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Social Inclusion

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for having provoked the most extraordinary debate. The subjects that we have gone through include health, older people, social inequalities, joined-up government thinking, race and ethnicity, multiculturalism, delivery of policies, mental health, definitions of social exclusion, the problems of alcohol and drinking, higher education, children and young people, every child mattering, pensions—not one of the Government’s finest hours or conspicuous successes—and housing, with an important contribution about foster carers and children in care. That is a mega number of subjects for any debate in this House. It perhaps demonstrates the wideness of the whole problem of social inclusion and exclusion. I was interested in what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Desai, and I hope that I do not misattribute to him comments about social exclusion beginning in poverty. I looked up ““poverty”” in the dictionary, and it is defined as,"““being poor, in need, or in want of necessities””." The debate encompassed and brought all those aspects together. Whether we are talking of those who live in deprived areas in one of our cities; or of the deprivation caused by lack of home, job or opportunities, or by isolation; or of someone mentally ill sleeping rough, the result is the same. As many speakers have said, people lack some or all of the essentials that enable them to lead an independent and fulfilled life. The problems of poverty and the marginalisation of those affected by lack of material and personal wealth—whether through age, as was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross; whether they are young or old, as was described by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey; whether through family circumstances or poor health, as defined by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and the noble Lord, Lord Chan; whether through inadequate education or training, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf; or whether through unemployment—are not new. Consideration of how to deal with them is not new either. Both have been with us since before the Industrial Revolution. In earlier generations, support and help was largely provided by benevolent individuals or organisations, but the multi-dimensional problems which cause people to be excluded from the benefits and opportunities that most of us are able to take for granted have required governments to take a more commanding role in their resolution. Although I did not recognise it in terms of social inclusion at the time, my own interest in the subject began as a local councillor—as I still am—in an inner London borough. That borough, while being widely perceived as peopled by the wealthy and self-motivated, none the less had and still has deep pockets of deprivation which we could not and did not wish to ignore. Policies to tackle the problem of poor housing and environment; to integrate—in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya—several waves of immigrants; to provide homes, support, education and training to unaccompanied refugee children, initially from the Horn of Africa but ultimately from other troubled parts of the world—those services were developed and implemented for all those in need. Programmes such as the Single Regeneration Budget, now completing one of its most successful projects in the borough; City Challenge, which concentrated mainly on the fabric; neighbourhood renewal; and Sure Start for children have made an impact, as did the enlightened and at the time leading-edge decision to involve both registered social landlords and private landlords in a unified battle to resolve the crisis of housing and the homeless. Most of that was in advance of the Lisbon European Council of 2000. We have not really discussed that, but it was the provenance of social inclusion and exclusion, with the agreement among member states to concentrate on the area and eradicate poverty by 2010. As part of the means of meeting this goal it was agreed that common objectives and indicators would be developed and incorporated in two-yearly national action plans. As a member of the Committee of the Regions, I was asked to contribute to this work, by providing opinions on the first and second rounds of the national action plans, on the proposals to be incorporated and on their implementation. Much of the work that is now undertaken by this Government is based on national action plans that had been agreed at European level. The concept of the national action plans was that the member states of Europe would co-ordinate and benchmark good practice—not one which is easy to implement, and one which, it became clear, would work only if there were a limited number of objectives and a proper means of comparing the results and exchanging good practice. What was and remains plain is that none of the action plans are implementable without the involvement and agreement of local government, which has the responsibility for identifying those people who need help and for providing the services and support that they need. Local authorities are community leaders and advocates of local regeneration partnerships. They are employers, catalysts for economic activity, providers and enablers of services to local people, and experts on information and research. The voice of local government will remain essential in the shaping of the policies of social exclusion. Local authorities, with their knowledge of local circumstances, are uniquely placed to interpret and implement the often unwieldy measures framed at EU level, and those more specifically targeted, locally and nationally. They also have the powers and ability to join with other statutory and voluntary organisations—for example, health authorities—and local businesses to extend their own role through local strategic partnerships. In addition, the practical aspect of being able to pool budgets with other organisations under local area agreements should make these partnerships even more effective. It is essential, however, that any of these programmes, if they are to be effective and long lasting, must at least not be bureaucratic. They should involve people themselves in decisions on what is most useful for them. Where regeneration programmes are undertaken, the best results are obtained from allowing local residents to lead the project, develop the ideas, and implement the resulting decisions. The noble Lord, Lord Corbett, also identified one of the fundamental requirements: that there should be no scatter-shot of money and that when projects are started they should be given an opportunity to be completed or carried on. People do not like having things done to them; at a pinch, they like them being done for them; but, best of all, they like to do them—and that is what brings the best outcomes. I know from local initiatives in my area that that is what happens, but one has to have great anxieties about the recently announced five key challenges. This is bureaucracy, although the challenges are there. I shall list them, and noble Lords will be gripped by them. They are: establishing floor targets so departments raise minimum outcomes; progressive funding which starts with those most in need; joined-up and personalised services which put people first; rights being conditional on responsibilities; and shared institutions and activities which bring people together. Oh dear! We all know what that means and we probably all support them. But we, who have to dabble in social jargon, may just get the drift, but it does not sound very friendly or exciting. Despite all the efforts that have been made, social exclusion remains an extremely prevalent problem. I can put the matter no better than my honourable friend Alistair Burt in the other place, in a recent debate on the social exclusion report. He said that the tragedy of,"““unfulfilled hopes and dreams affect everyone in society. They are a loss of talent to the nation in bored and unfulfilled lives and in the economic cost of repair to fractured lives””.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/05; col. 324WH.]" This has been an excellent debate. Let us hope that what the future brings in this area is flexibility of financial resources, local decisions and far less vulnerable and excluded people.