Domestic Violence

Debate between Lord Bates and Earl of Listowel

Monday 9th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. Some excellent work is going on through the troubled families programme, which DCLG is leading. In our schools, the This is Abuse campaign is addressing young people’s own issues around how they conduct relationships.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

Is the Minister looking at the perpetrators of domestic violence, the men and sometimes women who do it, and ensuring that if they have drug or alcohol problems those are being addressed? If they have a history of domestic violence in their families, will those problems also be addressed, so that, ideally, many such families can begin to work again and become safe over time?

[Lord Bates]

The noble Earl is absolutely right in the sense that, according to the crime survey, while there were 1.4 million female victims of domestic violence in 2013-14, there were also 700,000 male victims. It is very important that perpetrators come forward to get help where they need it. There are perpetrator programmes being piloted at this very time.

Independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

Debate between Lord Bates and Earl of Listowel

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble and learned Baroness is absolutely right, in the sense that we all learnt a huge amount through this process. The Home Secretary has apologised—she apologised in October because she felt that she had got it wrong and let down the victims. That was a key point. When it was initially set up, the model was the Hillsborough inquiry, which had been quick and effective, got to the heart of the issues, identified some issues for the police to follow up and managed to command the confidence of those people who had suffered because of those events. That was the model. It did not work on this occasion, so we now have a statutory inquiry. We are learning as we go, and the sadness is that sometimes you learn through not getting it right.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Government for setting aside £2.85 million and other additional funds to meet the therapeutic needs of those touched by this inquiry. However, can the Minister make it quite clear whether the inquiry’s remit includes recommendations on what therapy should be available to adults who experienced sexual abuse and that if, for instance, the recommendation is for long-term talking therapy, either individually or in a group, there can be some expectation that resources will be found to meet those therapeutic needs?

[Lord Bates]

I think there is some very deep expertise among those in the charitable sector who have been working on this. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has had conversations with the Health Secretary about what mental support can be made available to victims and survivors of these crimes. We are learning about that process, but we will provide that additional support as well as the support that we have provided to the voluntary organisations which already do tremendous work in this area.

Fraud: Phone Scammers

Debate between Lord Bates and Earl of Listowel

Thursday 4th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is absolutely right. It is a fact that your bank, the Government and the police will never ask you to reveal your PIN number or your online password, and that message needs to get out to people.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, what can be done to protect people with dementia?

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, that is a very good question. That is part of where we all have responsibility to assist those people with dementia to protect them. But there are some sensible steps that can be taken in ensuring that payments made by people through direct debit cards or direct to bank accounts go through approved payment mechanisms such as major credit cards or PayPal.

Mediterranean: Refugees and Migrants

Debate between Lord Bates and Earl of Listowel

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I have tried to answer it. These are very early figures but there is some evidence from Frontex, in a briefing that we received in the past 48 hours, that the trend is turning. We should remember that the relevant figure went up from 70,000 per year to 150,000 and that the number of deaths went up from 700 to 3,000. We think that there are between 300,000 and 600,000 people in Libya waiting to make a crossing. The indications are that the numbers fell in October. There could be other reasons for that and we are following the situation closely. This is something we take very seriously indeed and are trying to abate.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, does not this Question illustrate the wisdom of the Government in dedicating a larger proportion of GDP to international development than any other developed nation and in recognising that we need to support countries following conflict, and prevent them entering conflict, to avoid the terrible suffering that we are now seeing in the Mediterranean?

[Lord Bates]

I am grateful to the noble Earl for his question. I am incredibly proud to be part of a Government of a country that is the first major economy to honour its 0.7% pledge and to provide £11.46 billion in aid to the most vulnerable and conflict-torn countries in the world. That is a record we all ought to be proud of.

Police and Crime Commissioners

Debate between Lord Bates and Earl of Listowel

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

Yes, it was 15% of those who could have voted. This was a new role introduced to increase accountability, and 15% is a sight more than were present in the smoke-filled rooms to elect the chairmen of the police authorities which existed before.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, what advice is given to PCCs on the value of high-quality youth services and well supported mentoring and peer mentoring services? What evidence can the Minister cite of consistent investment by PCCs in that vital area to prevent children and young people entering crime?

[Lord Bates]

The noble Earl is right to raise the concern. PCCs can be responsive in local areas in a way that did not exist before. For example, in Northamptonshire, Adam Simmonds has introduced a new victim witness service. In Cumbria, Richard Rhodes has introduced an office of victim services. Those are exactly the type of changes which are responsive to local needs that the commissioners are now delivering.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bates and Earl of Listowel

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Perry of Southwark, I was reminded of visiting a children’s home some time ago with an inspector who made the point that she had been asked to be an inspector for care homes for the elderly and had declined because she was a teacher by background. She said, “What do I know about care homes for the elderly?”. There has been an issue—I am sure that it is still an issue—of ensuring that the inspectors are the right ones for the particular institution. The inspector also said that the remit of the Commission for Social Care Inspection, for which she worked at the time, was very much about supporting and developing good-quality practice and supporting the staff. After the remit moved to Ofsted, certainly the information that I received suggested that it became very much about checking that someone had done the right thing and criticising them if they had not, but not about asking, “Have you tried this? What about that way?”, and supporting the development of better practice.

The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, suggested using retiring teachers. The National Union of Teachers has emphasised the need to ensure the proper and continuing professional development of teachers who are already practising. It is concerned that past advice from the Department for Education—then the Department for Children, Schools and Families—was, “You shouldn’t let teachers off during the school day to get continuing professional development. They should do it at other times because we need them in the classroom”. If we could free up teachers with quite a lot of experience to spend a day in another school and take part in the sort of inspection and support arrangement that the noble Lord is discussing, that might kill two birds with one stone inasmuch as it would give them a chance to see how someone else teaches and to learn from that. They could be refreshed by that, as well as producing a report that could be useful to parents or whomever, and they could support professional development at that school. That occurs to me having recently read the information from the National Union of Teachers. No matter how much we improve the training and recruitment of teachers, most teachers are already in post and will be there for a long time, so we really have to think about their developmental needs. That is a bit of an aside.

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lucas for moving this interesting amendment. My default position when I first read it was that it was completely opposed to what the whole Bill is trying to do: to free up Ofsted inspectors so that they do not spend endless amounts of time visiting schools that are simply outstanding across the board but devote that time to schools that are failing in some areas so that those schools can be given greater attention and support. I take the point made by my noble friend Lady Perry, but that was very much where I was coming from.

When I heard the debate, however, I began to move towards seeing a couple of problems that need to be explored. I wonder whether part of the solution, which probably needs to be developed a little further, should not be the partnering of a highly successful school, which is enabled to become an academy, with a failing school. What would be the format of that relationship? Could the successful school assess and supervise the failing school in the interim?

Then there is the role of the governing bodies. Often very little is said about them, but under the new arrangements they will have hugely more power, authority and responsibility. How much training are they given? When one becomes a non-executive director of a firm, there are often lots of training courses about your duties, statutory responsibilities, the pertinent questions to ask and what you should look out for. The head teacher on the first governing body of which I was a member absolutely insisted that there was never any need for a member of the governing body to come to assemblies or to visit any of the classrooms, as that was way beyond their remit. Later on academy boards, I found that the head teachers of good, successful schools went out of their way to encourage governors to experience classroom teaching, to sit in the staffroom and to talk to teachers. Do people actually know this?