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Social Inclusion

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, for securing this debate on the policies of Her Majesty’s Government on social inclusion. She has ably set out in detail some of the important issues associated with social exclusion, particularly those to do with health. First, I should congratulate the Government on identifying social exclusion as a crucial community issue to be addressed when they created the Social Exclusion Unit in 1997. The definition of social exclusion is when people suffer a number of related problems such as,"““unemployment, discrimination, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime, ill health and family breakdown that work together to create a vicious cycle””," was an admirable one that the Government adopted when they came to office. The Government rightly identified that interventions to promote social inclusion have to start from birth. Therefore the implementation of Sure Start for babies and children born to mothers in deprived communities has brought encouraging results such as better infant and child nutrition, support through pre-school nurseries and gainful employment for single mothers. The Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics has succinctly stated that:"““Not all poor people are excluded and not all excluded people are poor””." It graphically identifies a group of people who remain in deep and persistent social exclusion. Their number is somewhere around 6 million. I am pleased to note that the speech by the Minister for Communities and Local Government delivered two days ago was entitled,"““Social exclusion: the next steps forward””." It is in this progressive spirit that I wish to focus on issues which continue to threaten social inclusion both now and in the future, but time will allow me to touch on only two of them. The first involves some members of ethnic groups who continue to experience social exclusion. The noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, has covered the factors that lead to people of different ethnic groups integrating and becoming active in mainstream society. Much has still to be done as we remember the racially motivated murder of Anthony Walker on Merseyside. The perpetrators of that murder are currently awaiting sentence at Liverpool Crown Court. Figures collected in the national Census taken in 2001 show that unemployment among white Britons was 5 per cent compared with 12 per cent among Pakistanis and 16 per cent among Bangladeshis. The percentage of people whose income falls below half the national average affected 28 per cent of white Britons, but 60 per cent of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. They are all dependent on the Benefits Agency to meet their daily needs. Educational attainment and fluency in the English language are low among most first-generation migrants, especially from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Hong Kong. This restricts their employment choices to ethnic food outlets and lower skilled jobs. As a result they receive low wages in employment. One approach to helping first-generation migrants to access mainstream services has been to provide them with trained interpreters, but there is no better way of helping people to acquire social inclusion than for them to learn to speak English. They can then shop for food and other necessities, travel on buses and trains and understand what is being said on the radio and television, as well as benefit from health education. In order to achieve this goal, more effort is required for adult learning agencies to work in partnership with community organisations representing these ethnic groups. More teachers from these communities need to be helped to train as teachers of English for Speakers of Other Languages, ESOL, and to be employed by local government. Will the Minister inform us about what progress is being made in training people from non-white backgrounds in ESOL? Innovations using laptop computers to help adults learn basic English at home have been tried, but they require more tutors willing to visit such students in their homes. At the other end of the life spectrum, the parents of young children who are not fluent in the English language should be given the choice and encouraged to send their offspring to pre-school nurseries. Exposure to children from other backgrounds will help children from socially excluded groups, including on grounds of race, to join mainstream society. Can the Minister kindly share with us any information she has on the attendance of children from diverse ethnic backgrounds at pre-school nurseries, and how the numbers could be increased? The other issue I want to focus on affects people living in disadvantaged areas, particularly in our inner cities. It leads to violence, crime, the fear of crime and ill health in children and adults. This is about the abuse of drugs and alcohol. Drugs are being introduced to children living in social exclusion from an early age by adults who prey on them after school hours. Children in these settings are tempted to assist in this harmful practice by cash payments, because they live with either a single mother or other adults who have no gainful employment. Alcohol is increasingly becoming a readily available drug on sale at affordable prices in off-licence shops, some of which are open for 24 hours a day. According to some surveys of the inner cities, children as young as 10 years of age are drinking alcohol regularly. Surveys conducted by Alcohol Concern show that underage drinkers are able to buy alcohol from a variety of outlets because evidence of age is seldom asked for by retailers. These issues need to be tackled by the new children’s centres in order to co-ordinate the actions of agencies on education, social care, health and crime prevention. Children who offend need to be rehabilitated and influenced by mentors who can provide positive role models for them. Binge drinking of alcohol by young people and adults is becoming a fast growing social problem in urban areas, with serious results such as an increase in sexually transmitted diseases and other alcohol-related health problems, including mental health disorders. Although alcohol misuse is not an obvious cause of social exclusion, the violence, social disorder and crime that leads from it makes vulnerable people even more isolated in their homes at night in fear of violence and criminal damage to themselves and their property. Will the Minister not consider that the time has now come to include the increasing abuse of alcohol by young people as an issue to be addressed in order that the good progress made by government policies will not be negated by its neglect? I look forward to her reply.