Queen’s Speech

My Lords, it has been a fascinating day. The prize for capturing the essence of the day’s debate must go to the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, and his use of the epithet ““mingle-mangle””. He is a poet, so he has an advantage over the rest of us, but he has obviously been deeply psychologically affected by his strict disciplinarian times in the Cabinet of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher. Modern Liberal Democrats speak about four things at once, so it is natural practice. Indeed, they normally all speak at once while discussing four things at once, so mingle-mangle is a way of life. I would therefore like to think that I have no difficulty trying to summate a debate of this kind. The noble Lord, Lord Darzi, started off the debate well by setting out four themes that the Government are trying to pursue, and I shall try to follow them in the course of my short remarks. I have to say, however, that the oxymoron of the debate came from him when he described himself as a humble surgeon. I have never met a humble surgeon in my life, but the more I get to know him the more I think that he might just qualify. It would be an exceptional position for him to hold, but he is an exceptional person and we are grateful for the way in which he started the debate. I should be careful, however, because the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, will follow me and therefore has a right to reply. I have come to know and love him over many hours in the welfare reform area of public policy. Recently, when I introduced him at a conference, it came to me in a moment that the noble Lord is the Duracell bunny. He is the long-life toy that never stops. As your Lordships watch Christmas advertising and the Duracell advert comes on the television, you will always think of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton. You are welcome to that observation, which is the least he deserves. This has been an extraordinarily good debate. The conjunction of the four subjects, important policy areas that they are, captures what successful, multidisciplinary modern government should be about. If we cannot as a House look at these things across a broader canvass, how can we expect government to be effective in delivering services? If quality of public services, which was the first test and theme suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, is to be developed, we have to expect departments to work together in a complex way. The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, made a powerful contribution. He said that the disjunction between policy, the legal statutory process and provisions differs a lot in many cases from the practice at the sharp end. We must not forget that implementation of public policy is just as important as the legislative starting point. Legislation has to be right, but even successful legislation can go wrong in its implementation. This House will have to spend more time, if that is possible, looking at some of those practicalities. We have looked at equality of public services. A number of distinguished speeches captured the importance of that, particularly in public health. All I would add is that I hope that the department and the Government will pay careful attention to the groundbreaking report produced by Dame Carol Black earlier this year, to which the Government have just responded. It weaves so well into the rest of the health agenda that was so ably set out in the Minister’s opening speech. Noble Lords talked about well-being in a wider sense and said that a holistic, less medical model is the way forward. There were some powerful speeches about worklessness. Well-being in worklessness is one of the easiest ways to get people back into work because their confidence increases. It is not about just the skills agenda, to which I will turn later, it is also about the health support mechanisms that people often need to get them to the starting line of the labour market. We need to introduce this as a result of this Queen’s Speech if we can. The second theme suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, was help for the deprived. There were some powerful speeches, including that of my noble friend Lady Thomas. Welfare reform is very important. My noble friend asked some important questions on the deployment of welfare reform. Creaming and parking in some of these new innovative contracts that are just coming through with the flexible New Deal will need to be watched carefully, not because the policy is wrong, but because implementation could hurt people if it is not discharged properly. We need to focus on that powerfully. The right reverend Prelate made a compelling speech about low pay. The ““no pay, low pay”” cycle is a very destructive one for households to get into. We have a very bad record of low pay in this country compared to our sister European nations, despite our new Prime Minister who, for all his political life, has tried to make a point about high productivity and higher pay. After even 10 years of our Labour Government dealing with low pay, we have a very bad record. The cycle of people falling out of benefit into low pay, back into benefit, back into low pay, is very destructive on the confidence that you need to get to establish the well-being I was talking about a moment ago. Another point about the welfare-to-work proposals that was not directly alluded to is the need to support people in work. Once they have a contract of employment even for temporary, low-paid work, employers need support so that they can help their employees need to develop talents and creativity and so get sustainable, fulfilling work. This is something our American colleagues call the ABC—any job, a better job, a career. The acronym describes exactly what the policy needs to achieve if it is to be successful in the long term. There was some discussion from colleagues about child poverty and the three measures for it, two of which are absolutely relative. They rise as the economy grows, should it ever do so again in the near future. Colleagues often forget that the uprating system used year after year, although unusually not this year, links benefit increases close to price rises but always leaves the benefit community a few fractions of a percentage point behind. Our system of uprating builds in relative inequality and reduces the efficacy of policies designed to deal with child poverty. We need £3 billion in the next uprating statement to get anywhere near the Government’s own target by 2010. That is a serious challenge in the current financial circumstances. The theme of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, was rights and responsibilities. I am not an expert in the area, but the equality Bill is welcome. My noble friend Lady Walmsley made a powerful point when she said that we must ensure that the under-18s are covered by the legislation. She is absolutely right because it is a potentially powerful tool for dealing with multiple deprivation. Such deprivation compounds the problems encountered by households in financial distress. If the Bill is framed properly so that it can be used as a powerful lever, it could help enormously in dealing with the agenda of inequality. I look forward to embracing the under-18s in the provisions of the Bill when we come to consider them. The provision of personalised services is an important new dimension in the delivery of public services. The older I get, the more I think that a one-size-fits-all policy does not work. The textbook says that you should put a public service in place and assume that everyone is equally capable of taking advantage of it. That is not true because many people in communities with multiple deprivation just do not get to the starting line in terms of taking up some public services. Educated middle-class people always can, and that is good, but I put the rhetorical question: is it safe simply to put provisions on the statute book and assume that everyone will be better off? I am coming to the conclusion that, while it is a hard thing to do, positive discrimination for the disadvantaged parts of our communities in each public service area might be something we look at. If that is what the Government mean by personalised support, I agree absolutely that it is worth trying to achieve such an aim in the short to medium term. The powerful speeches of the noble Lords, Lord McColl and Lord Puttnam, both strayed slightly beyond the strict agenda of the Queen’s Speech, but were none the worse for that. Trust is something we should all be concerned about, and it is not at all a party political point. It is a reputational issue for the House. Actually, since I joined it, this House has been doing quite well. Perhaps I should not go as far as saying that. However, we can take a leading role in addressing the reputational issue for politics, and indeed I hope that we will do so in the coming year. The year after next will be a political year because there will be an election. In my experience, no one does anything sensible in an election year. We have the next 12 months in which to try to sort out these issues. There is no point in hiding from them. There is anxiety, unease, uncertainty and fear out there overlying the situation of lack of trust. Democratic politics cannot be practised successfully unless we engage the people we seek to serve. The press are an important part of the problem. We live in an age of very unforgiving media, but we have to work around that. While I would like to put the editorial staff of the Daily Mail in jail, alas the legislation to achieve that might not pass muster with the Human Rights Act. We have to work as best we can to confront the arguments. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said that when these things happen you have to stand up and be counted. It is in all our interests to stand shoulder to shoulder when these issues arise and I hope that we will see more of that in the future. I wish to make one final plea about something which is not mentioned in the Queen’s Speech but which suffuses everything—it is not one of the themes of the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, but maybe it should be—and that is the question of ageing. The issue of ageing arises in the areas of carers, health and so on; it affects the whole public agenda. When the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, celebrates his 65th birthday in three years’ time it will be a red-letter day for a number of reasons. He will have reached a significant part of his life—I shall be a couple of weeks behind him—but in 2011-12, for the first time, the number of people joining the 65 year-old-and-over population will rocket; it will increase exponentially. These are the baby boomers; the bulge coming through. We will have had the benefit of being the earning generation and in 2011-12 we will be going into a significantly different phase of demographics. This will affect the dependency ratio and will mean that fewer and fewer people will be carrying the load of wealth creation. That is why all the arguments and powerful speeches we have heard today about skills, universities, technical colleges and so on are so important. It is absolutely essential that we should establish these facilities right now because, if we do not, we will have to rely on people working to a much older age. Even with his Duracell capacity, we cannot expect the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, to work indefatigably forever. We have got to find ways of getting more people actively into the labour market—even if it is only part-time work—for the creation of good health, well-being and wealth at the end of their lives. If we do not address that agenda now—indeed, some would argue that it is already too late—we will put ourselves at risk. The wealth creation ability of the country will not be adequate to meet the needs of the pensions of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and myself, and that would be a serious situation. It is an important year for the House and the legislation is important. This legislative agenda can be improved and I hope it will be improved. Certainly those on the Liberal Democrat Benches will seek, as they always do, to do that. In the course of his speech, the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, said that he thinks we should take it more slowly and try to get it right. I think that that is about right as well.