http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/
pdvn/lds06/text/61106-0002.htm#0611064000009
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Probation Boards
Lord Avebury: My Lords, this is the second time within a week that proposals have been put before us that have been introduced with minimal consultation that is far short of what is required by the Cabinet Office code of practice on consultation.
The National Probation Directorate said in its response to the Merits Committee’s questions on the subject that it did not think that a formal public consultation was required, but it consulted informally a number of boards and board members. It does not appear to have consulted the Probation Boards’ Association, the Magistrates’ Association, the Local Government Association, NACRO and any other major organisation that is concerned with probation and its future. The Probation Boards’ Association has said that the regulations,
“will weaken local involvement in criminal justice, begin the process of centralising probation governance on Whitehall and remove the critical local partners on whom effective work with offenders depends”.
When the Government know that proposals they are going to introduce are controversial, it is only too easy for them to avoid criticism by picking a few consultees who can be cajoled into giving the right answers, while ignoring the leading players. I therefore suggest that there should be Cabinet Office guidance on these pseudo-consultations to ensure that the department at least asks for the official views of the organisations representing the persons or bodies principally concerned. I would be grateful if that suggestion could be referred to the Cabinet Office for its consideration and advice.
As a result of the useful work done by the Merits Committee, we now see more clearly what the real purpose of this exercise is. The Government pretend that they are offering greater flexibility, but this isin fact a preparatory step towards forthcoming
3 Nov 2006 : Column 551
legislation—the “nightmare on Marshall Street” legislation, which the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, mentioned—under which boards are to be compelled to contract out 10 per cent of their services in 2007-08 and an increasing proportion in later years. Ultimately, programmes for the rehabilitation of offenders, including drug rehabilitation but not, apparently, alcohol rehabilitation, amounting to£250 million a year—about a third of their total expenditure—will all be farmed out, leaving the boards with direct responsibility for managing high-risk offenders in the community.
Mr Harry Fletcher pointed out to me this morning that the distinction between high, medium and low-risk offenders is artificial because, although 35,000 out of the 50,000 offenders under supervision at any time are classified as low-risk, this low-risk group accounts for about 80 per cent of repeat offenders. I was reminded of the work of Professor Jean Floud many years ago on dangerousness, in which she found that there was no reliable scientific method of predicting the propensity to commit serious offences. Giving the easy cases to the private contractors and leaving a core probation service to deal with the hard ones simply will not work, because so many of the offenders will need constantly to be transferred between one category and another.
The argument behind the order is that the boards will need expertise primarily in commissioning and contracting out the services, and that they will not need to have much of a clue about how to deal with low-risk offenders. However, they will still need to cope with the 1,500 high-risk offenders, and—perhaps the Minister can confirm this—with the 13,000 offenders who are classified as medium-risk. Presumably, whenever a low-risk client commits a serious offence, his case will be taken from the private contractor and given back to the probation service. However these matters are to be dealt with, it is hard to see how the boards will discharge their functions if they are composed entirely of businessmen—I take it that they will be mostly men—without experience of the criminal justice system or, indeed, of the mental health or local authority services. Nor is it clear from the response to the Merits Committee who, under the new system, will have responsibility for rehabilitation of offenders with alcohol problems, and it would be helpful if the Minister could say something about that when he replies.
We are not against the proposition that requiring four members of the board to be magistrates may be too prescriptive, but we note the Government’s apology for saying in the explanatory memorandum that there was substantial evidence that many magistrates and local authority members did not possess business skills. That is entirely in order because there was no evidence for this lack of skills among magistrates. I certainly hope that, as a result of this order, boards will not lose all knowledge of the criminal justice system now available to them from their magistrate members. That point has been made forcefully by NACRO, which is also among the bodies with which the Government did not bother to consult.
3 Nov 2006 : Column 552
Eliminating the requirement that two members should be local councillors is opposed by practically everyone I can think of, including the Probation Boards’ Association and the LGA. They point out that partnerships with the local authority and the police are at the heart of modern probation practice and are necessary for close liaison, joint funding and joint planning through local area agreements. NACRO says that the probation service needs to be closely linked with housing and education, since they are both crucial to the resettlement of offenders and the reduction of reoffending. The direct input from local authority representatives on the boards is a valuable way to ensure that these connections are strong and productive, and that probation services complement and reinforce the activities of local authorities in reducing crime. Napo has been told that it will no longer be necessary even for a member to live within the probation area, let alone be a member of the local authority.
We view with apprehension the upheaval which will ultimately sweep away the National Probation Service with the introduction of commissioning and contestability at regional level, of which this order is a precursor. We agree with the noble Baroness,Lady Anelay, that separating consideration of the composition of the probation boards from the foreshadowed primary legislation is wrong in principle. It deprives Parliament of its right to amend the proposals to reverse the damaging loss of the ties between the boards on the one hand, and the magistracy and local authorities on the other, while approving the greater flexibility of appointment periods and a reduction perhaps of the quorum, although I noted that the noble Baroness was not in favour of that either.
We agree also with Napo that moving towards a regional or national model will undermine the public protection work undertaken with partners in the courts, the police, health services, particularly mental health, sentencers and the voluntary sectors. We have not been able to identify a single organisation which is in favour of the upheaval that the Government are planning to inflict on the probation service, apart from the incumbent of No. 10, who will be leaving shortly—we hope. Is it too much to hope that with a regime change in the offing, there could be a moratorium on the harmful changes coming down the track for the probation service and that, as a sign of hope for the future, this order will now be withdrawn?
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/
pdvn/lds06/text/61103-0005.htm
The National Probation Directorate said in its response to the Merits Committee’s questions on the subject that it did not think that a formal public consultation was required, but it consulted informally a number of boards and board members. It does not appear to have consulted the Probation Boards’ Association, the Magistrates’ Association, the Local Government Association, NACRO and any other major organisation that is concerned with probation and its future. The Probation Boards’ Association has said that the regulations,
“will weaken local involvement in criminal justice, begin the process of centralising probation governance on Whitehall and remove the critical local partners on whom effective work with offenders depends”.
When the Government know that proposals they are going to introduce are controversial, it is only too easy for them to avoid criticism by picking a few consultees who can be cajoled into giving the right answers, while ignoring the leading players. I therefore suggest that there should be Cabinet Office guidance on these pseudo-consultations to ensure that the department at least asks for the official views of the organisations representing the persons or bodies principally concerned. I would be grateful if that suggestion could be referred to the Cabinet Office for its consideration and advice.
As a result of the useful work done by the Merits Committee, we now see more clearly what the real purpose of this exercise is. The Government pretend that they are offering greater flexibility, but this isin fact a preparatory step towards forthcoming
3 Nov 2006 : Column 551
legislation—the “nightmare on Marshall Street” legislation, which the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, mentioned—under which boards are to be compelled to contract out 10 per cent of their services in 2007-08 and an increasing proportion in later years. Ultimately, programmes for the rehabilitation of offenders, including drug rehabilitation but not, apparently, alcohol rehabilitation, amounting to£250 million a year—about a third of their total expenditure—will all be farmed out, leaving the boards with direct responsibility for managing high-risk offenders in the community.
Mr Harry Fletcher pointed out to me this morning that the distinction between high, medium and low-risk offenders is artificial because, although 35,000 out of the 50,000 offenders under supervision at any time are classified as low-risk, this low-risk group accounts for about 80 per cent of repeat offenders. I was reminded of the work of Professor Jean Floud many years ago on dangerousness, in which she found that there was no reliable scientific method of predicting the propensity to commit serious offences. Giving the easy cases to the private contractors and leaving a core probation service to deal with the hard ones simply will not work, because so many of the offenders will need constantly to be transferred between one category and another.
The argument behind the order is that the boards will need expertise primarily in commissioning and contracting out the services, and that they will not need to have much of a clue about how to deal with low-risk offenders. However, they will still need to cope with the 1,500 high-risk offenders, and—perhaps the Minister can confirm this—with the 13,000 offenders who are classified as medium-risk. Presumably, whenever a low-risk client commits a serious offence, his case will be taken from the private contractor and given back to the probation service. However these matters are to be dealt with, it is hard to see how the boards will discharge their functions if they are composed entirely of businessmen—I take it that they will be mostly men—without experience of the criminal justice system or, indeed, of the mental health or local authority services. Nor is it clear from the response to the Merits Committee who, under the new system, will have responsibility for rehabilitation of offenders with alcohol problems, and it would be helpful if the Minister could say something about that when he replies.
We are not against the proposition that requiring four members of the board to be magistrates may be too prescriptive, but we note the Government’s apology for saying in the explanatory memorandum that there was substantial evidence that many magistrates and local authority members did not possess business skills. That is entirely in order because there was no evidence for this lack of skills among magistrates. I certainly hope that, as a result of this order, boards will not lose all knowledge of the criminal justice system now available to them from their magistrate members. That point has been made forcefully by NACRO, which is also among the bodies with which the Government did not bother to consult.
3 Nov 2006 : Column 552
Eliminating the requirement that two members should be local councillors is opposed by practically everyone I can think of, including the Probation Boards’ Association and the LGA. They point out that partnerships with the local authority and the police are at the heart of modern probation practice and are necessary for close liaison, joint funding and joint planning through local area agreements. NACRO says that the probation service needs to be closely linked with housing and education, since they are both crucial to the resettlement of offenders and the reduction of reoffending. The direct input from local authority representatives on the boards is a valuable way to ensure that these connections are strong and productive, and that probation services complement and reinforce the activities of local authorities in reducing crime. Napo has been told that it will no longer be necessary even for a member to live within the probation area, let alone be a member of the local authority.
We view with apprehension the upheaval which will ultimately sweep away the National Probation Service with the introduction of commissioning and contestability at regional level, of which this order is a precursor. We agree with the noble Baroness,Lady Anelay, that separating consideration of the composition of the probation boards from the foreshadowed primary legislation is wrong in principle. It deprives Parliament of its right to amend the proposals to reverse the damaging loss of the ties between the boards on the one hand, and the magistracy and local authorities on the other, while approving the greater flexibility of appointment periods and a reduction perhaps of the quorum, although I noted that the noble Baroness was not in favour of that either.
We agree also with Napo that moving towards a regional or national model will undermine the public protection work undertaken with partners in the courts, the police, health services, particularly mental health, sentencers and the voluntary sectors. We have not been able to identify a single organisation which is in favour of the upheaval that the Government are planning to inflict on the probation service, apart from the incumbent of No. 10, who will be leaving shortly—we hope. Is it too much to hope that with a regime change in the offing, there could be a moratorium on the harmful changes coming down the track for the probation service and that, as a sign of hope for the future, this order will now be withdrawn?
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/
pdvn/lds06/text/61103-0005.htm
Social landlords and Travellers
Social Landlords (Permissible Additional Purposes) (England) Order 2006
12.56 pm
Lord Avebury rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the order, laid before the House on 26 July, be annulled (S.I. 2006/1968).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not opposing the order, but simply using the device of praying against it to discuss some of the problems of enlisting social landlords in the provision and management of Gypsy sites. This is not a simple matter, as one can see from the fact that it was two and a half years ago when the then Minister, Yvette Cooper, said in another place that she would amend the purposes for which the Housing Corporation could provide funding to include the construction, maintenance and management of these sites. We agree with that policy, which we advocated under the heading “Enlisting Social Landlords”, in a document that the Liberal Democrats published in 2002, although we do not claim any particular monopoly of the idea, which was widely canvassed at the time.
At a meeting last week with the Minister, Gypsy and Traveller organisation representatives expressed disappointment that it was taking so long to get in place the new system of site provision, of which this order is an essential component. The delay in bringing forward the order was occasioned by the need to consult on the definition of Gypsies and Travellers. As your Lordships’ Merits of Statutory Instruments Select Committee explained in its useful memorandum on the subject, we now have two definitions, for reasons which are comprehensible but which may lead to some confusion. The one used here is based on nomadism rather than ethnicity, but it is extended to include those who are no longer nomadic because of illness or old age, and travelling showmen, who I am glad are included because frequently in the past they have been left out of these discussions. It includes people who are not Romany Gypsies or Irish Travellers but who follow a cultural tradition of nomadism or living in caravans. For the purposes of the Housing Act, under which local authorities are required to assess the accommodation needs of Gypsies and Travellers in their areas, a broader definition was needed to encompass ethnic Gypsies and Irish Travellers, many of whom are permanently settled either voluntarily or because of the huge difficulty of following a nomadic way of life now that it is unlawful to stop anywhere except on transit sites, which are few and far between.
The first thing to say about the order is that social landlords are not expected to make provision for ethnic Gypsies who may be tempted to resume living in a caravan because of the greater availability of land for Gypsy sites as a result of the permissions that will be granted following the implementation of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act. Yet there may be cases where extended families, some of whose members are in bricks and mortar and others on caravan sites, would like to be reunited on a site
3 Nov 2006 : Column 541
provided by a social landlord. Is the order flexible enough to cope with that kind of demand, when some people may come from bricks and mortar and others from substandard sites or sites that are to be eliminated?
Secondly, at the recent meeting between the All-Party Group on Gypsy and Traveller Law Reform and Meg Munn MP, it was made clear that the priority for social landlords would be to cater for those among the 3,000 families living on unauthorised sites who will be unable to buy landto develop sites for themselves when the landfinally becomes available following the completion of the needs assessments and the incorporation of the numbers resulting from those assessments in the regional spatial strategies. It will be many years before Travellers who are living on some of the grossly unsatisfactory sites provided under the 1968 Act—some of which are next to sewage works or under motorways—can be rehoused. As far as I can see, there is nothing in the order to prevent schemes to rehouse people from sink sites. If they are identified as needing to be rehoused in the needs assessments, social landlords might well have a role to play. I hope that the Minister will say something about that.
In some areas, local authority sites are being closed without alternative provision for the residents being made. In London, there has been a sharp decline in the number of pitches: 76 were lost in the 10 years to 2004, according to the London Gypsy and Traveller group and sites in Newham and Hackney on land needed for the Olympic Games are threatened with imminent closure, with no agreement on how they are to be relocated. It would be ironic if the Olympic Games, which were touted as a means of reducing social deprivation in London, were to decrease further the supply of accommodation for the most deprived community of all. I hope that Ministers will knock heads together, particularly in the LDA, to see that that does not happen.
I mentioned that case to indicate that the longer it takes to mobilise social landlords, the bigger the task confronting them will be. They cannot really get going until the local authority has been through the needs assessment and has produced the development plan document identifying the land needed for the purpose. In the mean while, they might occasionally be able to use Circular 1/06, as described in the Planning Inspectorate letter of 24 July, to get planning permission on suitable land that has not yet been designated in the DPD. However, as with private individuals, that approach means additional trouble and expense and might sour relationships between social landlords and local authorities.
That brings me to the question of whether RSLs are going to come forward in sufficient numbers and with sufficient resources to match the need. During the passage of the Housing Bill, the Government rejected a proposal to give local authorities a reserve power to develop sites in areas where the need for rented pitches was not being met, so RSLs are assumed to be capable of rising to the challenge and providing rented sites throughout the country. At the meeting of the all-party group, we were told that there
3 Nov 2006 : Column 542
were new entrants—until recently, Novas has had the field to itself. Who are those new entrants, in what areas of the country are they operating and what sites have they provided or are in the course of providing? What efforts is the DCLG making to enlist new providers?
At that meeting, we raised the problem of rising land prices, which are likely to create problems for RSLs as well as for private developers of sites. Once the land has been identified in a DPD, its value is likely to be considerably higher than it would be for agricultural land, which would have to be reflected in the rent charged by the RSL. In the case of county council and RSL-owned sites, which have been brought under a procrustean system of regulation so that the amount of housing benefit payable is less than the economic rent, many existing sites are now loss-making, and there is no incentive for social landlords to develop new sites where the rents would need to be higher if they cannot recover the amounts from tenants who are on benefit. Research carried out for the DWP led to a recommendation that the allowable rent for benefit purposes on all Gypsy sites should be increased by £15 per pitch to reflect the cost of management on the site, depending on its attainment of quality standards for maintenance and health and safety. Families who need a lot of support will not be well catered for under these arrangements and the assumption that all Gypsy sites require the same amount of management resources is manifestly untrue. RSLs would naturally tend to offer places on their sites to Gypsies who they think will not give rise to major problems, leaving difficult families who need a lot of support to fend for themselves. The arrangements recommended by Spark are not flexible enough to cope with the wide range of situations, and it would be preferable to abolish rent controls for social and local authority landlords, who may be expected to act responsibly without that incentive.
I welcome the extension of funding for Gypsy and Traveller sites to RSLs as well as local authorities—£28 million will be available in 2006-07 and £35 million will be available in the following year in order to provide new sites or refurbish existing ones. The extent to which RSLs were involved inthe bids for the current year and their expressionsof interest for 2006-07, which had to be in by30 September, would be an indication of their likely interest in the Housing Corporation funding resulting from this order. I would be grateful if the Minister could give us the figures. It would also be useful to know how many RSLs have constitutions that allow them to take on the provision of Gypsy and Traveller sites or have applied for consent to the necessary changes to their constitutions under paragraphs 9 to 11 of Schedule 1 to the Housing Act 1996.
When we meet Gypsies and Travellers, as in the meeting with the Minister last week, they are naturally sceptical about the ultimate success of the strategy for ensuring that members of their communities have a place to live. Inevitably, residents in the neighbourhood of unauthorised encampments are dissatisfied with the rate of progress that is being made. It is important that the Government should
3 Nov 2006 : Column 543
keep both sets of people informed of what is being done, and this order is one essential piece of the jigsaw.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the order, laid before the House on 26 July, be annulled (S.I. 2006/1968).—(Lord Avebury.)
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/
pdvn/lds06/text/61103-0005.htm
12.56 pm
Lord Avebury rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the order, laid before the House on 26 July, be annulled (S.I. 2006/1968).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not opposing the order, but simply using the device of praying against it to discuss some of the problems of enlisting social landlords in the provision and management of Gypsy sites. This is not a simple matter, as one can see from the fact that it was two and a half years ago when the then Minister, Yvette Cooper, said in another place that she would amend the purposes for which the Housing Corporation could provide funding to include the construction, maintenance and management of these sites. We agree with that policy, which we advocated under the heading “Enlisting Social Landlords”, in a document that the Liberal Democrats published in 2002, although we do not claim any particular monopoly of the idea, which was widely canvassed at the time.
At a meeting last week with the Minister, Gypsy and Traveller organisation representatives expressed disappointment that it was taking so long to get in place the new system of site provision, of which this order is an essential component. The delay in bringing forward the order was occasioned by the need to consult on the definition of Gypsies and Travellers. As your Lordships’ Merits of Statutory Instruments Select Committee explained in its useful memorandum on the subject, we now have two definitions, for reasons which are comprehensible but which may lead to some confusion. The one used here is based on nomadism rather than ethnicity, but it is extended to include those who are no longer nomadic because of illness or old age, and travelling showmen, who I am glad are included because frequently in the past they have been left out of these discussions. It includes people who are not Romany Gypsies or Irish Travellers but who follow a cultural tradition of nomadism or living in caravans. For the purposes of the Housing Act, under which local authorities are required to assess the accommodation needs of Gypsies and Travellers in their areas, a broader definition was needed to encompass ethnic Gypsies and Irish Travellers, many of whom are permanently settled either voluntarily or because of the huge difficulty of following a nomadic way of life now that it is unlawful to stop anywhere except on transit sites, which are few and far between.
The first thing to say about the order is that social landlords are not expected to make provision for ethnic Gypsies who may be tempted to resume living in a caravan because of the greater availability of land for Gypsy sites as a result of the permissions that will be granted following the implementation of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act. Yet there may be cases where extended families, some of whose members are in bricks and mortar and others on caravan sites, would like to be reunited on a site
3 Nov 2006 : Column 541
provided by a social landlord. Is the order flexible enough to cope with that kind of demand, when some people may come from bricks and mortar and others from substandard sites or sites that are to be eliminated?
Secondly, at the recent meeting between the All-Party Group on Gypsy and Traveller Law Reform and Meg Munn MP, it was made clear that the priority for social landlords would be to cater for those among the 3,000 families living on unauthorised sites who will be unable to buy landto develop sites for themselves when the landfinally becomes available following the completion of the needs assessments and the incorporation of the numbers resulting from those assessments in the regional spatial strategies. It will be many years before Travellers who are living on some of the grossly unsatisfactory sites provided under the 1968 Act—some of which are next to sewage works or under motorways—can be rehoused. As far as I can see, there is nothing in the order to prevent schemes to rehouse people from sink sites. If they are identified as needing to be rehoused in the needs assessments, social landlords might well have a role to play. I hope that the Minister will say something about that.
In some areas, local authority sites are being closed without alternative provision for the residents being made. In London, there has been a sharp decline in the number of pitches: 76 were lost in the 10 years to 2004, according to the London Gypsy and Traveller group and sites in Newham and Hackney on land needed for the Olympic Games are threatened with imminent closure, with no agreement on how they are to be relocated. It would be ironic if the Olympic Games, which were touted as a means of reducing social deprivation in London, were to decrease further the supply of accommodation for the most deprived community of all. I hope that Ministers will knock heads together, particularly in the LDA, to see that that does not happen.
I mentioned that case to indicate that the longer it takes to mobilise social landlords, the bigger the task confronting them will be. They cannot really get going until the local authority has been through the needs assessment and has produced the development plan document identifying the land needed for the purpose. In the mean while, they might occasionally be able to use Circular 1/06, as described in the Planning Inspectorate letter of 24 July, to get planning permission on suitable land that has not yet been designated in the DPD. However, as with private individuals, that approach means additional trouble and expense and might sour relationships between social landlords and local authorities.
That brings me to the question of whether RSLs are going to come forward in sufficient numbers and with sufficient resources to match the need. During the passage of the Housing Bill, the Government rejected a proposal to give local authorities a reserve power to develop sites in areas where the need for rented pitches was not being met, so RSLs are assumed to be capable of rising to the challenge and providing rented sites throughout the country. At the meeting of the all-party group, we were told that there
3 Nov 2006 : Column 542
were new entrants—until recently, Novas has had the field to itself. Who are those new entrants, in what areas of the country are they operating and what sites have they provided or are in the course of providing? What efforts is the DCLG making to enlist new providers?
At that meeting, we raised the problem of rising land prices, which are likely to create problems for RSLs as well as for private developers of sites. Once the land has been identified in a DPD, its value is likely to be considerably higher than it would be for agricultural land, which would have to be reflected in the rent charged by the RSL. In the case of county council and RSL-owned sites, which have been brought under a procrustean system of regulation so that the amount of housing benefit payable is less than the economic rent, many existing sites are now loss-making, and there is no incentive for social landlords to develop new sites where the rents would need to be higher if they cannot recover the amounts from tenants who are on benefit. Research carried out for the DWP led to a recommendation that the allowable rent for benefit purposes on all Gypsy sites should be increased by £15 per pitch to reflect the cost of management on the site, depending on its attainment of quality standards for maintenance and health and safety. Families who need a lot of support will not be well catered for under these arrangements and the assumption that all Gypsy sites require the same amount of management resources is manifestly untrue. RSLs would naturally tend to offer places on their sites to Gypsies who they think will not give rise to major problems, leaving difficult families who need a lot of support to fend for themselves. The arrangements recommended by Spark are not flexible enough to cope with the wide range of situations, and it would be preferable to abolish rent controls for social and local authority landlords, who may be expected to act responsibly without that incentive.
I welcome the extension of funding for Gypsy and Traveller sites to RSLs as well as local authorities—£28 million will be available in 2006-07 and £35 million will be available in the following year in order to provide new sites or refurbish existing ones. The extent to which RSLs were involved inthe bids for the current year and their expressionsof interest for 2006-07, which had to be in by30 September, would be an indication of their likely interest in the Housing Corporation funding resulting from this order. I would be grateful if the Minister could give us the figures. It would also be useful to know how many RSLs have constitutions that allow them to take on the provision of Gypsy and Traveller sites or have applied for consent to the necessary changes to their constitutions under paragraphs 9 to 11 of Schedule 1 to the Housing Act 1996.
When we meet Gypsies and Travellers, as in the meeting with the Minister last week, they are naturally sceptical about the ultimate success of the strategy for ensuring that members of their communities have a place to live. Inevitably, residents in the neighbourhood of unauthorised encampments are dissatisfied with the rate of progress that is being made. It is important that the Government should
3 Nov 2006 : Column 543
keep both sets of people informed of what is being done, and this order is one essential piece of the jigsaw.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the order, laid before the House on 26 July, be annulled (S.I. 2006/1968).—(Lord Avebury.)
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/
pdvn/lds06/text/61103-0005.htm
Friday, November 03, 2006
People trafficking, November 2
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/
pdvn/lds06/text/61102-0001.htm#06110288000008
Also yesterday:
Parliamentary Human Rights Group, officers' meeting
Meeting with the Speaker of the Somaliland House of Representatives, Abdirahman M Abdillahi and colleagues
pdvn/lds06/text/61102-0001.htm#06110288000008
Also yesterday:
Parliamentary Human Rights Group, officers' meeting
Meeting with the Speaker of the Somaliland House of Representatives, Abdirahman M Abdillahi and colleagues
Further to Andrew Adonis's unintentionally misleading statements about 'consultation'
From Lord Avebury P0631104
Tel 020-7274 4617
ericavebury@gmail.com
November 1, 2006
In Monday’s debate on Muriel Turner’s amendment you said that the trade unions concerned had been ‘thoroughly consulted’ about the proposals in question, although the General Secretary of the GMB, Paul Kenny, said in a press release issued last Monday and repeated in the next day’s Guardian:
"The amendment on school support staff should either be withdrawn or voted down. …It is a recipe for religious intolerance”.
"The amendments has (sic) been introduced with no consultation whatsoever with the trade unions representing the school support staff. Matters relating to faith schools raise complex and sensitive issues, and as a matter of principle no new legislation should be introduced until there has been widespread consultation and agreement."
I also hold a transcript of recording of a telephone call made to the House just before the debate from the General Secretary of the NAHT, another union deeply involved in this issue, expressing surprise about the amendment and irritation bordering on contempt for it.
Please could you let me know
1. whether you or any Minister has written on this matter to the General Secretaries concerned about this issue, and if not, the reasons for not doing so.
2. what documentation you had sent to the unions ‘previously’; on what date; and how each of the unions indicated to you that they were ‘supportive of the changes that we were making’.
3. whether you will have copies of any papers that were tabled at last Thursday’s meeting placed in the Library of the House
4. whether the union officials who attended last Thursday’s meeting had a mandate to agree with your amendments.
5. whether you consider that getting the agreement of “workforce agreement monitoring group”(Col 60) is an adequate way of consulting unions about proposals that may affect the life prospects of thousands of their members?
6. whether you will provide the names and positions of those constituting the “all” in your assertion that
“all [members of the workforce agreement monitoring group] recognise that these were minor amendments that were a sensible response to ensuring remodelling took place in VA schools, and that VC and religious foundation schools were not unnecessarily hamstrung as to what role their head could play”.
7 whether you consulted the NAHT, the specialist union whose members are affected by the head teacher amendment, and if so how;
8. whether, in describing the consultation as “thorough”, you will say how that description fits with the Cabinet Office Code of Practice on Consultation, and whether it was subject to any of the six consultation criteria described in the Regulatory Impact Unit document of January 2004.
The Lord Adonis,
Department for Education & Skills,
PS to Private Secretary:
Since writing to Lord Adonis at lunchtime, I have seen a copy of the
press release issued by UNISON yesterday,
www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=881, and also
of the letter from Steve Sinnott of the NUT to the Secretary of State,
copy attached.
Please will you see that this additional evidence is placed before the
Minister so that he can take in into consideration in replying to my
letter.
Regards,
Eric Avebury
Tel 020-7274 4617
ericavebury@gmail.com
November 1, 2006
In Monday’s debate on Muriel Turner’s amendment you said that the trade unions concerned had been ‘thoroughly consulted’ about the proposals in question, although the General Secretary of the GMB, Paul Kenny, said in a press release issued last Monday and repeated in the next day’s Guardian:
"The amendment on school support staff should either be withdrawn or voted down. …It is a recipe for religious intolerance”.
"The amendments has (sic) been introduced with no consultation whatsoever with the trade unions representing the school support staff. Matters relating to faith schools raise complex and sensitive issues, and as a matter of principle no new legislation should be introduced until there has been widespread consultation and agreement."
I also hold a transcript of recording of a telephone call made to the House just before the debate from the General Secretary of the NAHT, another union deeply involved in this issue, expressing surprise about the amendment and irritation bordering on contempt for it.
Please could you let me know
1. whether you or any Minister has written on this matter to the General Secretaries concerned about this issue, and if not, the reasons for not doing so.
2. what documentation you had sent to the unions ‘previously’; on what date; and how each of the unions indicated to you that they were ‘supportive of the changes that we were making’.
3. whether you will have copies of any papers that were tabled at last Thursday’s meeting placed in the Library of the House
4. whether the union officials who attended last Thursday’s meeting had a mandate to agree with your amendments.
5. whether you consider that getting the agreement of “workforce agreement monitoring group”(Col 60) is an adequate way of consulting unions about proposals that may affect the life prospects of thousands of their members?
6. whether you will provide the names and positions of those constituting the “all” in your assertion that
“all [members of the workforce agreement monitoring group] recognise that these were minor amendments that were a sensible response to ensuring remodelling took place in VA schools, and that VC and religious foundation schools were not unnecessarily hamstrung as to what role their head could play”.
7 whether you consulted the NAHT, the specialist union whose members are affected by the head teacher amendment, and if so how;
8. whether, in describing the consultation as “thorough”, you will say how that description fits with the Cabinet Office Code of Practice on Consultation, and whether it was subject to any of the six consultation criteria described in the Regulatory Impact Unit document of January 2004.
The Lord Adonis,
Department for Education & Skills,
PS to Private Secretary:
Since writing to Lord Adonis at lunchtime, I have seen a copy of the
press release issued by UNISON yesterday,
www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=881
of the letter from Steve Sinnott of the NUT to the Secretary of State,
copy attached.
Please will you see that this additional evidence is placed before the
Minister so that he can take in into consideration in replying to my
letter.
Regards,
Eric Avebury
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Tuesday in the House
Children: Speech and Language Professionals, Tuesday, Col 155:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/
pdvn/lds06/text/61031-0001.htm#06103159000009
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/
pdvn/lds06/text/61031-0001.htm#06103159000009
Monday in the House
Discrimination against teachers of the wrong religion in faith schools, Monday Col 53:
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/
pdvn/lds06/text/61030-0002.htm#06103018000002
Employment of private contractors to arrest, detain and search people, including children, at juxtaposed controls in Channel ports, Monday Col GC17:
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/
pdvn/lds06/text/61030-gc0002.htm#06103047000006
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/
pdvn/lds06/text/61030-0002.htm#06103018000002
Employment of private contractors to arrest, detain and search people, including children, at juxtaposed controls in Channel ports, Monday Col GC17:
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/
pdvn/lds06/text/61030-gc0002.htm#06103047000006
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Saturday, October 28, 2006
David Ramsbotham's debate on SLT and young offenders
27 Oct 2006 : Column 1451
2.35 pm
Lord Avebury: My Lords, when the chairman of the Youth Justice Board, Rob Morgan, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, and the Children’s Commissioner for England, Professor Al Ainsley-Green, visited Feltham Young Offender Institution last Tuesday, they jointly called for an honest debate about alternative ways of dealing with young offenders who commit low-level and less serious crime. They said that more than 3,350 children and young people are being held in custody today. The youth justice system has just a handful of bed spaces left. We simply cannot put up a sign saying “No Vacancies”. Action is urgently needed to stop custody for young people going into meltdown.
As with adults, but even more so with children, the courts ought to consider whether, by awarding custodial sentences, they may be increasing criminality by exposing vulnerable people to bad influences, particularly when they know that the places to which these offenders are sent are bursting at the seams. They also know that in those circumstances it becomes increasingly difficult for prison and YOI governors and staff to give adequate attention to those who get into trouble because they are suffering from a range of mental health, substance abuse and communications problems and disabilities.
In the case of speech, language and communication, they have not even got as far as systematically assessing the problem, six years after it was highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, when, as Chief Inspector of Prisons, as he described, he visited HM YOI Swinfen Hall in November 2000. He told your Lordships how he brought in Professor Karen Bryan of the University of Surrey to assist him, and her survey revealed alarming rates of disability in speech, language and communications among the young offenders in every test that was applied. The noble Lord—the Chief Inspector, as he was then—recommended that further research should be conducted to establish the extent of these problems more generally and their impact on prison careers and re-offending.
It stood to reason that prisoners with those impairments were more likely to leave prison with unresolved problems that could lead to re-offending. Professor Bryan suggested—and the noble Lord endorsed this—that appropriate screening should be developed, validated and included with educational entry tests throughout the prison system. The noble Lord then commended Dr Bryan’s analysis to the Director-General, and said that the DfES needed to think about remedial education for these disadvantaged young men.
In a debate on prisons in July the following year I asked whether the matter was being pursued. As the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, did not make any comment in his winding-up speech, I wrote to him the following day asking him about taking the recommendations further. Beverley Hughes MP, who was then Minister for Prisons, replied that there was no standard approach to screening for these impairments, but that Professor Bryan’s findings had been incorporated in something she called “the health needs assessment toolkit”. A principal education officer had been
27 Oct 2006 : Column 1452
appointed to survey education and training at YOIs with a remit to look at learning disabilities.
Four years on from the original recommendations, however, the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, told me on 12 January 2005 that they had still to study Professor Bryan’s report, and would then consider any action that might be appropriate. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and I had both tried to prompt the noble Lord, Lord Warner, in Questions on 27 March, but he then wrote to say that there was no money in the Prison Service health budget up to 2003 for speech and language posts, and that since then it was entirely a matter for PCTs, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has explained, to decide how the available money should be spent. There were no plans to fund these posts centrally.
As the noble Lord also explained, no provision had been made to replace the speech therapy funding provided by the Helen Hamlyn Trust, which ceased in July 2005. I wrote again to the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, saying that we seemed to be back to square one, with every PCT deciding its own policy on speech and language problems, in spite of the evidence of the prevalence of these difficulties and the bearing they were likely to have on the propensity to reoffend. The noble Baroness replied that no screening was undertaken of young offenders for speech and communication difficulties per se, but that the Government preferred a general learning needs assessment to identify all learning difficulties or disabilities. This process, a key part of the learning and skills delivery arrangements for all offenders, would lead to referrals to appropriate health or education professionals.
I wrote again to the noble Baroness on 18 June asking her how, as part of the general assessment, speech and language difficulties would be assessed and by whom—bearing in mind that there was no funding for those posts, as the noble Lord explained—and how, if PCTs were unwilling to fund SLT services, as we heard, they would be provided for offenders identified by the general screening as needing them. I also sent her an account of research by David Moseley et al on behalf of the Learning and Skills Development Agency—mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham—which showed that training in oral communication for prisoners in general cut reconviction rates within the first year after release from 44 per cent to 21 per cent. It is surely reasonable to suppose that for inmates with speech and language difficulties the benefits could be even more spectacular.
As the noble Lord said, unfortunately, while PCTs have to pay for SLT as part of health services, in the current climate of cuts and reorganisation it is bound to have a low priority. Werrington now has a part-time speech and language therapist and at Brinsford the local PCT has carried out a needs analysis but as yet they have no service. Managers are making out a business case for SLT in their local YOI, but I am not aware of any instances where this process has led to the delivery of a service. Why, in any case, should it be necessary to reinvent the wheel in each of the 15 PCTs which serve the 11 male and
27 Oct 2006 : Column 1453
four female YOIs? If there is an overwhelming case—there is no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, made out such a case—it applies throughout the estate and management effort ought not to be spent on proving it 15 times over.
I simply do not understand why the Home Office, which, one would think, must be desperate to find effective ways of lowering reconviction rates, has dithered and procrastinated for the past five years over an approach which would certainly produce immediate and possibly very substantial benefits to the prisoners concerned and to society as a whole. Up to 90 per cent of juvenile offenders have below-average language skills and two-thirds are below level 1 literacy. These young people do not have the skills to cope with verbal interventions aimed at reducing reoffending. Therefore, all juvenile offenders should be assessed, using known techniques, and remedial SLT provided for those who need it, using ring-fenced money, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, demanded. It is partly because of the failure to apply the lessons of six years ago, and of the other work reinforcing the pioneering study by Professor Bryan and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that our adult prisons are overflowing today.
{www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/pdvn/
lds06/text/61027-0002.htm#06102742000005]
2.35 pm
Lord Avebury: My Lords, when the chairman of the Youth Justice Board, Rob Morgan, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, and the Children’s Commissioner for England, Professor Al Ainsley-Green, visited Feltham Young Offender Institution last Tuesday, they jointly called for an honest debate about alternative ways of dealing with young offenders who commit low-level and less serious crime. They said that more than 3,350 children and young people are being held in custody today. The youth justice system has just a handful of bed spaces left. We simply cannot put up a sign saying “No Vacancies”. Action is urgently needed to stop custody for young people going into meltdown.
As with adults, but even more so with children, the courts ought to consider whether, by awarding custodial sentences, they may be increasing criminality by exposing vulnerable people to bad influences, particularly when they know that the places to which these offenders are sent are bursting at the seams. They also know that in those circumstances it becomes increasingly difficult for prison and YOI governors and staff to give adequate attention to those who get into trouble because they are suffering from a range of mental health, substance abuse and communications problems and disabilities.
In the case of speech, language and communication, they have not even got as far as systematically assessing the problem, six years after it was highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, when, as Chief Inspector of Prisons, as he described, he visited HM YOI Swinfen Hall in November 2000. He told your Lordships how he brought in Professor Karen Bryan of the University of Surrey to assist him, and her survey revealed alarming rates of disability in speech, language and communications among the young offenders in every test that was applied. The noble Lord—the Chief Inspector, as he was then—recommended that further research should be conducted to establish the extent of these problems more generally and their impact on prison careers and re-offending.
It stood to reason that prisoners with those impairments were more likely to leave prison with unresolved problems that could lead to re-offending. Professor Bryan suggested—and the noble Lord endorsed this—that appropriate screening should be developed, validated and included with educational entry tests throughout the prison system. The noble Lord then commended Dr Bryan’s analysis to the Director-General, and said that the DfES needed to think about remedial education for these disadvantaged young men.
In a debate on prisons in July the following year I asked whether the matter was being pursued. As the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, did not make any comment in his winding-up speech, I wrote to him the following day asking him about taking the recommendations further. Beverley Hughes MP, who was then Minister for Prisons, replied that there was no standard approach to screening for these impairments, but that Professor Bryan’s findings had been incorporated in something she called “the health needs assessment toolkit”. A principal education officer had been
27 Oct 2006 : Column 1452
appointed to survey education and training at YOIs with a remit to look at learning disabilities.
Four years on from the original recommendations, however, the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, told me on 12 January 2005 that they had still to study Professor Bryan’s report, and would then consider any action that might be appropriate. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and I had both tried to prompt the noble Lord, Lord Warner, in Questions on 27 March, but he then wrote to say that there was no money in the Prison Service health budget up to 2003 for speech and language posts, and that since then it was entirely a matter for PCTs, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has explained, to decide how the available money should be spent. There were no plans to fund these posts centrally.
As the noble Lord also explained, no provision had been made to replace the speech therapy funding provided by the Helen Hamlyn Trust, which ceased in July 2005. I wrote again to the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, saying that we seemed to be back to square one, with every PCT deciding its own policy on speech and language problems, in spite of the evidence of the prevalence of these difficulties and the bearing they were likely to have on the propensity to reoffend. The noble Baroness replied that no screening was undertaken of young offenders for speech and communication difficulties per se, but that the Government preferred a general learning needs assessment to identify all learning difficulties or disabilities. This process, a key part of the learning and skills delivery arrangements for all offenders, would lead to referrals to appropriate health or education professionals.
I wrote again to the noble Baroness on 18 June asking her how, as part of the general assessment, speech and language difficulties would be assessed and by whom—bearing in mind that there was no funding for those posts, as the noble Lord explained—and how, if PCTs were unwilling to fund SLT services, as we heard, they would be provided for offenders identified by the general screening as needing them. I also sent her an account of research by David Moseley et al on behalf of the Learning and Skills Development Agency—mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham—which showed that training in oral communication for prisoners in general cut reconviction rates within the first year after release from 44 per cent to 21 per cent. It is surely reasonable to suppose that for inmates with speech and language difficulties the benefits could be even more spectacular.
As the noble Lord said, unfortunately, while PCTs have to pay for SLT as part of health services, in the current climate of cuts and reorganisation it is bound to have a low priority. Werrington now has a part-time speech and language therapist and at Brinsford the local PCT has carried out a needs analysis but as yet they have no service. Managers are making out a business case for SLT in their local YOI, but I am not aware of any instances where this process has led to the delivery of a service. Why, in any case, should it be necessary to reinvent the wheel in each of the 15 PCTs which serve the 11 male and
27 Oct 2006 : Column 1453
four female YOIs? If there is an overwhelming case—there is no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, made out such a case—it applies throughout the estate and management effort ought not to be spent on proving it 15 times over.
I simply do not understand why the Home Office, which, one would think, must be desperate to find effective ways of lowering reconviction rates, has dithered and procrastinated for the past five years over an approach which would certainly produce immediate and possibly very substantial benefits to the prisoners concerned and to society as a whole. Up to 90 per cent of juvenile offenders have below-average language skills and two-thirds are below level 1 literacy. These young people do not have the skills to cope with verbal interventions aimed at reducing reoffending. Therefore, all juvenile offenders should be assessed, using known techniques, and remedial SLT provided for those who need it, using ring-fenced money, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, demanded. It is partly because of the failure to apply the lessons of six years ago, and of the other work reinforcing the pioneering study by Professor Bryan and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that our adult prisons are overflowing today.
{www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/pdvn/
lds06/text/61027-0002.htm#06102742000005]
Friday, October 27, 2006
G6 Ministerial meeting at Stratford
'Behind closed doors': what were the interior ministers of the 6 largest EU member states cooking up at Stratford, without informing the other 19 - or the public?
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/
pdvn/lds06/text/61026-0002.htm#06102652000008
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/
pdvn/lds06/text/61026-0002.htm#06102652000008
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Susanna Gregorian, Michael Katz programme
The Sinfonietta of Oxted
“Dramatic! A Wonder to behold” – Surrey Mirror
5th season
A Festival Concert
With international prize winning soloist
Susanna Gregorian – Violin
Cherubini – Overture to Medea
Mozart - Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, KV219
Beethoven - Symphony No. 3 in E flat Major, Op. 55 Eroica
Johan Michael Katz – Conductor
Iva Fleischhansova - Leader
Thursday 26th October 2006 7:30pm St.James’s Church, 197 Piccadilly, London W1
See www.susannagregorian.de/
“Dramatic! A Wonder to behold” – Surrey Mirror
5th season
A Festival Concert
With international prize winning soloist
Susanna Gregorian – Violin
Cherubini – Overture to Medea
Mozart - Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, KV219
Beethoven - Symphony No. 3 in E flat Major, Op. 55 Eroica
Johan Michael Katz – Conductor
Iva Fleischhansova - Leader
Thursday 26th October 2006 7:30pm St.James’s Church, 197 Piccadilly, London W1
See www.susannagregorian.de/
Partial success on breastfeeding mothers
Separation of detained mothers from breastfed babies to stop
Matt Weaver
Wednesday October 25, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Immigration officials are to be ordered to stop separating breastfeeding mothers from their babies in the drive to deport failed asylum seekers after the government was told that the practice flouts UN conventions.
In August, Guardian Unlimited revealed that in at least two cases earlier this year mothers had been detained in immigration and removal centres away from their pre-weaned children.
The cases involved Mrs N, a Vietnamese asylum seeker, and her six-month-old baby, and Mrs P, a Turkish asylum seeker, and her 15-month-old infant who she was still breastfeeding on medical advice.
Article continues
Ministers were warned that the cases, which campaigners fear are not the only ones, "fly in the face of a number of UN resolutions and conventions".
The government has now said that it accepts the need for new guidance instructing immigration officials not to separate any young children from their mothers unless there are "compelling and exceptional circumstances".
The immigration minister Liam Byrne previously denied that immigration officials knew Mrs P had been breastfeeding her child.
But in a letter to the human rights campaigner and Liberal Democrat peer Lord Avebury, Mr Byrne said records of the case had been re-examined.
The letter written on Monday said: "I can advise you that the interview record does show that Mrs P informed the immigration officer that she was 'feeding baby'. The immigration officer has said she did not consider that this clearly indicated that Mrs P was breastfeeding her child."
The immigration officer, from Communications House, in central London, had since been retrained, Mr Byrne said.
He also revealed that new instructions were to be sent out by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND).
"Specific guidance should be developed in relation to breastfeeding mothers and parents of young children," he said.
"This should include a requirement that breastfeeding children should not be separated from their mothers unless there are compelling and exceptional circumstances which indicate that this may be appropriate."
He added that the same approach should be taken to the separation of any young children from their mothers, regardless of whether they were breastfeeding.
The guidance will state that any decision to separate young children from mothers can only be taken at the level of IND assistant director.
But Lord Avebury said the government should go further.
"There should be an outright ban on separating breastfeeding mothers from their children. I don't see why they should ever have to do it," he said.
He also urged the chief inspector of prison, Anne Owers, and the children's commissioner, Sir Al Aynsley Green, to monitor immigration officials to ensure it did not happen again.
In the meantime, Lord Avebury has written to Ms Owers and Sir Al asking them to investigate how many other women have been separated from young children in the drive to deport failed asylum seekers.
[www.guardian.co.uk/immigration/story/0,,1931318,00.html]
Matt Weaver
Wednesday October 25, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Immigration officials are to be ordered to stop separating breastfeeding mothers from their babies in the drive to deport failed asylum seekers after the government was told that the practice flouts UN conventions.
In August, Guardian Unlimited revealed that in at least two cases earlier this year mothers had been detained in immigration and removal centres away from their pre-weaned children.
The cases involved Mrs N, a Vietnamese asylum seeker, and her six-month-old baby, and Mrs P, a Turkish asylum seeker, and her 15-month-old infant who she was still breastfeeding on medical advice.
Article continues
Ministers were warned that the cases, which campaigners fear are not the only ones, "fly in the face of a number of UN resolutions and conventions".
The government has now said that it accepts the need for new guidance instructing immigration officials not to separate any young children from their mothers unless there are "compelling and exceptional circumstances".
The immigration minister Liam Byrne previously denied that immigration officials knew Mrs P had been breastfeeding her child.
But in a letter to the human rights campaigner and Liberal Democrat peer Lord Avebury, Mr Byrne said records of the case had been re-examined.
The letter written on Monday said: "I can advise you that the interview record does show that Mrs P informed the immigration officer that she was 'feeding baby'. The immigration officer has said she did not consider that this clearly indicated that Mrs P was breastfeeding her child."
The immigration officer, from Communications House, in central London, had since been retrained, Mr Byrne said.
He also revealed that new instructions were to be sent out by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND).
"Specific guidance should be developed in relation to breastfeeding mothers and parents of young children," he said.
"This should include a requirement that breastfeeding children should not be separated from their mothers unless there are compelling and exceptional circumstances which indicate that this may be appropriate."
He added that the same approach should be taken to the separation of any young children from their mothers, regardless of whether they were breastfeeding.
The guidance will state that any decision to separate young children from mothers can only be taken at the level of IND assistant director.
But Lord Avebury said the government should go further.
"There should be an outright ban on separating breastfeeding mothers from their children. I don't see why they should ever have to do it," he said.
He also urged the chief inspector of prison, Anne Owers, and the children's commissioner, Sir Al Aynsley Green, to monitor immigration officials to ensure it did not happen again.
In the meantime, Lord Avebury has written to Ms Owers and Sir Al asking them to investigate how many other women have been separated from young children in the drive to deport failed asylum seekers.
[www.guardian.co.uk/immigration/story/0,,1931318,00.html]
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Letter in today's Guardian
Your article (Comment, October 23) misrepresents the House of Lords. Of the 72 new peers appointed since the beginning of this parliament, only 23 take the Labour whip and the rest are Conservatives, Liberal Democrats or crossbenchers. Twenty of them are women, adding to the previous total of 116 women members, including the Lords speaker and the leader of the house.
The ideal member is not one who can pop in from time to time, as he or she might to the board of a cultural institution. The member needs to be able to attend regularly, to deal with legislation in their area of interest and to extract information from the government at question time. We don't want anybody who is looking for "the perfect eventide home".
The ideal member is not one who can pop in from time to time, as he or she might to the board of a cultural institution. The member needs to be able to attend regularly, to deal with legislation in their area of interest and to extract information from the government at question time. We don't want anybody who is looking for "the perfect eventide home".
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