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25 Jan 2010 : Column GC237
25 Jan 2010 : Column GC237
25 Jan 2010 : Column GC237
Monday, 25 January 2010.
3.30 pm
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley): My Lords, I remind noble Lords that if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting the Grand Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and will resume after 10 minutes.
I draw noble Lords' attention to a mistake in the Marshalled List. Those of us who were here on Thursday remember that we dealt with Amendments 9 to 21 in that sitting. The first amendment to be debated today will be Amendment 22.
Child Poverty Bill
Bill Main Page
Copy of the Bill
Explanatory Notes
Amendments
Committee (3rd Day)
3.31 pm
Schedule 1 : The Child Poverty Commission
22: Schedule 1, page 18, line 5, at end insert-
"( ) the member is unfit for office by reason of misconduct,
( ) the member has failed to comply with the terms of his appointment, or"
Lord Freud: My Lords, as noble Lords will know, it is with some regret from my perspective that we do not have the chance to go back and debate the black economy-or informal economy-amendment again.
Amendments 22 and 23 seek to insert in the Bill powers that appeared in several pieces of recent legislation establishing similar independent bodies. I am curious as to why the Bill did not contain the usual wording. I appreciate that there are often small discrepancies between different Bills, but these provisions seem exceptionally pared down. I wonder whether the Minister is able to give us more clarity on what sort of behaviour would be considered a firing offence under these provisions. Given that the Government's view of the commission is for it to be facilitator of government policy-making, what would happen if the Secretary of State were to conclude that the commission's advice was not in line with the department's assessment of government policy?
The Secretary of State for the Home Office recently removed the Government's drugs adviser from his position as head of the independent expert body-the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs-because of public comments disagreeing with government policy. That body was established under a 1971 Act which, as far as I can see, does not contain provisions on the removal of a member. Does that mean that the chair of this commission will be in a stronger position than the unfortunate Professor Nutt? Will he or she be able to publish criticism without putting their job at risk?
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If these provisions give the chair a greater level of immunity, what will the consequences be if the commission and the Secretary of State do not agree on the appropriate strategy for reaching the targets? Constructive criticism can be taken too far. If the commission insists on taking a radically different approach to meeting the targets and refuses to work with the Secretary of State, we would agree that the Government must remain ultimately accountable. I am sure that the Minister would agree that if the chair of the commission is not aiding the Secretary of State in the formation of policy, the necessary steps should be taken. Can the Minister confirm that that would be possible under these provisions? I beg to move.
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I hope that I will be able to give the noble Lord the assurances that he is looking for. First, I shall speak to Amendment 22, which is intended to add two further grounds for removing a member of the commission to paragraph 6 of Schedule 1-removal due to misconduct or a failure to comply with the terms of appointment. I agree with noble Lords that a future Secretary of State must have sufficient powers to remove a member of the commission if it transpires that they are not fit to serve in that office. I am therefore happy to confirm that the existing provisions within paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 will allow the Secretary of State to remove a member on these grounds.
In particular, the provision in paragraph 6(d) empowers the Secretary of State to remove a member should he be satisfied that the member is "otherwise unable or unfit" to perform his duties. This gives the Secretary of State the power to remove a member on the grounds both of misconduct and failure to comply with the terms of his appointment. The noble Lord raised the example of Professor Nutt. In that case, the Secretary of State was confident that he was empowered to remove that person on the basis of his not complying with the terms of his appointment.
The provisions of paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 follow precedents set in other legislation setting up advisory public bodies, such as the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, which established the Low Pay Commission, and the Social Security Act 1980, which established the Social Security Advisory Committee. As we know, we are talking about an advisory NDPB. With those assurances, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Amendment 23 is similar to Amendment 22, in that it seeks to ensure that a commission member can be removed if he is unwilling to perform the duties of that office. I reassure the Committee that such a person can be removed using the existing provisions of the Bill. First, an unwilling member could conceivably be absent from a series of commission meetings. In the ordinary course of events, one would expect a member of the commission who was unwilling to perform his duties to resign his office. Paragraph 5 of Schedule 1 provides for him to do so in writing to the Secretary of State.
There may, I suppose, exceptionally be an instance of a person becoming unwilling to serve and at the same time reluctant to offer to leave the body. In such a case, the grounds set out in paragraph 6(d), covering
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The noble Lord, Lord Freud, asked about the provisions in these amendments compared with other Bills. The provisions in Schedule 2 are based on previous legislation establishing NDPBs-for example, the Climate Change Act establishing the Committee on Climate Change. If the noble Lord would like to write to me detailing the pieces of legislation that are not included, as he sees it-
Lord Freud: I thank the Minister for giving way. It will probably be easier if I enunciate them now rather than putting pen to paper. The wording that we are looking at in this amendment has been taken from the Pensions Act 2008, the Planning Act 2008, the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 and the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006.
Baroness Crawley: My immediate response to the noble Lord is that those Acts may not be talking about advisory bodies-that is, the status of the body in front of us today. As he will know, a number of different bodies-statutory bodies, advisory bodies and others-do not fall within either of those definitions. I am very happy to write to the noble Lord and expand on that but at present we are confident that, as it stands, the schedule provides for enough instances for the Secretary of State to feel able to remove someone who is unfit or unwilling to discharge his responsibilities.
The noble Lord, Lord Freud, asked what kind of behaviour would constitute a firing offence. We would consider a commission member to be in breach of their appointment if, for example, they became unwilling to serve on the body or failed to be present for a series of commission meetings. Detailed terms of employment should be set out in a commission member's contract. Much of this information will be in the contract that the commission member agrees on appointment, not as we see it in the Bill. With that, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Freud: I thank the Minister for that explanation, but perhaps I may spend a little more time exploring the word "unwilling" in all its manifestations. I am conscious that in this area there are some deeply entrenched differences of approach on how to tackle poverty as a whole. Let me draw a hypothetical example. If we had a Government who were staunchly focused on dealing with the causes of poverty within their strategy, and if one or more commission members believed that the solution lay purely in income transfers, and if there was no support within the commission for the Government's strategy, despite direction by the Secretary of State, under the Minister's interpretation, would that constitute unwillingness? If so, could that unwillingness be dealt with by removal from office under the clause?
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I go back to the principle that this is an independent advisory body. In our debate on Thursday of last week, a great deal of
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I do not know whether that directly answers the noble Lord's position, but it would be unusual for a Secretary of State to continue working with a member or members of a commission who were unable to meet the terms of reference of the work set out, which is within the purview of the Secretary of State. However, there is always space for minority views. The noble Lord will know that often there are one or two people-maybe more-on such bodies who wish to put in a minority report on a particular issue. That can and does happen within the machinery of government. The advice that the commission gives to the Secretary of State will be made public, so it will be clear in the public domain what is and what is not a minority view on the commission. Ultimately, it will be for the Secretary of State to decide which advice he wants to take from his commission and which he does not.
Lord Freud: I am grateful to the Minister for that very clear explanation. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
24: Schedule 1, page 18, line 27, at end insert-
"( ) Before requesting the Secretary of State to carry out, or commissioning others to carry out, research on behalf of the Commission, the Commission must have regard to existing research."
Lord Freud: My Lords, this is a common-sense amendment to ensure that the limited resources of the commission are not wasted on duplication but instead are targeted on improving the sum of knowledge available to us. We have already discussed the limitations of the data on which government measures are to be based, and I look forward to the meeting with the Ministers and their officials which I was offered last Tuesday. In requesting additional research, the commission could play an important role in plugging the gaps. Of course, the effectiveness of the power given in paragraph 10 depends not only on the funding made available to the commission but on the willingness of the Secretary of State to allow such research.
I want to confirm the meaning of paragraph 10. Is it saying that the Secretary of State can choose whether to comply not only with a request that the Government carry out research but with a request that the commission may ask another for some work? Must the commission ask for permission before requesting a third party to undertake some research for it? Allowing the Secretary
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Lord Rea: My Lords, this amendment gives us the opportunity to recognise the meticulous research work done by a number of units, up and down the country, on the topic of assessing minimum income needs. The University of York, the London School of Hygiene and Loughborough come to mind, and there are others. If further research is needed or commissioned, the experience and expertise developed by those units should be recognised.
This also gives me the opportunity to remember and praise the pioneering work of the namesake of my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester, Professor Jerry Morris of the London School of Hygiene, who died a few months ago in his 100th year. Not only was he one of the first to recognise the need accurately to define minimum income standards based on need but, throughout his long life, was at the forefront of public health and epidemiological research-most famously, for his work on demonstrating the benefit of exercise in preventing coronary heart disease and the existence and importance of inequalities in health. He will be very much missed by all those involved in promoting public health.
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Freud, and my noble friend Lord Rea for their contributions. The Government, like the noble Lord, Lord Freud, are keen that the work that this body does represents not only the finest research that is capable of being provided to Government but, alongside that, value for money.
Noble Lords will be aware that on Report in another place we tabled a government amendment providing the commission with a research capability. We agreed with Members on all sides that this would improve the quality and independence of its advice to the Secretary of State. This provision is now expressed in paragraph 10 of Schedule 1.
In making this amendment, we were mindful of a number of considerations. First, we want to ensure that we have a common understanding of what we mean by "research". Inviting organisations combating child poverty to speak to commission members and making visits to see what works on the ground and to see and hear the experiences of children and families in poverty are both ways of gathering information that we envisage the commission may wish to adopt. They are certainly among the approaches pressed by a number of respondents to the consultation on the Bill and witnesses in the oral evidence sessions.
I am happy to put on the record today that we see both these activities as already within the scope of the Bill. Resources made available under paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 can include resources to carry out these activities. We envisage making explicit reference to them in the commission's terms of reference. Furthermore, on allocating the commission's funding, paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 requires that it is adequately resourced to comply with its statutory duty to provide advice to the Government. The commission will want to
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This model follows the very successful one used by the Low Pay Commission, an advisory body respected for the quality of its research. In practice, we expect there to be an early discussion between the commission and the Secretary of State to agree the areas to be studied, and then commissioning and delivery of an annual programme of work by the Secretary of State on its behalf. Indeed, this is the process followed by the Secretary of State and by the Low Pay Commission when drawing up its annual research programme.
I share the noble Lord's concern that, in exercising this research power, the commission must avoid duplicating existing research. However, the amendment is unnecessary. Should the commission make a request to the Secretary of State for new research where he is able to point it to existing sources, sub-paragraph (2) of paragraph 10 gives the Secretary of State ample scope to decide not to comply with the commission's request and to explain his reasons for doing so.
I am also confident that the criteria for membership in paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 are such that familiarity with, and expert mining of, existing material will be natural to its ways of working. In practice, I think it highly unlikely that the commission would wish to use its limited resources to request work that duplicates existing material.
The noble Lord asked me specifically about paragraph 10. The Secretary of State can refuse to comply with a request to carry out research. That decision must be reasonable, and he must explain the reasons behind it. This would apply to research being carried out by the Secretary of State or by others. Ultimately, the Secretary of State has control over the budget. I hope that, with those reassurances, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: It may be premature to ask, but does the Minister have any sense of what the commission's overall budget for research might be? What could be done will depend on that. She rightly said that the DWP commissions and produces much admirable research. It is well publicised and I think that we are grateful for it. However, the two areas of research which the department finds harder to access and which we could perhaps steer the commission toward considering are, first, the work undertaken through seminars and journals. It is not DWP research and has not yet been fully and officially published. It is the sort of thing that goes into abstracts of journals. I know that a lot of such semi-subterranean work is being done by social policy and social work departments which never quite hits the light of day but can be important in some of the areas that we are considering; for example, fostering of children.
Secondly, the research that the DWP has done-for example, longitudinal research on lone-parent behaviour commissioned from the Policy Studies Institute, of
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Will my noble friend consider whether the commission could go into those two areas which the DWP finds hardest to deal with: first, subterranean research and, secondly, quick-and-dirty research, to see whether a policy is steering in the right direction, thereby feeding back into policy development and pilots much more quickly?
Baroness Massey of Darwen: I am not entirely clear what "subterranean" is, although I think I know what "quick-and-dirty" is. Will the commission be responsible for evaluating the effects of initiatives as well as research into why?
Baroness Crawley: Yes, it would want as holistic a piece of research as possible. Within the limited resources that it has, I am sure that that would be its aim.
I thank both my noble friends. My noble friend Lady Hollis asked specifically whether we had some idea of the commission's research budget. The detailed work published in the impact assessment for the Bill showed that a budget in the order of £390,000 per annum would be sufficient to support the work of a Child Poverty Commission that can readily provide high-quality and effective research. This figure is based on an indicative budget for funding research of about £200,000, but that will obviously be looked at.
I was asked whether the commission was responsible as an evaluator. Generally, no-as an advisory body it would not be responsible as an evaluator. I was also asked by my noble friend about subterranean and quick-and-dirty research.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: They are totally different categories.
Baroness Crawley: The noble Baroness says that they are totally different categories. The Box tells me that we would expect the commission to look at short-term research projects as well as longitudinal projects, if that is appropriate. The Secretary of State can ask the commission to look at any research matter relating to targets and strategy; these are matters that we would expect to be stated in the terms of reference. I shall write to my noble friend about the quick and dirty and the subterranean.
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4 pm
Lord Freud: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that answer. I pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rea, about the excellence of research in this country. We do have some of the best research in the world in this country in this area. The underlying concern in my amendment was that we do not try to set up competing centres of research out of this commission when we already have world-leading research, and that the function of the commission should not be as a research centre. It should be advising the Government. Without the amendment, the Bill leaves it up to the Secretary of State to control that situation and to ensure that we hold on to our genuinely independent centres of research without a competitive element from the commission, rather than build it in to the Bill, as my amendment seeks to do. I do not think that we have a shortage of research or pilots, which are a very similar thing. However, we often have a shortage of determination to drive through the findings of research or pilots into full mainstream national programmes.
With those thoughts, and with thanks to the Minister for her reply, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
25: Schedule 1, page 18, line 31, at end insert-
"(2) All such remuneration, allowances and expenses must be published monthly on the internet."
Lord Freud: This is a very simple amendment. It is self-evident what it is trying to achieve. For better or for worse-and I do not expect the Minister to agree with me on this point-there has been a marked increase in the number of quangos, commissions, councils and committees under this Government. This has unavoidably led to questions of value for money, especially when it is clear to everyone that public spending must and will be cut. Of course, one would want a person of suitable qualifications to be employed in this role, but value for money must be maintained, and improving the transparency of quango funding is an important part of that.
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