Queen’s Speech

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Shutt of Greetland

Monday 21st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Exactly—balancing the economy outside London and the south-east. I have the platform and can now unburden. When people say that we need regional rail more than we need HS2, or vice versa, I say that we need it all in the north. It is about time that we started to connect people to jobs more easily. My noble friend Lord Heseltine asks how we can differentiate rural and urban: actually, we all need to access skills and education and bring places of work nearer to us.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

Does the Minister think that the northern powerhouse could be rather fragile if there is no legislation through which it is embraced?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I could agree with that, but I give the noble Lord the example of Wythenshawe in Greater Manchester, which has the largest council housing estate in Europe. It had one intervention, to bring the tram through it. The houses are still not worth very much, but in percentage terms they have had the greatest increase in value in Greater Manchester. That is an example of where strategic intervention really helps places to grow without particular legislation. Like everyone else, I look forward to the White Paper and contributing to it. As the Prime Minister said in Rotherham recently, we are going to do devolution properly: I know my noble friend Lord Heseltine will have great hope. We are going to maximise the power of the north, with more mayors across the whole of the north.

The noble Lord, Lord Shutt, raised Yorkshire. The Prime Minister also welcomed the establishment of a Yorkshire committee as a practical step facilitating greater collaboration on a Yorkshire-wide basis. I echo that and the bespoke ongoing discussions across Yorkshire to ensure the most appropriate arrangements. I have the scars on my back from some of the earlier discussions in Yorkshire. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and my noble friend Lord Heseltine talked about the shared prosperity fund. We recognise the importance of reassuring local areas on the future of local growth funding once we have left the EU and providing clarity on the SPF. We will consult on the fund, alongside the White Paper, so that people have an opportunity to contribute their views on its design and priorities.

There is a lot of support in your Lordships’ House for the Domestic Abuse Bill. It came first from the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, but I think most noble Lords mentioned it. One thing he brought up—and I look forward to discussing it with noble Lords—was GPs charging fees to victims for providing a letter evidencing abuse. I did not know that that was the situation; I am really appalled to hear about it and I can advise him that the department of health is working with a range of other departments and agencies, including the Ministry of Justice and the British Medical Association, to assess the scale of the problem and find out how many GPs currently charge for this service and how much. Gathering the evidence is the first necessary step, but I deplore the fact that it is going on.

On equalities, my noble friend Lord Bourne talked about the Race Disparity Audit. He knows that it is to drive change by publishing authoritative data and analysis about ethnic disparities, differences of treatment or outcome affecting people of different ethnicities. The website “Ethnicity facts and figures” now covers 176 different topics across education, healthcare, criminal justice and the economy. The Government are committed to acting on the data provided. He also talked about Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. At that hate crime service there was a commemoration of a boy in Liverpool who was killed because he was a Traveller. He is absolutely right that the Race Disparity Audit shows that people from Irish Traveller and Gypsy Roma groups have the highest rates of temporary and permanent exclusions. In response, the Government commissioned the Timpson Review of School Exclusion, published earlier this year. The report stressed action to ensure that permanent exclusions are only used as a last resort, and made 30 recommendations which are currently being considered.

The noble Lord also talked about the definition of Islamophobia. As he knows, the APPG definition would create practical and legal challenges. It is absolutely vital that we get it right and that any definition reflects the experiences of those who have experienced anti-Muslim hatred. That is why we are appointing advisers to lead a review on the definition of Islamophobia. As he knows, the first of the advisers, Imam Qari Asim, was appointed on 23 July.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, talked about the reform of the adult social care system. We have given government access to £1.5 billion of additional funding for adult and children’s social care next year, and we will set out proposals to fix the crisis in social care in due course. I am sorry to say that there is no consensus on the best way to reform the system, but we need to get it right. I am afraid I cannot commit to a timeline at this point.

My noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering talked about the Hague convention. We are committed to continued co-operation with the EU in cross-border, civil and family cases after Brexit. In particular, we are keen to ensure that there are clear rules on which court should hear a cross-border case and that UK legal decisions can be recognised and enforced in the EU. We will work with our European partners to establish the exact nature of a future agreement.

On policing, the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, gave his support, and I am pleased that other Peers also welcomed the commitment to policing through the recruitment of an additional 20,000 officers over the next three years. We are also committed to wider support and protection as part of the police covenant, which I was pleased to hear the noble Lord welcome. The Home Secretary has made it clear that she will give the police the tools they need, as evidenced by the recent pledge of £10 million to equip police officers with Tasers.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, talked about the recruitment of BME officers in the 20,000 uplift. There has never been a more important time to ensure that we increase the diversity of people joining the police so that the police look like the diverse community they serve. Of course, we want to attract talent from the widest possible pool. As of March this year, we have the highest proportion of BME and female officers since records began. There is further to go, but this is a promising step towards reflecting the community that the police serve. Work by police forces is already under way to ensure that they have a more representative workforce than ever before.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, asked about extending welfare mitigations to Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland does not have the power to instruct the Northern Ireland Civil Service; I am afraid that any legislation to extend welfare mitigations would have to be for a restored Executive.

She also talked about breakfast club funding; the Government are investing up to £26 million in the breakfast club programme, using funds from the soft drinks and industry levy revenues. The contract was awarded to Family Action in March 2018 and will run until March 2020. Family Action, in partnership with Magic Breakfast, have both been named as the leading charities responsible for running the breakfast club programme. Family Action is distributing the appropriate funding to participating schools that meet the eligibility criteria. The noble Baroness shakes her head.