Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-04
Topic: Government Operations
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will also speak to Amendments 15G, 15H and 15J. I referred at the start of this afternoon to the infrastructure which goes along with the statutory duty created by this Bill—the bureaucracy, cost and so on. I do not underestimate or undervalue the negative impact to which I also referred earlier. I read then a part of the response to the consultation on the draft guidance from the London Borough of Sutton. It also referred to descriptions of working across borough boundaries. That made me realise that the legislation may not reflect the current realities of the way local government works Sutton talks about sharing, "a great deal of information and planning with neighbouring boroughs around risk and consequent Channel planning ... This cross border risk identification and consequent planning is not considered in the guidance" It goes on to talk about training, and about, "‘borrowing’ a Police Prevent Engagement Officer (PEO) from the Police in a neighbouring Borough. There is no PEO allocated to Sutton" It continues: "It would clearly be impossible to provide the frontline training for staff in local authorities and education institutions and organisations suggested in the guidance without significant additional funding" I shall come to that on the next group of amendments, when I will talk about collaboration in training That is a response to the guidance, but should there be something in the Bill? Local authorities are increasingly sharing back office functions, and indeed some front office functions as well. Children’s services and adoption services may be shared, as may any number of services. So should a local authority have "a panel … in place", as Clause 34(1) requires? I suggest that a panel should be "available" instead. An authority should have access to a panel. It would still have the duty; it would not be avoiding responsibility. But as the clause is worded, would each authority be required to have its own panel? I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that local authorities can share functions as I have described Clause 34 is about Channel, whereas the previous chapter dealt with Prevent. The point comes up here, so can the Minister confirm that guidance will allow for cross-border as well as multi-agency working? I suppose the bottom line is that the Bill should not actually make cross-border arrangements of this sort ultra vires. If that can be dealt with in guidance, fine. But as the Minister is going to be reflecting so much over the next two or three days, perhaps he could get somebody else to reflect on that point—because if we lose the opportunity to make it clear in the Bill, we shall be in trouble In relation to Amendment 15G, my noble friend Lord Carlile drew attention to the need to recognise that when we talk about housing providers, we do not usually mean local authorities. He mentioned the Peabody trust, I think, as probably having the most social housing in London. He mentioned a point that had not previously occurred to me, about recognising the knowledge that housing providers have of their tenants, and the important role that they can therefore play. Understandably, having heard those comments, the Minister answered in terms of the panel. But I am not so concerned about that, because Clause 35(4) provides for co-option. It does not use that term, but that is what it amounts to: there can be appointed, "such … persons as the … local authority considers appropriate" It could therefore appoint a representative of the housing providers The amendment, which is the same as the one to which I spoke in Committee, is about the support to be provided to, or required by, an individual. Clause 34 deals with the support that the panel can provide or facilitate, and subsection (5) deals in general terms with the support plan. There is no mention of specific services in it, so housing could be read as being included in those arrangements. However, subsection (6) applies when, "a panel determines that support should not be given", and is considering, "whether the individual ought to be referred to a provider of any health or social care services" Why is that reference so narrow? There must be other relevant services, and I would have thought that housing was pretty obviously one of those. Stable accommodation plays an important role in stabilising someone who has a chaotic or difficult life. I have referred to "other" services because there seems to be no reason to limit the clause, as drafted. The clause does not require the provision of any services; what it requires is the consideration of whether an individual should be referred, and the arrangements to refer him. If there is no positive reason to limit the clause, I am bothered that the Government may be quite unnecessarily depriving the local authority of a tool that it could use I hope that, at the very least, the Minister can take this on board. Earlier today, somebody said, "I hope the Minister will go away", and then there was a pause; let me put it as hoping that he will take away the possibility of guidance covering this issue. Similarly with my earlier point, the point here is that the Bill should contain an assurance that other referrals are within the powers of the panel. I do not read it that way, but I am happy to defer to those who are more skilled in interpreting what legislation actually means. This is another vires point, and I beg to move.