Local Government (Amendment) (Hansard, 2 March 1993)

§ Mr. Gerrard

The purpose of the Bill is simply to make an amendment to section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966. That section enables the Home Secretary to make grants to local authorities to meet the needs of some ethnic minority communities within their areas. The system is that the Home Secretary provides 75 per cent. of the funding through grants, and the local authority matches that with 25 per cent. In the current year, about £129 million is being spent in this way and is funding the equivalent of about 10,000 full-time staff.

The problem with section 11 is the definition within it. At present it reads that the Home Secretary can make the grants to local authorities in consequence of the presence within their areas of substantial numbers of immigrants from the Commonwealth. Although that wording may have been perfectly appropriate in 1966, now that we have significant numbers of refugees and asylum seekers not from the Commonwealth living in many local authority areas, it is not appropriate any more.

There are some other problems with section 11 which my Bill will not address. The problem of resources is one. The Government impose an annual cash limit and have just announced reductions over the next three years. It is somewhat ironic that, in the letter which they wrote to local authorities saying that they were firmly committed to the reduction of racial disadvantage, the Government announced cuts in this provision.

Also section 11 does not address short-term costs. Under my Bill grant could be paid to help local authorities to meet the special needs of refugees, but from time to time local authorities have to cope with sudden arrivals of significant numbers of people. That happened in the past with Kurdish refugees and more recently with refugees from eastern Europe.

It would be inappropriate to suggest that section 11 was the only way to address those problems, but it has been accepted for some time that section 11 needs amendment. The Government carried out their own review in 1988 and came to that conclusion, suggesting that there was need to widen the definition and that there should be changes in the requirement of substantial numbers, and that section 11 grant should be payable to other service providers and to the voluntary sector, although local authorities would continue to have an important role in co-ordination.

Since that review there have been some changes, but most of what was happening in 1988 is still happening. Almost 90 per cent. of section 11 funding goes to education. That reflects historic developments but also to some extent the cash limiting of the past two or three years which has prevented new projects from getting off the ground. So that the bulk of the money is going on projects such as English for speakers of other languages, careers education and adult basic literacy. But there are other services that are supporting projects such as helping 154 elderly people through the social services, business development advice, challenging racial harassment, translation and the like.

The difficulty is that the changing patterns of need and the need to deal with non-Commonwealth communities cannot be legitimately recognised within those projects. Some London boroughs will give estimates of the cost of providing services. Enfield and Ealing estimate that they have within their areas about 2,500 refugee children who require intensive language teaching. While it may not necessarily be appropriate for all that they need to be met under section 11, and while such need should certainly be recognised in standard spending assessments, section 11 projects should be able to address it.

The present situation is nonsensical in that a class of children, for example, could consist half of Turkish Cypriots and half of Turks. Half the class could be taught through a section 11 project and the other half could not, although clearly the needs would be similar. Over the past 15 years substantial numbers of people have arrived from non-Commonwealth countries—from Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Latin America and, more recently, from eastern Europe. Many of those people have been granted settlement and have obvious needs. They require assistance but they cannot be helped under section 11. There is no doubt that the present arrangements make for inefficient administrative systems. For example, if an authority provides English classes it makes administrative and educational sense for them to be open to non-English speakers from any community rather than being restricted to people from new Commonwealth communities.

Some issues raised by the Home Office review, such as the use of other agencies and, to some degree, the use of the voluntary sector, have been dealt with through the ethnic minorities grants which were introduced in 1991 and are funded through training and enterprise councils. In setting up that system the Home Office said that it was a means by which grant could be opened up to new areas of ethnic minority need and to the voluntary sector, so that the needs of all ethnic minorities, without regard to origin, could be considered. It is a pity that so far the Home Office has found only £4 million a year to distribute in ethnic minorities grant. In addition, local authorities have been encouraged to base projects in the voluntary sector. Indeed, they are required to identify section 11 projects for grant bids.

Everyone involved with section 11 now recognises that it needs amending. The Home Office recognises that, too. Ideally, the Home Office should have dealt with the matter after its review, with new legislation covering all the aspects. Instead the matter has been addressed in a piecemeal way. That is not ideal, but it is a precedent that the Government have already set. After listening to statements such as that which we heard earlier, and thinking about the pressures on parliamentary time, think it unlikely that the Government will find time for a Bill on the subject. In the meantime, therefore, my Bill is needed to help local authorities to target resources efficiently and effectively and to help them reflect the changing needs within their areas.

I finish by quoting the Minister of State, Home Office, the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd), whom I am glad to see sitting on the Government Front Bench now. Last year the hon. Gentleman wrote to the Refugee Council in response to its enquiry about the scope for section 11, saying that he recognised its concern 155 that the majority of refugees are not able to benefit from support under this provision because they do not come from the New Commonwealth…We accept that there is a need to bring forward legislation and when there is a suitable opportunity we intend to extend the scope of the grant beyond New Commonwealth ethnic minorities to whom, for historical reasons, it is restricted at present. The Minister now has an opportunity to support my Bill and to do what the Home Office has been saying for some time that it wants to do.