I am struck by the fact that we have this cycle of problems. Current midwives are overworked, so they do not have time for extra training, or to mentor students, or to listen to mothers, as several Members have said is vital. Therefore, they get burned out; therefore, we have fewer midwives and all these pressures intensify. I think that that is really the crux of where we are now. Unless we can break that cycle and find some way of giving experienced midwives the support they need, this problem is going to continue. Of course, there are problems in terms of students and drop-out rates. The noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, mentioned the cost of second qualifications, and I do not think we should ignore that as one of the reasons why so many experienced nurses are deterred from moving into midwifery. Similarly, my noble friend Lady Donaghy raised issues about pay structures. These are points that Ministers could take on board and move quickly on, and I hope that the Minister, having listened to so many voices, will feel he can have some confidence that things need to be done in certain ways.
Similarly, I welcome the evidence that the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, gave us, which everybody took note of and understood and was a bit surprised about, in terms of the lack of data on some of the crucial issues of systemic racism that she uncovered. Maybe the answers lie, as the noble Lord, Lord Allan, suggests, in different ways of working with the IT systems, but it is something I think the Minister could make real progress on very quickly and I hope the debate has helped in this respect.
I hope that what the Minister said about the Brontë Birth Centre in Dewsbury is correct: we want to see it open in April, but it is dependent on the staff being available. Incidentally, when we lose a place such as the birth centre in Dewsbury or the facility in Huddersfield, we do not just lose the maternity and labour provisions for women, we lose the student placement positions that allow us to train more people, so it really is a very serious situation.
We can all agree that women deserve good, local facilities when they are in maternity services. All women need proper care. All midwives, I would say, deserve the joy and the pleasure of seeing women cared for properly and the healthy births that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, talked about. I think that to achieve that, we need a step change, and I hope that this debate has been one significant step forward in urging Ministers to look at this problem with a new eye and new determination. I beg to move.
Motion agreed.
]]>One of the reasons that I wanted to discuss this issue was the pressure on maternity services that I have been hearing about in my local area. In Kirklees, we have no NHS birthing facilities whatever; it is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. The unit at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary was suspended more than 12 months ago and the Brontë Birth Centre in my former constituency of Dewsbury, whose opening I remember with a fanfare as something to be celebrated, has been closed since August 2022. The basic reasons for these closures have been the crisis in staffing and the level of staffing shortages. The local trust is trying to reopen the Brontë centre, working with a neighbourhood trust, but the problems of staffing are having a real input and will be a deciding factor.
No one can doubt the critical importance of maternity services. Those of us who have given birth will recall many details, good and less good, of that experience. The experience of maternity care can affect the future of both mother and baby. A difficult birth experience can affect bonding and early relationships—a point emphasised to us by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Everybody who is involved in maternity services will know the significant responsibility that they have. Thankfully, most pregnancies end in the birth of a healthy baby, although that in itself does not mean that the mother’s experience has been optimal. On the other hand, some expectant mothers have their own views of what their experience should be; sometimes, those views are not realistic and can create extra pressure on midwives and others. Locally, I know that the trust has reported more high-risk women wanting births in settings designed for low-risk women, creating extra pressure and highlighting the complex problems that many midwives have to face.
I want to start with the recent important reports on the overall state of our maternity services. The report from the Care Quality Commission is absolutely critical here but I believe we have all received many briefings from mothers of babies, the Maternity & Midwifery Forum, the Nuffield Trust, Mumsnet, SANDS, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and, of course, the Royal College of Midwives. They have all consistently reported a very alarming situation.
The Care Quality Commission tells us that maternity services were under pressure prior to Covid and that that has worsened. Covid did not help but we cannot continue to use it as an excuse for all the failings in all our services across the board. The pressures on maternity services have been building for more than a decade. The commission also tells us that almost half of all the maternity services inspected in 2023 were rated as either in need of improvement or inadequate—an increase on last year, with things moving in the wrong direction.
Many factors have been highlighted by the CQC. Staffing shortages—especially retention issues, which I will come back to in a minute—are top of the list but it has also reported systematic racism, leadership issues, and workplace and environment issues. All of these are significant and each needs attention but we should not lose sight of the overall situation and the fact that nearly half of these units are causing concern. In those circumstances, we need to stop and think about what needs doing—and doing urgently. I know that there has been considerable ministerial churn and that current occupants may try to distance themselves from previous decisions. Although new Ministers must say that there should be greater emphasis on women’s health, et cetera, the same party has been in government for 13 years and decisions taken during those 13 years have made the situation worse. I think that Ministers in that Government are culpable.
To my mind, the most significant problem is clearly the shortfall in staffing, in particular the imbalance in the workforce because of retention problems. The fact is that many senior midwives, gynaecologists and obstetricians are leaving their professions. There are concerns about the number of students going into midwifery and their experience but the problems of retention make the situation critical.
Earlier this month, the BBC reported on midwives being concerned that staff shortages were causing safety issues. One midwife reported that she kept patients safe only by the skin of her teeth; another said that she had quit because she could not face the possibility of the consequences of poor care. I know of one experienced midwife who left her chosen profession after being in sole charge of six women in labour and being afraid for her own mental health because of all the pressures that that responsibility brought.
The Royal College of Midwives says that staffing is the most important issue. We hear that some trusts have one in five jobs unfilled. In Kirklees, the figure is 18%, but it is not a matter of just getting more students into midwifery. Retention is a serious problem and burnout is a real issue. If we cannot retain experienced midwives, we cannot give student midwives the support and the mentoring that they need during placements.
There have been some suggestions that existing midwives feel threatened by some of the training changes that were introduced a few years ago, and there is always a question about the balance between theory and practice. Certainly, the profile of students in midwifery and nursing generally has changed. I know from my time as chair of the University of Bradford, which has a fantastic department in this respect—maybe the Minister would like to visit—that the profile of students coming into nursing has changed significantly, especially when bursaries were cut by this Government. The intake of mature students declined sharply and immediately, and it has not fully recovered. It has been pointed out to me that having mature students among the student group helps everyone to develop and understand what all the pressures can be. Of course, many students are feeling the cost of living crisis and want to work to survive financially, which is obviously not easy if you are on a midwifery course. I worry about the figures for those dropping out of their courses in the early years.
One factor that particularly worries me is that I am told that there is less continuity of supervision of students on the ward during placement. Each student used to have one named mentor, but I am told that this is no longer the case and that students therefore report that they no longer feel part of a team or that they belong, and that this was also affecting the drop-out rate. Overall, this is a worrying picture. Unless the Government address the retention issue, we will not make the substantial improvements that we need.
I must also talk about maternal mortality. The latest report shows that it has risen to its highest rate in 20 years. A key finding is that the maternal death rate for black women is three times higher than that for white women; for women from Asian ethnic backgrounds, it is two times higher; unsurprisingly, women living in the most deprived areas have a maternal mortality rate twice as high as that for the least deprived. This is not a revelation; other reports have talked about it for a long time. There is no excuse for a lack of action here. I note that the Select Committee in the Commons pointed out that, at the time it was writing its report, the Maternity Disparities Taskforce had not met for nine months. That cannot be acceptable and shows a worrying level of complacency.
I have outlined a very depressing situation, and urgent action is needed. Midwives and others deserve credit and recognition for the work that they do—my noble friend Lady Thornton will tell us about the remarkable achievements in her area of dealing with the consequences of female genital mutilation, and I know from a colleague in the other House, Jess Phillips, that midwives are often critical in helping women escape from abuse—but, overall, we have a crisis. For such a significant service as maternity, in 2024 this is unacceptable. It is up to the Government to provide a proper lead to solve this. I emphasise again that the No.1 priority must be the retention of experienced nurses and midwives. We need a raft of measures to reduce the pressure on midwives and allow them to feel that they can do the job that they are trained to do and want to do to the level that they want to achieve. If the retention issue is not tackled urgently, there will be no space to deal with all the other issues such as updating training. This is all against a general backdrop of serious health inequalities which exist in this country anyway.
We are now in 2024. It is just wrong that maternity services are causing such concern. Every woman deserves the best while pregnant and during childbirth, and every midwife deserves the right conditions in which to work. The Minister said at Question Time earlier that he believed in evidence and common sense. I urge him to attach that common sense to the some of these problems that we are facing this year.
]]>Time is always limited in these debates, and there are certainly many aspects of the current state of the NHS that warrant mentioning—alas, far too many to mention. However, unusually, I want to start by mentioning some of the briefings we have probably all received in the last few days since this debate was announced. I was particularly struck by the briefing paper from the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services. It highlighted that in August, more than 470,000 people were waiting for a care and support assessment to begin, up 8% on March of this year. It highlighted the almost universal view that increased pressures on the NHS will put even more pressure on adult social care—a significant and growing problem.
We also had an interesting paper from a well-known opticians, pointing out that greater use of the glaucoma referral system, with optometrists working with the NHS, can significantly benefit patients and the whole of the NHS service; a similar situation arises with audiology services. The Royal College of Psychiatrists told us in its detailed paper about the contribution that early support hubs can make. The Bowel Cancer UK group gave us striking figures that nine in 10 people will survive bowel cancer if diagnosed early, but only four out of 10 are actually being diagnosed early. The most significant point about all these examples is that they highlight issues that are not simply about asking for more funds. They are pointing out and giving examples of how early invention can not only benefit patients and individuals but reduce long-term costs.
All of those examples and that theme link up with what we were told by Universities UK, which has outlined the problems we are seeing with applications from students for positions in critical areas of nursing and the whole range of medical specialties. Even if we did get the increase in the number of students, we are also short of clinical academics and people to do the teaching to get the placements they need in our hospitals. This area is particularly critical to the way forward. Although the Government sometimes boast about increasing student numbers, there is still a very long way to go before we recover from the cuts made from 2010. That is one of the reasons why we are in such a serious situation.
I want also to mention one other issue that particularly alarms me. In October, just a month ago, the Care Quality Commission rated 65% of maternity services in England as inadequate or requiring improvement. Its report says, having inspected 73% of all maternity units:
“The overarching picture is one of a service and staff under huge pressure”.
Despite the efforts of staff, who are often praised because of their efforts by people on the receiving end, many women are still not receiving the safe, high-quality care they deserve. The CQC went on to say that this was particularly a problem for ethnic-minority women, for whom the service was particularly poor. Its overall assessment was that we have a deteriorating position in maternity services. All of us who have children know that the moment a child is born is one of the most important times of your life. It really is alarming that, in 2023, 75 years after the establishment of the health service, which was partly formed to improve maternity services, we have that situation.
I must just mention a related issue from my local area. Last week, it was reported that no babies have been born in Kirklees for around 18 months. Kirklees is one of the largest metropolitan council areas, covering Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Batley and lots of other smaller towns, yet there are no facilities for childbirth there. The units in Huddersfield and Dewsbury have been closed. Just imagine being a pregnant woman going into childbirth and having to travel potentially for an hour in those circumstances. The reason given is staffing issues. There are plans for the future, but in some cases it will take nearly two years before that service becomes available.
I have the figures for the increasing number of doctors, midwives and consultants under a Labour Government, but I end by echoing what my noble friend said: we fixed it last time; we are going to have to fix it again.
]]>To say that the investigation into the water companies was timely is a great understatement. There has been a great deal of public concern about the performance of the industry, the profits taken out and the state of our rivers and beaches. The early response to our report shows the great contribution that House of Lords committees can make to debates on wider issues. The immediate response from the press—from the Times to Feargal Sharkey and experts—has been very positive in welcoming the recommendations in the report. The water companies seem to have regarded it slightly as a wake-up call and to have understood that they cannot get away with the kind of approach they had in the past—although part of their approach was to give an apology and say, “But it wasn’t really us; it was all the people who went before us”.
On the other hand, the Government’s response, as my noble friend said, was curt and dismissive. The Secretary of State, in particular, thinks she has immunity to every problem that has ever arisen in her department.
I have to admit that I never wanted privatisation in the first place, and I was part of the Front-Bench team in the Commons opposing it. I recently saw the figures I used during the wind-up there, which showed that the Labour Government from 1974 to 1979 invested £1,254 million in the water industry per year, but that from 1979 onwards, when the Conservatives came in, there was a sudden drop. Investment went down to £926 million, then £899 million, then £818 million. In other words, there was deliberate underinvestment to try to make a case for privatisation, because we were told that was the only way the investment would come.
We had big promises from the water companies—they were going to solve the problems of leaking pipes and everything else—and we were promised that Ofwat would be the great guardian of the consumer and the taxpayer. It has been very different in reality. Investors have done very well; the rest of us have had serious problems and been left with a situation in which we now need many critical improvements, because those promises were not fulfilled. The water companies have done well, but everybody else, as my noble friend pointed out, has been left with considerable problems. This industry has not invested, and very big figures are needed in investment for the future.
We have seen the dividends taken out of water companies and the big salaries paid to many executives working there. While the companies may say that they recognise the problems, there is no guarantee that they will be easily able to provide the investment that is now needed. Therefore, we now face a very significant and serious dilemma.
Investment is needed—my noble friend pointed out the scale—but who will pay for it? Those who ripped us off are long gone. Many of those companies have been sold on and assets have changed. Water companies maximised their returns but many debt issues remain. We as consumers and taxpayers will not get the money back from the investments that were promised; we paid our water rates and so on. The big question still remains as to how these issues will be dealt with and who is to pay.
There is another very big issue: the nature of regulation. Is Ofwat fit for purpose? It has been too weak. Has it not had enough powers? Has it chosen not to use those powers? Has it lacked government support, or has it just been outsmarted by the water companies? Whatever the fact of how this has happened, we are in a situation where regulation of the water industry, and probably a whole range of industries, needs to be completely overhauled. These companies, and the people regulating them, need to act in a totally different way in future.
]]>This is a very modest Bill—most Private Members’ Bills that succeed must have a certain degree of modesty—but that does not mean it is insignificant. It will make significant changes that will be of real benefit to quite a few people. We spoke at Second Reading of the changes that have taken place in work patterns. This Bill allows all employees to have more rights in respect of their need for flexible working. Flexible working has increased a lot in recent years, but just yesterday the British Chambers of Commerce pointed out in its press release that there are significant disparities in who can get it and which sectors have been responsive so far. The BCC and trade unions have welcomed this Bill, and many pressure groups that have followed the progress of this issue have made positive contributions.
The Bill will help make flexible working more available to more people and allow people in a broader range of circumstances to be able to contribute fully to our economy; it must benefit everyone. It is a small but significant measure, and I am very pleased and grateful for all the support the House has given to its passage.
]]>Motion agreed.
]]>It has been a very interesting debate, and probably longer than many Private Members’ Bill debates, which shows the level of interest. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for saying that this Bill is simple, straightforward, clear and concise. If only all legislation could meet those criteria, we would all be in a much better place.
My noble friend Lord Browne suggested that we should legislate only when it was necessary, and when there was a real and significant problem. The examples given today show that the Bill is necessary, and that there are significant issues that need to be addressed. It may be modest, but it will make a big difference for a lot of people, and will help the employment situation, as well as individuals with their work/life balance.
Mention has been made today of Covid and how it has changed our approach to working relationships, with work from home or flexible working. There are lessons to be learned there. As my noble friend Lord Browne pointed out, a lot of this change has been organic and now we are having legislation which is actually almost catching up with the mood of people in the workplace who want greater flexibility.
We have had a very constructive debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and others have made clear, this is not the last word on these issues. It is a small part of what is needed; it is an important part, but other things, such as consideration of advertising and the commitment that the Minister has given about day-one entitlements, are things we will come back to and will want to address in the future. I thank all Members for their contributions; I thank the Minister for his commitment to support this, and all those who have been involved, including his Bill team who, as I said earlier, have been extremely helpful. It is not the last word on these issues, but is a step forward. I therefore invite all Members to support this piece of legislation.
Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
]]>Last month marked the 20th anniversary of the original legislation on flexible working—2003 does not seem that long ago in some respects. Some progress has been made but, when the legislation was first introduced, it was rather narrow in its effects. It was limited to parents, guardians and people who had care of young or disabled children. The legislation has evolved since then, and I think that most people acknowledge that there is a parental need for flexible working arrangements across a wide group of people.
It is right that, 20 years on, we consider where we should be now and the kind of approach that we should be taking. The right to ask for flexible working should be an entitlement for all employees, regardless of their personal characteristics. There was an interesting briefing from the MS Society, for example, which showed how flexible working can help quite a few sufferers from MS, and I am sure that that is the case for those with other illnesses as well.
The current situation regarding entitlement is that, since 2014, all employees with 26 weeks’ continuous service have been able to make one statutory application per year to change their working hours, work pattern and work location. I hope that the Minister might deal with that point about 26 weeks; many people think that this entitlement should start from day one of employment. I know that Ministers have said things on other occasions, so perhaps the Minister can repeat some assurances that the Government will be moving in this direction in the future.
At the moment, when anyone submits a request for flexible working, they must explain to the employer how the change would affect them and how it might be dealt with. That is quite a surprising and burdensome stipulation. Employers must properly consider any requests that they receive. The progress that we have been making in our thinking about this leads us to need further changes to this legislation. I am glad that the Minister in the other place acknowledged general support for this legislation. The departmental officials have been very helpful in terms of briefing and making sure that the legislation is in order.
There are four measures in the Bill. The first will introduce a duty on employers to consult their employees before rejecting any flexible working request. This measure will give both parties the opportunity to explore alternatives that might be applied before the door is closed and before a pre-emptive decision has been made. There are employers who adopt this kind of approach already, but it is not universal. It is certainly best practice, but it is better that we make a change here so we can ensure that employers do not have a knee-jerk reaction to any request of this kind.
The second provision allows not just one but two requests in any 12-month period. I think this will make quite a difference to a lot of people because caring responsibilities can change very quickly, illnesses can develop very quickly, and other factors might come into a person’s life that mean that flexible working becomes a very desirable feature. The legislative framework needs to be sufficiently flexible to allow these realities to be taken into account and amending the Bill in this way will ensure that the right is more responsive to an individual’s needs and we can therefore avoid negative outcomes, such as when an individual feels that if they cannot have flexible working then they may have to finish working altogether.
The third measure is about getting a decision within two months. At the moment, a decision is required within three months. Two months may not seem a significant change, but I think it is. People’s circumstances can change very quickly and, if you have caring responsibilities suddenly thrust upon you, to have a quick decision about your employment situation might be very significant indeed. I think it will really help many people.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the Bill is the final measure, which will remove the requirement for employees to have to anticipate what the consequences of the change will be. It will not always be the situation that the employee has the information necessary to provide that, and this measure changes the balance there. It is quite an important situation to remedy because people who have difficulty making written submissions, or difficulty knowing how the totality of a business works, could easily be at a disadvantage in the present situation.
This modest package of measures will help secure more flexible working, will meet the needs of individuals and businesses, and will create a situation where there is more constructive dialogue between employee and employer. This matters, and it could make a great difference. A recent ONS study showed that, if a person had flexible working opportunities, it really made a difference to whether they were able to stay in the labour market. The measures will also help employers who want to retain staff and retain skills. This is a situation where, generally, everybody will be helped, and I hope that those who are interested in this will give the Bill their support. I beg to move.
]]>Many of us might think, “Well, why haven’t the Government done this already?”, because, when you read the kind of information we have in our briefings, you see that clearly there has been a vacuum of support and a very clear case that something needed to be done. It is good that we have been able to have people using the Private Members’ Bill procedure. In a way, this is what Private Members’ Bills are for—to bring attention to a real loophole that has existed—and I hope that the Bill can progress so that people who need this help will in fact get it. The case has been made and is clear, and we need to take this further as quickly as possible.
Those of us who have not had the experience of having a baby in neonatal care cannot fully comprehend this; we can listen to the experiences that have been brought to our attention by the two previous speakers, but I suspect that it is something that you actually have to experience to know the full impact. Whatever problems we have had individually, the idea of a child in an incubator with tubes is something that all of us would immediately be affected by. Childbirth is supposed to be—as well as potentially painful—very exhilarating and exciting; it is an important day and something that we remember all our lives. But we do have the assumption that things will go well, and, while we might have niggles at the back of our head that something could go wrong, if something does go wrong it must be absolutely devastating—the family’s plans go out of the window immediately.
If the figures in the briefings we have had are correct, we are talking about an awful lot of people who are finding life extremely difficult at a very critical time. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, pointed out, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, just mentioned, with modern medicine, many of these babies need a great deal of care for quite a long time, and current provision for parental support is really not adequate for what we are talking about today. In this House, sometimes we have to ask ourselves: if this were us, what would we want and need? What would we want a member of our family to have, if they were placed in the same position?
The briefing we got from Bliss was extremely interesting, particularly the point that 36% of fathers of babies in neonatal care were actually signed off sick to try to provide the kind of support that was needed. That means that it is a very important issue, because the first few days, months and years of a child’s life are some of the most formative and significant in terms of forming the relationships and bonds that are so important for families going forward. The added anxiety of financial pressure is something that really needs to be taken into account.
I wanted to ask the Minister about something which the noble Lord, Lord Patel, pointed out: that some people will not fulfil the criteria that are mentioned in the Bill for getting this financial support. I know that regulations have to dovetail into each other, and that is not always the case, but there are some quite specific limitations in terms of who can be affected, and that will need to be considered further down the line.
I cannot resist the temptation to mention delegated powers. It was good to see that in the Commons the Henry VIII clause was removed, so we do not have to bring it up and complain to Ministers at this stage, which is somewhat unusual. There is also the question of timing because, again, in the Commons, the Minister estimated that perhaps in about 18 months’ time we might get round to have this provision. I think we could probably get some movement before that, if people really took this as seriously as they should.
I congratulate all those people who have been involved in this legislation. I would just say to the Minister that I hope that we can have joined-up provision. Mention has been made of maternity rights, but there may be other children in the family to think about and there are fathers as well as mothers. This is an opportunity to bring all the provisions together and make sure that we consider the impact on the family as a whole—parents and the baby in neonatal care as well as the other children in the family—because a lot of people need support in this kind of situation. But I congratulate all those involved and very strongly support the Bill.
]]>It is, as my noble friend pointed out and has been mentioned just recently, a very straightforward Bill. Although there are regulations to be made, I do not, on this occasion, have my usual concerns about a skeleton Bill leaving the detail to later—though of course many people will want to look at that detail quite carefully.
I think that many people in the co-operative movement, and many people who deal with mutuals, would have been surprised, until quite recently, that such legislation is necessary. There have been shocks to the system—mention was made of Liverpool Victoria—that have made people look again at the framework of regulation here. Although this Bill is welcome, it is not the last word on what needs to happen going forward.
The issuing of a statutory asset lock is clearly extremely important, and that need has been highlighted by recent cases. Those who established mutuals and co-operative institutions never thought that the assets that they were creating were not protected. I think that is where the shock element comes from.
The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, gave a bit of the history of co-operatives, and I appreciate that because, as my noble friend Lord Kennedy indicated earlier, many of us were brought up in that particular culture of co-operation. Like many people, I remember going as a child to the local Co-op in Wishaw, where my granny lived, for the morning rolls. I remember to this day, “four, five, seven, six” which was the number you had to give to make sure that, at the appropriate time, the dividend came forward. In Bolton, we had a remarkable system where, when you went to the Co-op shop, you were given a thin paper ribbon with the amount spent that you then had to put on a gummed piece of paper. If I lost it on the way home, my mother was not best pleased, because that again was reflected in the dividend that was often very useful for buying shoes or whatever it was that was the particular purchase of that kind.
It was not just the financial incentive to shop at the Co-op or to have insurance with the Co-op; it was the feeling that you were not being cheated. There was a confidence factor there. The early co-operative organisations were often based on giving people confidence that they were not being cheated but also on a feeling of belonging. It was part of the culture of many working class existences. I think that the co-operation with social enterprises, which was mentioned on the Benches opposite, is something that builds on that. Those who established co-operative and mutual benefit societies and institutions would be horrified at the thought that the assets that have been built up over time could go for other purposes.
I have just one question for the Minister, and it builds on what the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, said. In the Commons, the Minister said that the Government would soon bring forward legislation to amend the Building Societies Act 1986 and are consulting on reviewing the legislative framework governing co-operatives, community ventures and friendly societies. I know Ministers cannot anticipate what might be in the King’s Speech, but I wonder whether we could have a bit of an update on the progress that I hope is being made in this particular area.
Mention has been made of sport, and I think it is important. I know my noble friend Lord Kennedy is a great football fan, although we disagree on which club we should be supporting. He will have seen the real difficulties that many clubs have gone through in recent years. We have one or two football clubs that are going down this particular pattern of trying to work together and have a community asset. I hope there is more scope there.
This is an important Bill. It is a small Bill. It is, as my noble friend said, a permissive Bill. It is not ensuring that all societies go down this route, but I hope that the voluntary powers in it will be acted upon, because that is what the originators of all these institutions would have wished.
]]>