeit briefly, will want to see on the record—namely, an increase in participation in sport in this country, which can best be delivered by the clubs, which are there in the interests of their membership.
Lord Bates
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken, who have in many ways captured the extent of the debate—the economic problems being faced by many sports clubs and other commercial enterprises around the country and, at the same time, a natural and right concern, which the Government share, about protecting vulnerable adults from exploitation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked a number of specific questions, and I want to give them an appropriate response as best as I am able. But to respond quickly to my noble friend Lord Moynihan, who talked about the importance of gaming machines as a revenue stream for sports clubs and other private members’ clubs, that is correct. In the category of machines that will be found there are the B4 machines to which he referred, as well as the B3A and C machines. The clubs observe the Gambling Commission’s guidance and codes of practice to ensure effective social responsibility arrangements are in place.
The noble Baroness asked about research into the effects of gambling. I reassure her that work is already under way to advance our understanding about gaming machines and their impact. The Responsible Gambling Strategy Board, an independent expert advisory body, is working to develop a strategy which will review the impact of regulatory change and any associated changes in gambling behaviour, while the Responsible Gambling Trust is carrying out research which aims to better understand how people behave when playing gaming machines and what will help people to play responsibly. Again, in the context of this, it is important to realise that one reason for the decline is the growth of online gambling, which has no regulation or supervision at all. So drawing people to enjoying this form of leisure in a reasonable way in regulated areas would seem to help towards that. The work being carried out will further our understanding of the social impact of regulatory change and allow for the wider cost-benefit analysis on the impact of these changes to which the noble Baroness refers.
The noble Baroness asked about the justification for intervention and said that there should be an onus on the industry to justify proposals for stake and prize increases. The Government agree with that approach and are satisfied that sufficient evidence has been put forward by the industry to justify the stake and prize limits that the regulation proposes.
On strengthening player protections, the Government have consulted extensively and invited representations about research as part of the review. I should say to my noble friend Lord Moynihan that there were many representations and responses to the consultation received from sports clubs to this, and they were broadly in favour of the measures being put forward for the reasons that he has outlined. The Government have received advice from the Gambling Commission and the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board, and there is scope to increase the stake and prize limits for some categories of gaming machine, provided that the industry makes progress in strengthening player protection. It has twin sides; as the industry gets better at providing protection, it may be possible to consider further changes to the limits. That is the right way in which to proceed.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, referred to the risks to children, particularly from the increases in stake and prize limits to penny falls and coin pushers. The Government share the view that a cautious approach should be taken to products accessible by children. It is for these reasons that the Government have rejected the proposals from the industry to increase the stake and prize limits for reel-based gaming machines accessible to children and all other category D machines, with the exception of coin pushers.
The noble Baroness also referred to fixed-odds betting terminals, the so-called category B2 gaming machines. As part of the review, the Government sought quantifiable evidence on the impact of a reduction in stake and prize limits for these machines. However, the evidence received was inconclusive and the Government have been advised by the Gambling Commission and the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board that a precautionary reduction in stake and prize limits is currently unsupported by the available evidence. Despite this, the Government remain concerned about these machines and their potential association with an elevated risk of gambling-related harm. The Government have therefore made it clear that they will consider the future of the B2 machine to be unresolved. As the noble Baroness noted, the Prime Minister confirmed the Government’s commitment to monitor these machines to ensure a fair and decent approach that prevents problem gambling, and that is exactly the course of action that the Government are taking here.
As to the £18,000 per hour loss rate sometimes cited for B2 machines, this is astronomically improbable, one might say. It is an extreme calculation. However, the Government have acknowledged that it is quite possible to lose or win several thousand pounds within an hour within a normal range of behaviour on a machine. It is for these reasons that the measures I have outlined are so important and why the Government consider the future of these machines to be unresolved.
On betting-shop clustering on high streets, to which the noble Baroness referred, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is in regular discussion with DCLG Ministers about the issue. I can certainly reassure noble Lords that these discussions will continue and that evidence will be monitored.
The Government are satisfied that the measures that we are debating today will bring benefits to businesses and sports clubs through much needed revenue and will allow consumers to enjoy a broader range of products in a responsible way. On the basis that the industry has committed to enhance its social responsibility measures and that work is under way to allow for proper assessment of the impact of these regulations, I am confident that the risk to problem gamblers and vulnerable people is minimal.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
Perhaps I may briefly prompt the Minister on the B2 issue, an area in which there is an agreed level of concern. He said that the Government’s view was unresolved and that the issue would continue to be under review. It would be helpful if the Minister could give a little more detail of how a resolution will be reached. What timetable and mechanism do the Government have in mind for digging into this issue, analysing it and bringing forward a new resolution?
The only other point I wish to make is that if you rely on the industry to come forward with evidence to show that there is not any harm, you will wait a long time. Somehow such evidence has to be found from other sources.
Lord Bates
That is correct. The noble Baroness has put her finger on a key point. However, it is an incentive for the industry. If it wants to see prize and stake limits increased in the future, it will have to collate such evidence and come forward with it. On her specific point, work is under way to rapidly improve our understanding of these machines. The Responsible Gambling Strategy Board is due to produce a report in autumn 2014, which will be before the next triennial review. I hope that that reassures the noble Baroness.
Children: Sport
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Massey of Darwen
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to encourage children from the inner cities to take up sports.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, may I first ask permission from the Committee to remain seated while I introduce this debate? I am suffering not, as it might have been formerly, from a bash on the head from a hockey or cricket ball but from an unforgiving pavement in New York.
I am pleased to have secured this debate and I thank those noble Lords who are taking part, some of them former, and possibly currently, outstanding sportsmen and women, for sharing their expertise and, no doubt, their concerns that the UK must maintain a vigorous approach to fostering young people’s participation in sport.
First, let me say that I do not define sport as simply competitive sport, although that is important. Sport is also about health-related fitness, which may include walking, cycling, gym work, swimming, dance, yoga, pilates and so on. Secondly, I do not wish to confine my remarks and concerns to school sport, although I do have concerns about that. Sporting chances in the inner city may be provided by outreach from clubs who play rugby and soccer, for example, and in communities where dedicated parents and other adults encourage young people to do sport. There is good evidence that an active lifestyle can improve academic performance and health, and that working in a group or team can foster co-operative learning and endeavour. There is also good evidence that taking part in sport can help to cut down crime and fight negative, anti-social behaviour.
However, I begin with school sport, which is where many children begin to take part in sports, particularly those from the inner cities. To have opportunities to deliver sports programmes there must be a structure, particularly in the inner cities. Will this Government restore fully the school sports partnerships structure? I am aware that David Cameron has promised £150 million to cover all of England’s 17,000 primary schools, which is about £8,823 a year each. Why was this money not used to guarantee the school sports partnerships, which worked so well at a cost of £162 million a year? Those partnerships were developed under a Labour Government to rebuild sport in state schools. That £162 million funded specialist schools sport co-ordinators for two days a week and there were 450 such partnerships, reaching across all schools. The results were that, in 2009-10, more than 90% of pupils had two hours of PE a week and that 78% took part in competitive sport.
Ofsted noted that:
“Evidence … is that these partnerships had left a notable legacy in the vast majority of secondary schools and their feeder primary schools over the last four years”.
There were protests at these cuts from teachers, sports professionals and the Youth Sport Trust and there was a partial restoration of funding, with £32.5 million for each partnership for three years to support reduced school sports partnerships, but that money was not ring-fenced and half the partnerships closed. The school sport survey was also abolished but the cricket project, Chance to Shine, more about which in a minute, carried out its own survey and found that 54% of parents said that their children were doing less than two hours of organised activity in school per week—an extraordinary decline.
Without a national strategy with links to communities, health boards and the media, I fear that inner-city sport will be at risk for schools and their children. Not only will we be deprived of possible star sportsmen and women, but young people’s health and well-being will suffer. What is the Government’s strategy for young people and sport? Of course, there are initiatives. One of my favourites for many years has been the English cricket board’s Chance to Shine. I should declare an interest as a Lady Taverner, like my friend across the Room, the noble Baroness, Lady Heyhoe Flint, who, I hope, will build on what I have to say. Chance to Shine works in a strategic way with all 39 county cricket boards to deliver coaching to boys and girls in inner-city schools, not on vast playing fields but in school playgrounds and halls. In 2005, fewer than 10% of state schools played any form of cricket. Since then, Chance to Shine’s initial target of reaching 2 million children in 6,500 schools has been achieved. That is extraordinary. The programme has had structure, dedicated staff and evaluation effectiveness. As I have said already, structure and knowing what works is vital.
Chance to Shine has extended its inner-city StreetChance programme, funded by Sport England, to enable 11,000 16 to 24 year-olds in deprived areas to take part in weekly community cricket over the next three years. That includes the project Girls on the Front Foot, to empower girls through cricket. It is important that, in addition to cricket, Chance to Shine workshops also discuss with young people the dangers of gangs, gun and knife crime and drug and alcohol abuse. Fifty-four per cent of participants say that their attitude towards the police has changed for the better; and 64% say that the project helped them to avoid getting involved in local gangs. That is sport influencing and empowering behaviour in a dramatic way.
Let me mention one or two other initiatives. Noble Lords may recently have seen news of the Ebony Horse Club in Brixton in south London, opened in 2011 by the Duchess of Cornwall. The Duchess and the Queen visited very recently to review progress and unveil a plaque. The club provides a community riding club for 160 inner-city children a week, including those with special needs and disabilities. It offers, as well as access to working with horses, mentoring for children with challenges at home and school. It has nine horses, a paddock and classroom facilities for horse care classes and group work. Again, that is an example of sport going beyond the aim of fitness. The programme enthuses and empowers young people to think outside their lives and to work collaboratively.
Sport England’s Get on Track supports marginalised young people between the ages of 16 and 25 through a wide-ranging tailored sport and personal development programme. Exciting opportunities are delivered by the Youth Sport Trust’s Change4Life, based on the skills developed in a range of Olympic and Paralympic sports, encouraging young people to take part in physical activity. In Birmingham, Sport4Life UK aims to involve the most disadvantaged children not only in sport but in volunteering, education and personal development, and encourages older young people to get back into education, employment or training.
In Camden, a fencing club opened as a community youth project to offer lessons to young people aged between seven and 17. It is based in a school, Acland Burghley, using the sports hall and gymnasium and opens five nights a week. The club also offers fencing classes in primary schools in the London Borough of Camden.
I have given a few examples of sporting initiatives which work with young people, many of whom are disadvantaged and from inner cities. That is invigorating and exciting. The children who get involved are very lucky, but a youth sports strategy should not depend on luck. Again, I ask: when will the Government provide us with a coherent strategy for youth sport? A strategy which is funded, cohesive, visible and dynamic would benefit all our young people, encourage the take-up of sport and encourage the playing of sport to be lifelong, in the inner cities and elsewhere.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for introducing this debate.
The challenge of making an outstanding London Olympic Games truly great is the challenge of matching the exceptional performance of Team GB with an unprecedented stepchange in sport and recreational opportunities for inner-city children. We must translate that inspiration into their participation. It is not too late. Stronger ministerial co-ordination between a wide range of departments, driven by greater government commitment, can still deliver the necessary results.
No school should be an island. Only by working with local clubs, both community and private, can schools add full value to pupils. I hope the pilot teacher training programme which provides national governing body qualifications to promising teachers, so that they can become specialists, can be extended and funded nationwide. Ofsted should take a far more proactive role. Nothing short of a revolution in sports policy is needed to improve the content and time devoted to preparing primary school teachers for working with schoolchildren in PE.
In the run-up to the Games, the Get Set programme reached out to schoolchildren and was an essential part of the sports legacy for our schools. The tireless work of Jan Paterson of the British Olympic Association has ensured that Olympic and Paralympic values are now integrated into a wide range of curricula in a growing number of British schools. It continues to make sense for schools to draw on the expertise of the BOA and of governing bodies, as early and as deeply as possible.
When economic pressure is applied to local authority spending, discretionary spend will always be the first to be squeezed. In England, sport and recreation provision is discretionary spend. We should not forget that local authorities have historically been the largest source of funding for sport and recreation in this country. In educational terms; in aiding the fight against obesity; in providing the only language understood by some of our young people, who find the constraints of the classroom difficult to grasp and would find themselves on an escalator to crime without the medium of sport; in learning teamwork; in realising the opportunity of a growing, multi-billion pound industry with new media and global social networking access—in all these areas many of these benefits will wither on the vine, because of necessary local authority cost savings, unless discretionary spend becomes mandatory. With these cuts, and the loss of playing fields and facilities, the hope and inspiration which was felt by so many young people in 2012 will be dented.
The words of the President of the CCPR, the Duke of Edinburgh, after his half-hour broadcast on active leisure in 1956, which was watched by 10 million people, included the remarks:
“All I am concerned about is people should not be forced to do nothing because there is no opportunity for them to do something in their leisure time”.
We had a great Games. Children in the inner cities deserve a matching opportunity to participate in the sport of their choice, to improved facilities, greater access, targeted investment, qualified PE teachers and high-quality coaching.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, in the two minutes and 59 seconds available to us, it is difficult to add much to this debate, other than to say, like my noble friend Lord Moynihan, that when you ask government to get involved in this you are asking all of government to get involved, and to reorganise in a way that government seems to find extremely difficult to do. Under any colour we have seen so far in government, departments do not like to co-operate. Simply to make a change that will help the country’s youth to take part in sport, you have to cover half of Whitehall. I was just doodling here and have written down Health, Education, DCMS and Ministry of Justice; all these departments have an input into some of the introductory schemes that virtually all sports take part in. The noble Baroness mentioned Chance to Shine, but there are dozens of schemes, involving virtually all sports. They have worked out that, if you offer an introductory package, it allows people to get involved in a sport.
I do not like the use of the term “non-competitive”, because sport is basically a physical competition. Whether or not you record the scores on a board that sits there forever, or in a pile of books that become dusty, along with photographs of people with—shall we say—outmoded haircuts and unfashionable shorts, the essence of what is happening is competition. The idea that you get a ball past somebody or move it into a space where somebody else picks it up and moves it up is the essence—but I probably did not have time for that little bit of semantics today.
Organising sport so that people can come in, try it and get accustomed to it has to be done in conjunction with government and, as my noble friend has already said, local government. Leaving this to a voluntary choice is bound to leave it squeezed whenever times are at all hard or whenever you get somebody who simply does not regard sport as a top priority. My noble friend is, of course, right. Unless government takes on the responsibility for encouraging people to access the great amount of voluntary help outside and co-ordinate across the entirety of it, sport will ultimately always have these peaks and troughs. Our challenge is to make sure that when times are bad progress is not lost and that we do slightly better than stand still. That is effectively all we can hope for—to make it very difficult for somebody to say, “No, that is not important”, because every time you do, you end up paying for it somewhere else, usually in the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health.
Baroness Billingham (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Massey for initiating this debate and asking what steps Her Majesty’s Government are taking to encourage children from inner cities to take up sports. The short answer is that the steps are backwards and miserably ineffective. It could have been so different. From 2010, the coalition and Michael Gove, in particular, have systematically demolished school sport, which is at the heart of how and why children eventually love sport. From primary schools to opportunities in communities, the Government have a crucial role to play, and they have failed. They inherited a primary school system which, for the first time, put PE centre stage. School sports partnerships were an inspired and positive innovation. With qualified staff and good ring-fenced funding, our children were at last given proper grass-roots sports education in all our primary schools. As one of its first actions, the coalition demolished that successful formula. Only public outcry forced the Government into a U-turn, but one that provided a very poor substitute for what they destroyed. Why they took these actions is beyond all of us who see PE as an important right in schools and the basis of future sports participation.
The Olympics transformed public opinion, which became pro sport for all as never before. Young and old and people with disabilities were inspired. Volunteers came out in their thousands, and communities, including those in inner city areas, demanded a renaissance. It never came. The Government missed the favourable tide, held back from positive initiatives and failed the unique opportunities that they were given. They also failed to encourage the governing bodies of sport, many of which are doing excellent work in grass-roots sport. They could have had much greater public encouragement and better funding. The volunteers were left wondering what the future held, yet they are the backbone of sport in every club in the country. Where is the volunteers charter when we need it?
The Government have also failed to recognise the crucial role of sports, especially small clubs, in our communities. Why has nothing been done to help clubs enhance their facilities and make them more attractive to potential members by floodlighting, better playing surfaces and nicer social facilities? The Government have been nowhere. It is clearly not a priority for them. An obvious key component of sports facilities is to be found in our public parks. Virtually every sport can be catered for, and at relatively low cost. We already have Tennis For Free, an outstanding charity, successfully staffed by volunteers, which works in local parks. Young and old can be helped to take up that sport, and the same could be said of dozens of other sports which need open space close to home. There has been nothing from this Government for this valuable resource.
There have been many missed opportunities to promote sport, and the Government bear a heavy responsibility. In 2012, we had a unique chance to transform all our lives and the Government’s failure to capitalise on it is inexcusable. They will not be forgiven.
Finally, I thank those who produced the Library briefing pack, which, sadly, only reminded me of what we had prior to 2012 and how bleak the future looks today. The blame sits squarely with the coalition Government.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for bringing forward this important topic.
I wish to refer to a report produced by the Science and Technology Select Committee, of which I am the chairman, entitled Sports and Exercise Science and Medicine: Building on the Olympic Legacy to Improve the Nation's Health. Shortly after the coalition was formed, the DCMS document Plans for the Legacy from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games said that the Games would,
“increase grass roots participation, particularly by young people”.
DCMS’s own figures show that participation in sport by children has declined since the Olympics, with three-quarters of all children under the age of 10 saying that the Games had not inspired them to take up sport.
In the inquiry to which I referred, we anticipated that there would not be a successful legacy of the kind claimed by Ministers. Why did we reach this conclusion? Starting at the top, the then Sports Minister, Hugh Robertson, told us that DCMS was not interested in promoting physical activity through sport. He said that,
“it is not a drive on the nation’s health”.
Our report concluded:
“We find it remarkable that DCMS is not concerned with the health benefits of sport … We recommend that the Government take a strong, joined-up approach to promoting the health benefits of exercise and physical activity”.
Other noble Lords have also referred to the need for a joined-up approach.
In their response, the Government rejected our assertion and listed several initiatives, including the £150 million School Games programme, Change4Life, school sports clubs and the youth sports strategy, which have also been referred to by other noble Lords. All of that is overseen by the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Public Health. What mechanisms are in place to assess the impact of these programmes; and what is the Minister’s assessment of their success to date in engaging young children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, in sport?
The Select Committee was also struck by the lack of awareness of health professionals of physical activity guidelines. One survey, recently carried out at the time of our report in 2012, of 48 London GP practices found that not one practice was aware of the latest government physical activity guidelines. In their response, the Government agreed that healthcare professionals should be aware of the benefits of physical activity and said that they were committed to dissemination of the UK Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines. Has the Minister any evidence that awareness among health professionals of the benefits of physical activity is increasing?
In our inquiry, we discovered that although the link between physical activity and health is well established, rather little is known about why exercise has such a wide range of health benefits. Improving this knowledge would help us to improve the health of the nation.
There is no doubt that encouraging young children to take up sport and exercise will enrich their lives and improve their health. Our inquiry showed that there are real gaps in the Government’s plans to realise these benefits.
Baroness Heyhoe Flint (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for initiating this debate. I did not thank her about 40 years ago when she got me out for a duck while playing for Lancashire against Staffordshire. I came into the debate feeling rather uplifted but I am beginning to feel rather gloomy, given the criticism that has emanated from noble Lords opposite.
The Government are making a promising start. My noble friend Lord Coe has a 10-year programme for developing the legacy. You cannot just push a switch and hope that, by a miracle, everything is a box of birds, as they say. Many national governing bodies of sport are developing inner-city projects with government funding. They would not be able to do so without it. We have heard about the wonderful “Chance to Shine” programme involving 2 million schoolchildren and linking schools to local clubs. There is government funding within that project. The ECB—not the European Central Bank but the England and Wales Cricket Board—has two other inner-city programmes funded by the England and Wales Cricket Trust, the Government and the Lord’s Taverners and Lady Taverners. The south Asia programme for inner cities was funded for four years through Sport England’s whole sport plan, while the cricket foundation StreetChance works in socially deprived inner-city areas. These all have some backing and recognition from government. It is early days, so let us please not squash down everything that we are trying to do.
Professional rugby has a 50-week programme, which is an integral part of the Government’s approach to addressing NEETs, or even capturing disadvantaged inner-city children before they become NEETs. The effects of Hitz, the professional rugby campaign, include dramatic improvements in behaviour and reductions in crime. Another scheme ending in the letter Z, Kickz, uses the appeal of professional football clubs to target some of the most disadvantaged areas in the country by engaging youngsters of seven to 11 years old, with Sport England, the Metropolitan Police and Premier League clubs committing £9 million. Yet another scheme ending in Z, Wicketz, sponsored by the Lord’s Taverners, aims to create a sustainable cricket club environment in deprived communities and has been done with huge success in Tower Hamlets, where the oft-criticised Lawn Tennis Association and the Tennis Foundation have also funded projects for a diverse community.
The Government believe in the power of sport. Our previous Minister for Sport, my right honourable friend Hugh Robertson, believes in this philosophy, and I can say with relief that the new Sports Minister, my honourable friend Helen Grant, is just as keen in this policy area. I wonder if she now has the strength to put a judo arm-lock on various government departments mentioned by my noble friend Lord Addington. Inner-city projects need that help, and it needs all departments to pull together.
My noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson urged in the Youth Charter 2012 Games Legacy Report that:
“You can’t wait for someone else to do legacy, you’ve got to take a bit of responsibility for yourself”.
So, with responsibility, Sport England is investing more than £1 billion in youth and community sport from 2013 to 2017 through its whole sport plan. The Government are aware of the need to make youngsters in inner cities and beyond much healthier and happier, but it is just the beginning of a very long marathon.
Baroness Hanham (Con)
My Lords, most noble Lords here will know of the sheer energy and stamina of most children from about the time they can walk. On a scooter, they will outstrip parents, grandparents and siblings; on their feet, they will walk and run further than any of the former might want to do. I speak here from some experience. They are ready for any amount of adventure and are intolerant of downtime, unless it is a short bit of TV at the end of the day. Stillness is not something which comes naturally to children; their natural tendency is towards activity.
To learn at an early age enthusiasm for, and the discipline of, sport is bound to affect the rest of a child’s life. I am convinced, as the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, has said, that many of the troubles caused by “feral” teenagers and gangs come from those children being bored stiff, with few places to go or opportunities for letting off steam, particularly for those living in inner-city communities with peers whose woeful influence they may not be able to avoid. Idle hands are not good news.
If we accept that most children and teenagers are open to well controlled activity, there is a real responsibility on parents, schools and voluntary groups to see that they are provided with those opportunities. That includes ensuring that there are facilities. One of the tragedies that have taken place over time has been the sale of many playing fields for other uses. But I am not as despondent as the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, about local authority involvement; many local authorities already ensure that there are playing fields, that the parks are used properly and that there are teachers and people ready to provide the instruction that these children need.
It says in my notes that most boys know their football favourites, but in the presence of two such responsible cricketers, I had better say that cricketers are known as well. You can then run on through all sports, as noble Lords have with their examples.
The 2012 Olympics opened the eyes of many young people to the possibilities of sport. It is therefore very encouraging to note from the Statement laid by my noble friend Lord Gardiner on the legacy from the Olympics that, far from what the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said—that there was a decrease in the number of children and young people who had been motivated to do more sport—there was an increase. More than 4,000 days had been given by athletes themselves to community and school sport since London 2012. Also, funded athletes will be required to give five days a year—I hope that that is the least that they will give—to inspire children to get involved in sport. It is not only the expert athletes to whom we need to turn, it is, as has already been mentioned, the volunteers: the fathers who turn out on a Saturday morning and those who run the clubs.
I am reasonably optimistic about the future of sport. I recognise that it needs a lot of support from a great number of people but I think that children’s tendencies are always to be occupied and that sport provides them with the structure to do so.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I tread with trepidation in this field of experts and thank my noble friend Lady Massey for enabling us to discuss this. There is a desperate need to engage women and girls in sport. I am not at all convinced that the Olympic legacy has fulfilled its obligation to women and girls—in particular, those from minority backgrounds. I specifically draw your Lordships’ attention to the low number of Muslim young girls and women taking part in sports and physical activities. Obesity and heart disease are causing concern. It is time that we addressed the issue of their inclusion and its long-term benefits.
I grew up in Bangladesh, played cricket and badminton and climbed trees in a mixed environment. I may be latching onto a bygone era or I was just lucky that I grew up in a family where women and girls were not restrained in the name of culture or faith. On the point about role models, the Bangladesh women’s cricket team has already achieved one-day status. That appears not to be the norm here in the UK, even for the second and third generation of our young women and girls. One piece of research shows that Muslim girls in the UK are more sceptical and reluctant about participating in sports than girls in traditional Muslim countries. It is revealing that Muslim girls in the UK appear to be more unwilling and more negative towards engaging in sports to the extent that a significant number will skip sports lessons.
When girls and young women were asked about their reasons, many cited the lack of adequate, appropriate and available facilities, with communal showers and the wearing of inappropriate clothes considered to be barriers to their participation. I will not dwell further on other barriers cited in that research and will leave further analysis for another time.
Perhaps I may take this opportunity to share a few hopeful rainbows on the horizon. Recently, I attended a celebration of the work of London Tigers, a sporting organisation which is encouraging young people, including women, across different boroughs to engage in sports and physical activities.
One of its trustees, Polly Islam, is an incredibly inspirational individual working, in particular, with women. I was inspired by the work of London Tigers. I suggest that any sporting institution which finds it difficult to engage with communities looks no further than London Tigers, which has built up 27 years’ experience of working across boroughs and all communities. I appreciate how difficult it is for women, in particular, to access appropriate sports, and if women are not doing so, that is highly likely to influence their daughters.
I had a seminal moment a couple of years ago when I ran publicly for the first time in a tracksuit for one mile for a charity in my area. It broke a very personal taboo of 30 years. I know of a number of women who run every evening near where I live, all informally organised, often in the quiet of the night so that they are not seen. Very few attend the sports centres or clubs available to them, although Tower Hamlets Council has organised a number of sporting events.
I have no qualms in saying that it is only a matter of time, but we have to ensure that facilities are available in both the public and private sectors. I hope that some private members’ clubs will also consider women-only sessions. It surely makes business sense. We must not allow our prejudice to put up barriers which add to the discrimination that many women and girls experience in pursuing sports and physical activities.
The Earl of Selborne (Con)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for giving us this opportunity to debate participation in sport. We would not be participating in this debate if we did not all feel very strongly that this is an essential cause. Children must be encouraged. The noble Baroness gave us a number of very good reasons why the Government and others should encourage children to participate, whether they be improving performance in school or keeping people from crime.
Above all, the reason I feel passionately that sport must be encouraged is because of the health benefits. Whether we know it or not, we are suffering from an epidemic of obesity. The figures are astonishing. Just under 10% of children coming into reception class can be categorised as obese, and that number will double by the time they get to year 6.
I shall draw on a different Science and Technology Select Committee report to the one to which our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, referred. Two years ago, we did a report on behaviour change. How do Governments influence behaviour change? This is a very difficult and to some extent intractable problem wrapped up in our lifestyles. We know why this epidemic of obesity is happening. It is because we are sedentary, we eat far too many high-energy foods and drinks and there are computers and games boxes. All those things contrive to make us very much more sedentary, and our jobs are not as manual as they were.
My noble friend referred to a marathon, and it is certainly a marathon we are talking about here if we are trying to change people’s lifestyle. We are trying to participate in partnership with any number of organisations. Of course the Government are one, but there are youth clubs, schools and parents. Parents are the key. Once you get parents on side and get them to take seriously and insist on opportunities, whether in school or youth clubs, you will get traction and momentum. That is why when we looked at all the nudges and prods in the behaviour report, we recognised that although labelling would play an important part and any number of other nudges would be significant, ultimately, if you want to change our attitude to sport, you start in the primary school, get parents involved and make sure that we all change our attitude to what is an acceptable lifestyle, not just for children but for adults as well. I commend those schools which have drawn attention in their policies to how they involve parents in promoting sport. When Ofsted takes the more rigorous approach which we are promised it will take, I am sure that this should be a very strong criterion on which everything should be judged. Partnerships are important. I do not think any one partnership or strategy is going to resolve this problem, but partnership is a very sensible word to use, and it must involve parents.
Lord Northbourne (CB)
My Lords, I shall take just one moment to draw attention to the importance that sport can have for disadvantaged children. I can probably do this best with a very small story. Once, I was sitting with a very wise and experience head teacher at a school near Eastbourne for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties and I asked him, “How do you make contact with a new boy when he arrives?”. He said, “I sit him down in my study and I say ‘Tell me about yourself’, and the boy starts and tells me all the awful things he’s done and all the things he can’t do and how naughty he’s been, that he doesn’t have any hope and so on. This usually goes on for about half an hour, sometimes three-quarters of an hour. Eventually, when he dries up, I say, ‘Right. Now you’ve told me all the things you can’t do. Let’s talk about the things you can do’”.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I thank very much my noble friend Lady Massey for introducing what has been an authoritative and very well informed debate. I also pay tribute to the House for establishing the Olympic and Paralympic Legacy Select Committee, which has enabled a powerful body of knowledge and analysis to be assembled. I very much look forward to debating its report in due course.
My main advantage among such an august list of contributors is that I cover both education and DCMS from the Front Bench. I therefore know quite a bit about what has been happening in schools since this Government came to power. As I am sure we would all acknowledge, quality schools sport is essential in addressing the participation of inner-city children, so in the short time that I have I would like to make a few points about this.
Let us face it: it has not been a very happy story. It seems that the Secretary of State took the view that any initiative introduced by the previous Government must, by its very origins, be flawed and should therefore be scrapped. This was not the only initiative to have suffered that fate but, as a number of noble Lords have said, one of the starkest examples of this approach was what happened to school sport. Funding for the well established and well respected school sports partnerships was withdrawn, only to be partially reinstated following massive protests but with nothing like the original coverage and co-ordination, while the target of every child doing at least two hours of PE a week was withdrawn. The latest research now shows that half of children failed to do at least two hours of PE a week and that one in seven teenagers did no sport at all in their last year of school. Meanwhile, as we have heard, Michael Gove is continuing to allow the sell-off of school sports fields, with 50 sold so far, despite pledging to protect them in the coalition agreement.
A recent report by the Commons Education Select Committee—chaired, incidentally, by a Conservative MP—reported that PE lessons are still not good enough in almost one-third of primary schools. It also identified that the Government’s new obsession with children taking part in competitive team sports, such as football, rugby or netball, was deterring many young people, particularly girls, taking part in sport at all. That committee concluded that the Government should reintroduce the target, scrapped by Michael Gove, requiring all pupils to complete two hours of PE a week. It also called for targeted measures for girls. As I say, it has not been a happy story in schools and it feels very much as if there have been three wasted years of dithering in school sport policy over the crucial Olympic period. Obviously, in this respect I welcome the announcement made earlier this year of new primary sport funding for coaches, but that is short-term money and is in place for only two years, and therefore risks failing to embed the training culture in the school.
It feels as if we have had a realistic but rather depressing debate this afternoon. I think we are all united in wanting sport to be a more central part of young people’s lives so I hope that the Minister is able to convince us that, belatedly, if nothing else, a credible school sports strategy is being developed that will encourage all young people to enjoy and maintain an active sporting life while going into adulthood.
Lord Bates (Con)
My Lords, this has been a very well informed debate and I will do my very best to convince the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about the Government’s policy on sport. It has been a very high quality debate and I was thinking, as we were going through it, that there is probably sufficient talent within this very Room to start a House of Lords ladies cricket team, which would be quite a strong team at that.
There was immense expertise and knowledge, which was particularly evident in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, introduced the debate. There was great passion and concern for the subject of sport in school, to which I think people on all sides of this Committee are totally signed up. What we are arguing about is purely the best way of achieving the ends that we are all agreed on, and those ends are focused on ensuring that people engage in sport beyond their school age. That is the objective which we are aiming for. We know that the earlier people start, the more likely they are to do that.
The movement towards competitive sport is not a thought or a passion based on ideology: it is simply that our sporting clubs in the United Kingdom are primarily competitive sporting clubs, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, and, therefore, if we want people to take part in sport in later life, then probably it will be through competitive sport.
There are two elements to this: the first is to go younger and younger to reach people and inspire them to take part in sporting activity from a young age; and then, secondly, to introduce them to competitive sport, which will enable them to link up with sporting clubs and continue that activity into later life.
With those remarks, I shall try to respond to as many as possible of the points made during the debate. I applaud the discipline shown by all Members of the Committee in constraining their remarks.
I turn, first, to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, who introduced the debate and referred to school sports partnerships. The Government recognise that these were introduced with the objective of increasing participation and that in a number of areas there were some successful partnerships. However, the wider view was taken that they were too bureaucratic, too top down and too expensive and were not delivering the results we all sought. Therefore we decided to distribute that additional funding at school level—and to focus it particularly on primary schools through the primary school premium—so that each school will receive £8,000.
It was often felt that some school sports partnerships were too large. Some of them worked but, where you were talking about eight secondary schools and 40 primary schools linking up with an FE college, sometimes it was difficult to get a sense of where things were tailored to a particular school. The argument we put forward is that focusing on individual schools—not only by writing a cheque but by ensuring that the money is ring-fenced specifically for sport and by ensuring that Ofsted has a responsibility from September 2013 to assess how schools are doing in spending that money—is an important part.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, referred to the need for a strategy. I understand her argument and where she is coming from but, as so many different organisations are involved in this, the fear is that people are getting lost in the gaps. I commend to her the Sport England youth and community sports strategy which seeks to bring together the sporting clubs and schools. This is not only backed by a strategy but by £1 billion, which can make a real difference.
I took the point of my noble friend Lord Moynihan—who of course has immense expertise and knowledge in this area, particularly in protecting the legacy of the Olympics—when he rightly said that no school is an island. However, the school sports partnerships were not abolished and it is still possible for individual schools to come together if that is how they choose to spend their money.
My noble friend mentioned the Get Set and Plan Your Legacy schemes. Get Set was a great way of involving more than 22,000 schools in the Olympics and Plan Your Legacy is a key part of ensuring that the progress that was made and the inspirational performances that we saw in both the Olympics and Paralympics are not lost.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, spoke about competitive sports, and this is, like rugby, something about which he knows a great deal. We both participated in the winning team—a rare winning team—in the House of Lords versus House of Commons tug-of-war match on the only time the House of Lords has actually won. He reminded us about competitive sports. So this is not an ideological obsession, it is simply trying to link together the satellite clubs—the sporting clubs—with what is going on in schools.
Sainsbury’s School Games have transformed competitive sport in schools. More than 60% of schools are taking part in the School Games, offering every pupil, regardless of ability or disability, more chances to compete in sport, not only intra-school but also between schools and at county festivals. More than 100,000 young people took part, 10,000 of whom were children with disabilities. The national finals were held in Sheffield, and next year they will be in Manchester. That is an example of what we are doing in this area.
The noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, spoke with immense passion and knowledge. I know that as a distinguished spokesperson on this issue, and with her involvement in various tennis organisations, she is frustrated about school sports partnerships. I want to reassure her, however, that this is not lost; it is part of a wider strategy. The money is still going into schools. It is going in at a younger age and it is being monitored. There are moves to bring in more sports clubs to link with schools. Another concern she has is over the quality of physical education teaching, particularly in primary schools. Secondary schools have that, and that is why we are now funding extra places for teachers to train in physical education particularly for primary schools.
The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, spoke about the health benefits of sport. I think we are all broadly agreed on that. I noticed a survey by the Young Foundation which identified the health risks to the nation. It found that while 20% of people were vulnerable to smoking, 61% to 70% were vulnerable to inactivity, so it is a very substantial concern.
I know that there was some disagreement between the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and my noble friend Lady Hanham over the figures. There was a slight decrease in overall activity from the 2008-09 baseline, from 91% to 88%, but there was a significant increase in some sports, notably cricket, dodgeball and rounders. We are committed to doing more to promote this through the School Games.
The noble Baroness, Lady Heyhoe Flint, reminisced interestingly about her cricket career against the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and talked very positively about what is being done in schools. The Government believe in the value of sport, and £500,000 has been put in place to continue the legacy of the Olympic Games. Furthermore, physical education remains an essential part of the national curriculum.
The noble Baroness talked about particular schemes, and I was particularly struck by many of the contributions, including that of my noble friend Lady Hanham, who referred to the role of parents and volunteers in delivering much of our sport around the country. It is important that they continue to do so.
My noble friend Lady Hanham referred to the competition between competitive sport and computer games. Let me pay tribute to her. During her time as Minister she did something substantial, which was to block the pathway to the selling off of playing fields. I do not wish to make any party-political points on this but under the previous Government playing fields were sold off at a rate of 28 per year, and the rate has fallen to 16 per year. Now, because an application goes directly to the Secretary of State for Education, the only way that you can sell a playing field is if you can show that all the proceeds of that sale are going to go into new sporting facilities with other schools. That has been done, and it is welcome.
I shall comment briefly on what the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, said. I was fascinated by her example of the London Tigers and I certainly want to learn more about them. She talked about the importance of encouraging girls into sport. There has been a growth in the number of girls-only sporting clubs. One hundred of these clubs have started up and an extra £1.7 million is going into them to promote more opportunities for females. The noble Baroness is absolutely right to say that we need to address that issue in particular and I am grateful to her for raising it.
My noble friend Lord Selborne referred to behaviour change. This is a critical area where we need to look more at how we change behaviour without legislating for it. We have enough legislation and regulation on the books already. As he said, it is critical that we inspire parents. Again, that speaks to the importance of getting sport into primary schools to do that.
I particularly enjoyed the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. It was brief, succinct and to the point and reminded us that, in an age of pessimism, we have to focus on the positives. Certainly the optimistic nature of sport teaches us always to think about the future with optimism. That is something that I have had to learn through nearly 50 years of following Newcastle United Football Club. I am still struggling with it although we did slightly better last weekend.
Finally, I come to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. She spoke, of course, very passionately. She is concerned that we get this right. She talked particularly about the two hours minimum of physical education. It is important to recognise that it was never enforced or mandatory; it was always aspirational. It will now be covered by Ofsted and primary school teachers will be encouraged to provide quality as well as quantity of sport, and to enhance that through the school sport premium and the youth and community sport initiatives.
I have run over time. I trust that the Committee will forgive me for that. This has been a fascinating debate and a great opportunity to raise these important issues, the aims of which we are all agreed on. It is also important to monitor progress along the way, and I hope that I have provided some reassurance in that regard.