Peter Black and South Wales West Liberal Democrats

Having spoken in an earlier debate on which I achieved consensus across the Chamber, I do not feel that I will do the same on this issue. However, I will do my best. I will say, from the outset, that the Welfare Reform Bill, which is going through Parliament now, would not be the Bill that the Liberal Democrats would have brought if they were in Government on their own. However, at the same time-[Interruption.] I am coming to that bit now-it is a different Bill because the Liberal Democrats are in Government. I believe that we have mitigated a number of particularly difficult aspects and removed the things we felt were unacceptable. That debate is still ongoing in the House of Commons, and it may go back to the House of Lords on some of the amendments. Therefore, I do not think that the Bill as it currently stands is in any way a finished document, and the Liberal Democrats will continue to fight for our views, both in Government and in Parliament, particularly in the House of Lords.

Joyce Watson: Thank you for taking an intervention. You referred to helping people back into work, but the Government with which you share power in Westminster is not actually helping people back to work. The first thing that it did was to immediately cut the fund set up by the previous Labour Government to help people back to work-the Future Jobs fund. How do you think the benefit changes that currently allow tax breaks for working mothers for childcare are helping those mothers get back to work? I can assure you that it is not helping them to get back to work; it is plunging them into debt.

Peter Black: Thank you for that, Deputy Presiding Officer. Joyce, you will know as well as I do that Labour supported the universal credit in principle, because it supports the principle of getting people back to work and ensuring that the benefit system does not undermine people's ability to do that.

I mentioned universal credit, but I want to move on to some of the other issues that Leanne Wood raised. Many of the examples that will be cited by Members, particularly with regard to disability benefits, will relate to the assessment process, which, in my view, is not fit for purpose. Surprisingly, it is run by Atos Healthcare, but that system, which was put in place some years ago, has a massive failure rate given the number of appeals against decisions in which people are successful and have their benefit reinstated. That, more than anything else, underlines the fact that that system needs to be reformed and changed. As Leanne said, all of the parties here-with the exception of Plaid Cymru which is not in Government at a UK level and has no experience of that-believe that there has to be some form of reform. How that reform is to be pitched is the subject of debate here. As Leanne said, Labour's commitment to a regional cap on benefit is an indication that it too recognises that there has to be reform, although I would not support that initiative.

Peter Black: I thank all those Members who have spoken today. The evidence of cross-party support will be heartening to the park home residents in the public gallery listening to this debate and to the residents who were not able to get here today, who have suffered over the years from the injustices and the lack of protection that the park home regime subjects them to. The passion of many Members here, in speaking on this issue, is worth noting. It is evident that they have had to deal with these problems for many years. I, Kirsty, Ann and everyone else feel strongly about the injustice being visited upon residents as a result of malpractice and abuse in the park home regime. There are a few points that I wish to mention. Julie James is absolutely right: if you get the enforcement and licensing regime right then you can solve many of these problems. We will look to do that, but whether that will be by creating the framework for the Minister to issue guidance or by putting it on the face of the Bill will need to be discussed. However, it is a priority to get that right.

I support the concept that residents should be able to take control of their site, but that may well be an issue for the housing Bill as opposed to this one because it will fall outside the scope of this Bill. We do not deal with tenure in this Bill, but I would support including that if the Minister brought that forward as part of the housing Bill.

Finally, on Rebecca Evans's contribution, it is key that the police are made aware of the issues on the site. I have a document from DCI Colquhoun of West Mercia Police, and we will look to meet with him over the next few months as part of our work in putting this Bill together. The police's approach to the low-level harassment on park home sites is crucial. We cannot do much about it in the Bill, but we certainly need to raise awareness with police forces about these issues and how they should be handled. That document is an important resource that police forces need to take on board. Evidence from the meeting earlier today indicated that most police forces in Wales still need to take note of that and still need to act appropriately when they receive such complaints. That is on my and other Members' radars, and as a result of this debate and of Members having their attention drawn to this document, they will no doubt raise this with their own police forces and ask them to look into this, particularly when such problems are brought to their attention by their own constituents.

Park homes are timber-framed bungalows built in residential parks and used by their owners all year around as their primary residence. There are approximately 100 residential park home sites in Wales, with around 5,500 homes housing about 10,000 people. Park homes tend to be largely retirement properties and a popular choice for older people wishing to downsize. However, this means that many people living in park homes are particularly vulnerable, not only because of their age, but because of their inability to effectively represent themselves out of fear and a lack of confidence. Difficulties are caused because part-time residents own their homes while a site operator owns the land. Site operators can withhold consent to park home residents reselling their homes, although this consent should not be unreasonably withheld. Some residents have reported sale blocking by site operators, which causes great financial loss to the park home owner and an easy profit for some rogue site operators. There is also evidence of severe fuel poverty, problems with the supply of electricity, gas and water, and allegations of harassment and intimidation in addition to numerous other issues.

The purpose of this proposed Bill is to regulate more fairly the process by which residential caravans and mobile homes are managed and sold in Wales. The intention is that the Bill will ensure that negotiations between site owners and park home owners are independently monitored and that there will be a system of arbitration for owners who have cause for concern about the process. I also wish to establish a requirement that site owners must pass a fit-and-proper-person test as part of the licensing system.

Of the 803 park home sites on 392 parks surveyed by the park home owners' JUSTICE campaign, 48% said that they believed they were living under the regime of an unscrupulous park owner. There are some specific examples. In one case, a gentleman who had retired to live in a mid Wales park home site complained about an increase in pitch fees, just months after fees on the site had already gone up. The owner spat in his face. The second increase meant fees were 20% higher on the site than they had been 12 months earlier. Similar tales can be found on park home sites all around Wales.

The reality is that if you own and live in a park home you simply do not have the same rights as other homeowners. There have been cases where residents have been harassed and threatened until they feel they must leave their homes, at which point they are faced by a new problem: the right of the site owner to veto the sale of their home. Under the 1983 Act, a park home owner can sell only if they find a buyer

There are cases where this rule has been actively abused, with site owners unreasonably blocking sales until the resident, in desperation, decides to sell to the site owner at a massively reduced rate. In England, there have been cases where homes have been set on fire by unscrupulous site owners in order to drive out existing residents, and yet, despite convictions for arson, these people are allowed to continue running park home sites in other parts of the UK. There is no fit-and-proper-person test for a site owner. What about the legal avenues open to both site owners and residents who are in dispute? Licensing and planning issues relating to park home sites are dealt with by local authorities. Other legal issues are primarily dealt with by the county courts, which is a highly intimidating and expensive process.

The success of the residential tribunal service in England has been limited, with some site owners refusing to acknowledge rulings that go against them. To enforce rulings, residents have to go back to court. Many disputes do not fall under the jurisdiction of the tribunals, rendering the service ineffective. This is a stressful and expensive process and one that many people living in park homes cannot face. The system as it currently stands is failing these residents.

Under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, a local authority has the discretionary power to revoke a site licence by applying to the magistrates' court. However, it can only do so on a third or a subsequent conviction for breach of a licence condition. Many local councils are reluctant to get involved in investigating cases. This could be because there is no duty on them to investigate or prosecute when wrongdoing is found, and because local authorities lack the resources to take action or do not wish to get involved because there is no suitable housing provision for the park home residents to go to if they were to lose their homes. The police are also reluctant to involve themselves in what they consider to be a civil law issue.

The Minister referred to me harking back to previous schemes. I think that that is still relevant, because, although we have this model in front of us-I suppose that we have moved from a Ford Focus to a Prius, perhaps-we still have no guarantees that it is going to work, and I still have concerns that, unless we start to involve local government and the money it spends-unless we start bending its programmes as well as our own-we will still not achieve that. If you are going to introduce a top-down structure, effectively controlled from the centre, you are not going to get that buy-in from those other partners who operate on a local level, who will feel disenchanted and disempowered by the way that this new scheme will be delivered.

We believe that one of the biggest weaknesses of the Communities First programme since its inception has been the failure to engage with the private sector, particularly local businesses, in regenerating local communities. There needs to be a set of indicators that shows specifically how money that is being spent in the Communities First area will produce an outcome and which will measure how successful it is. Clear targets must be set for that money and not necessarily for the whole range of programmes of which it performs a small part. Empowerment is very much a part of that and of how we deliver it.

Minister, I have raised this issue on a number of occasions, and I will raise it again now. The key part in terms of collaboration is not just the willingness of local authorities to collaborate with each other, but also the willingness of Welsh Government departments and organisations funded by the Welsh Government, such as the Welsh NHS, to collaborate positively and proactively with local government. There are instances of very good collaboration-the Deputy Minister for social services talked earlier about how we can make progress in that regard-but can you again give a commitment that all of this Government's Ministers are on board with this? Is every aspect of the Welsh Government-each silo, if you like-being told that it has to go out to seek this sort of collaborative approach with local government? Are they actively going out and doing it, and would you be able to provide evidence of that?

I note that No. 7 of the aims and priorities for the Welsh historic environment sector listed in your discussion document states:

I think that that encapsulates exactly what I have just referred to, but I would be grateful if you could expand on how that will happen, what sort of resource you will be investing, and what responsibilities you will be giving to bodies to go out there and deliver on that for those chapels that are still lying neglected but have not yet suffered the fate of Libanus in Cwmbwrla and for other buildings in a similar situation.

Minister, I have a number of questions around this statement. I think that the pooling of budgets is important and it is certainly to be commended. However, there is also a need to integrate the care elements of both health and social services over time in a planned and coherent fashion that builds on the community networks in place. I think that we need to wean the NHS in particular away from its dependence on acute services. Could you explain how the pooling of budgets will lead to that further transformation of services, not just in terms of sharing money, but of the way in which they both work together in a more integrated fashion? Could you also say how the work that the Welsh Government is undertaking in terms of the Marmot review will inform this Bill? It is important that we deal with some of the issues of health inequity around Wales, and the Bill needs to recognise that changing that is a generational thing; it is not something that you can do overnight. I would hope that we can look at that in terms of how you structure the way that social services operate in the future.

Finally, Lindsay Whittle raised the size and number of safeguarding boards, and it is an issue that concerns local government. There have been issues where safeguarding boards work together without stability of personnel, which has meant that important work is not being done and not being sustained. I would hope that we could look at that. Certainly, there is some concern that we have too few safeguarding boards trying to do too much work. Perhaps you could look at that as part of the consultation process.

Eluned Parrott made the point that, for many people, the only way that they can change their fuel tariff is online. William Powell also referred to the Gary Speed memorial match, for which you must be online to be able to get tickets. There is a whole range of other examples that have been mentioned during this debate that underline that point. Not spots are an economic hindrance for businesses. If they cannot compete online, then they simply cannot compete. Broadband access for business is therefore the key to economic prosperity. As Nick Ramsay said, we are becoming more dependent on the internet, so it is important that we get the roll-out right.

I want to respond to a couple of points that were made during the debate. Alun Ffred Jones, in responding to the motion, said that all that Wales is getting is the crumbs off the UK table. As with Labour's amendment 2, at least the UK Government is investing in broadband. It may be a Welsh Government scheme now, but without the UK Government, there would not be a scheme. If Plaid Cymru, the Welsh national party, had its way, there would not only be no crumbs, but no table at all. I am astonished that such an important debate has been reduced to such pettiness. However, it is worth noting that the £56.9 million that we have received from Westminster is nearly three times as much as Wales would have got if the Barnett formula had been applied. This is not, in fact, a Barnettised contribution; it is actually more than you would have got if it had been applied. Therefore, these are not crumbs by any stretch of the imagination.

The Minister says that the Government has been successful in tackling broadband not spots and, because of that, she wants to delete the third point of this motion. That point is not a criticism of the work that the Government has done so far, but it is recognition that, as illustrated by this debate, not spots still exist and that there is a lot of work still to be done. That is why I find it sad that the Government wants to delete that point. The Minister is right that Wales is ahead of the game, but there is much more to do, and I am pleased that money is available from the UK Government to build on that work in partnership. We need to celebrate what we have achieved, but we must also plough on and work to plug the gaps where they exist. Wales's prosperity depends on it.

Local licensing committees, working with the police, can have a great effect on reducing crime and increasing community safety by, for example, ensuring that venues provide plastic glasses on occasions when there is potential for trouble and staggering bar closing times so that there is no great influx of people on to the streets at particular times. The police appreciate that this reduces the possibility of crime and enables them to police the streets safely at night. Certainly, Swansea's licensing scheme for bouncers on the doors of pubs and clubs is an exemplar. Swansea has also done a great deal of work as one of the first areas in Wales to introduce closed circuit television. The work that it has done on that has helped the police to manage the problems in the city centre at night, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights when things are particularly difficult around Wind Street and other parts of that area.

Reference has been made to the amount of money that police forces have had. Ann Jones made an intervention while Mark Isherwood was speaking earlier. I agree with Mark. Ed Balls has clearly indicated that he supports the cuts that have been brought in by the UK Government. That is an important admittance on the part of the Labour Party, because it accepts-

Peter Black: Let me just finish. The problems that the previous Government brought in-

Peter Black: The problems brought in by the previous Government with regard to its economic policy have had an impact and must be addressed. I am happy to give way to Jenny.

Peter Black: I do not want to repeat what Mark Isherwood said, but Ed Balls admitted that Labour lacked credibility and warned that, even under his party, there would have to be cuts. He said:

Clearly, the Labour Party has moved from being in the wrong place to being all over the place, but the focus is there and he is absolutely right that things have to be done. The cuts in the police are part of that.

Peter Black: I do not like to intrude on Plaid Cymru's little fantasy land too much, Rhodri Glyn, but when you come to accept the reality of these things I am sure that people will start listening to you, too, and taking you seriously.

It is important that we put the cuts in the police forces in context. We must, for example, remember the Wales Audit Office report last year, which identified that savings of £14 million could be found in Welsh police forces through civilianising police tasks and that between £24 million and £35 million in other efficiencies could be made without hitting front-line policing. We must also bear in mind that it is not the first time that there have been these cuts in the police forces, because, between 2007 and 2010, there was a cut of nearly 200 in front-line police officers in Wales, which was before the present Government came in.

Peter Black: Under the previous Labour Government, there was a cut of £125 million in the money available to police forces. To conclude, the situation that we face is dire because of current economic circumstances, but, under those circumstances, many good initiatives are being put in place.

In terms of the finance available, I take on board the many comments that you made about the lack of capital. I note that Welsh housing budgets are being cut by £120 million over the period of the comprehensive spending review, and obviously we can have a debate as to why that is, but clearly there is a need to get more capital money into housing. We have raised with you on a number of occasions the need for a bond scheme to raise private money for housing in the form of a community finance initiative. That could be done in a mutual way, as you have already indicated. I understand that registered social landlords have put together a package worth around £75 million, but of course no bond issue worth its name could really be entered into for less than £100 million, because you do not get the economies of scale. What is the Welsh Government doing to bring that bond issue up to £100 million or more, which would make it worth while and inject a substantial sum of money into housing, as well as making additional money-the extra £25 million or more-available for public services? If the Welsh Government were able to provide revenue streams, it could happen. It might require a special purpose vehicle, but I do not see any work going on publicly to deliver that.

Leanne Wood mentioned targets; when will we see targets for social housing and intermediate housing that are both meaningful and deliverable, so that providers have something to work to? Presiding Officer, I have a list that I have only just started, but I will conclude here, and I would be grateful if the Minister could start by addressing this point. I look forward to the constructive dialogue that the Minister has promised.