The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
My Lords, it is my great privilege to open the Second Reading debate of the Children and Families Bill. When I came into this job, I swore that I would do what I had successfully done over the previous 30 years: keep control of my diary. I gave that idea up at lunchtime on my first day. A visit that I had asked to make some time ago appeared serendipitously in my diary yesterday—I say serendipitously because it had been fixed a long time before we knew that the Second Reading of the Bill would be today. This visit was to the Avenue School, a special school in Reading run by Dame Sue Bourne, and was a very moving experience. They do wonderful work at this school with children with severe SEN, many of whom are severely disabled. It was a privilege to see the wonderful ways in which they are improving the lives of those children—substantially, to judge by the smiles on many of their faces. As I left, Sue gave me the dragonfly pin that I am wearing, which is in memory of all the children who have been at the school and who have died, so I said that I would wear it today. The memory of that visit will stay with me throughout this debate.
The Government are determined to make sure that we put the needs of children at the heart of everything we do so that, regardless of background, every child has the chance to fulfil their potential and succeed. Too often we hear stories of services failing children and families who need their help the most, trying to get them to fit in with the system rather than the other way around. It is crucial that we get the legislative framework right, so that services transform the way in which they work for children and families, focused keenly on their needs. That is what the Bill seeks to do.
The measures in the Bill will have a direct and significant impact on the lives of children and families across the country, so it is right that it is subjected to the most thorough scrutiny and debate. In the other place, the debate has been constructive and comprehensive. Every part of the Bill has been scrutinised thoroughly by a standing committee and has been passed with the blessing of the whole House. This is in part due to extensive pre-legislative scrutiny of the majority of the Bill. This process, as I am sure noble Lords would agree, clearly improved the legislation. I offer my gratitude to Members in this House for their scrutiny of Parts 1 and 5 of the Bill as part of their work on the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the House of Lords Select Committee on Adoption Legislation. I also thank members of the JCHR for their more recent report across the Bill, which I am sure will inform scrutiny in your Lordships’ House.
Perhaps the most significant improvement that the Bill has seen to date is the amendment brought forward by the Government to introduce a duty on health bodies to provide what is set out in an education, health and care plan. This amendment to Part 3 of the Bill was widely welcomed and will make a real difference to the lives of children and young people with special educational needs and their families. It is my ambition that the scrutiny in this House builds on that progress in an open and constructive way.
I turn to the provisions of the Bill in more detail. Delays in the current adoption system mean that it currently takes on average 21 months to place a child, and a child’s chances of adoption reduce by almost 20% for every year of delay. This is clearly indefensible and needs to change. The Government’s adoption reforms will sweep away barriers that have stood in the way of finding children stable, loving homes earlier. The Bill contributes to this by requiring local authorities to consider a fostering for adoption placement as soon as they are considering adoption for a child; by removing the explicit requirement to have regard to a child’s religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background when matching a child and prospective adopters; and by enabling the Secretary of State to require some or all local authorities to outsource their adopter recruitment and assessment function.
The Bill would also better support approved adopters by piloting greater access to the adoption register, by improving the information on offer about adoption support services and by introducing personal budgets to give adopters more choice and control over the help that they receive.
In addition, the Bill puts the role of the virtual school head for looked-after children on a statutory footing. This is just one important step that we are taking to ensure that every local authority redoubles its efforts to drive up the educational attainment of children in their care.
Children also face unnecessary delays in the family courts, something that the family justice review recognised as part of its work to consider radical reform of the current systems for family law. A child waits over 42 weeks on average for their care or supervision case to be resolved. This is not acceptable and we agree with the review’s recommendations that more needs to be done to address delays and ensure that a stable placement for a child is found as quickly as possible. To that end, the Bill includes measures to introduce a maximum 26-week time limit for completing care and supervision proceedings, to ensure that expert evidence is used in children’s cases only when necessary and to remove bureaucracy and focus a court’s consideration of a care plan primarily on those issues that are essential to its decisions.
Part 2 also includes proposals to ensure that the needs of children remain firmly at the centre of the private family law system. The Bill, through the parental involvement clause, will make it absolutely clear that both parents should be involved in their child’s life after separation, where it is safe for the child. I wish to be clear that this change does not affect the existing principle that the welfare of the child must be the court’s paramount consideration in all cases. In addition, we hope that mediation, information and assessment meetings will encourage more parents to agree arrangements for their children outside court. The introduction of the child arrangements order will help ensure that arrangements are focused on the child’s needs.
The reforms to special educational needs in Part 3 are ambitious and present us with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the lives of children and young people with SEN. The reforms put children, young people and their parents at the heart of the system, strive for higher aspirations for children and young people, and have a stronger focus on improving their prospects in life. The new system will provide, for the first time, one system from birth to age 25 by promoting earlier identification of needs and extending comparable rights and protections to all young people over 16; require local authorities and local health bodies to work together to plan and commission services for children and young people with SEN, bringing a real commitment to working together across agencies; and introduce a local offer so that parents can find, in one place, clear and accessible information about the local support that is available to them.
At the end of the new, more streamlined and co-ordinated assessment process for those with the most complex needs, the Bill introduces education, health and care plans from birth to age 25. These plans will have a new and important focus on outcomes, including employment and independent living, with joined-up support from education, health and social care.
The Government are committed to reforming childcare and supporting working families by boosting quality, increasing the affordability of provision and removing obstacles for providers where this does not impact on quality and safety. Part 4 plays a part in achieving this. It introduces childminder agencies, allows childcare providers to request a paid-for re-inspection by Ofsted and seeks to remove current bureaucratic requirements on local authorities and governing bodies. On Report in the Commons, the Government also brought forward a new clause to introduce tax-free childcare paving legislation, as was included in Her Majesty’s gracious Speech.
Part 5 covers the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. It will clarify the power and remit of the Children’s Commissioner, empowering the commissioner to stand up for the rights and interests of all children, particularly those who are vulnerable. For example, it will give the commissioner a statutory remit to promote and protect children’s rights, and will introduce changes to make the commissioner more clearly independent from government.
Parts 6, 7 and 8, which are led by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, introduce greater choice for employees, ensuring that employment law meets the needs and wishes of modern families. The Bill will give working parents more choice and flexibility in how they share leave and pay in the early months of their child’s life. This is a radical new system of leave that will support fathers in getting more involved in their child’s life and enable working parents to take leave together and better manage their caring responsibilities and work commitments. The last section of the Bill supports family life by providing a right for all employees to request flexible working.
Before I conclude, I draw noble Lords’ attention to some commitments made by my honourable friend the Minister for Children and Families on Report in the Commons. Most notably, with regard to adoption, we wish to clarify that local authorities must consider placing the child with a relative or friend before they consider a fostering for adoption placement. Also, to provide further reassurance on this measure, we will introduce new safeguards through regulations to make sure that a local authority notifies the child’s birth parents when considering a fostering for adoption placement.
In Part 3 of the Bill, the Minister has listened closely to the debate to date on the support available to young offenders with SEN. On Report, the Minister undertook to identify further improvements to the support that this vulnerable group of young people receive while in custody to complement the trans- formational reform of education in custody being undertaken by the Ministry of Justice.
A number of noble Lords, while welcoming the intentions of the Care Bill which is currently before this House have raised concerns about the situation for young carers. The Government have heard these concerns. As my honourable friend the Minister also indicated, we intend to look at this issue in detail with noble Lords during the passage of the Bill.
I know that Members of this House have views, and considerable expertise, on how we should be addressing the issues that I have mentioned and others. I look forward greatly to discussing them over the coming months. The Bill demonstrates this Government’s commitment to making a real and enduring difference to the lives of all children and families, an ambition that I am sure is shared by all here today. I commend it the House and I beg to move.
Lord Nash
My Lords, the debate this evening has been constructive and heartfelt, and I thank all noble Lords who have contributed, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for her comments about working forward on a cross-party basis. Many noble Lords have spoken based on extensive experience and expertise, and it would be a privilege to discuss this Bill further in this manner when we move to Committee stage. The Bill is detailed and wide-ranging, and this evening’s debate has clearly shown that the principle that the need to improve children’s services and that the needs of all children, especially the most vulnerable, is central to all we do, is something on which we all agree.
As noble Lords have kindly acknowledged, this is my first piece of legislation as a Minister. I will do my best to respond to the key points made tonight but, in view of the number of speeches, I undertake to write to all noble Lords who have spoken this evening to ensure that I address all the points made in full. I again recognise the work of the Adoption Legislation Committee, particularly its chairman, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, for the authoritative and considered reports that helped to shape these legislative proposals on adoption. Many noble Lords will have built on the committee’s scrutiny in their comments this evening.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes, Lady Howarth and Lady Gibson, and my noble friends Lady Hamwee, Lady Benjamin and Lord Eccles have all raised important points. Everyone involved in the debate today agrees that all children deserve stable, loving homes to thrive. Adoption is the right option for some children; for others, returning home to live with their parents, wider family or friends in long-term foster or residential care will be the right option for them. The Government have a significant programme of reform under way in all these areas, which aims to ensure that children are able to benefit as early as possible from a permanent home that meets their needs, whichever option is right for them. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for highlighting the good progress that we are making in this area. Where adoption is the right option, however, we are uncompromising in our efforts to reduce damaging delay. Noble Lords have expressed heartfelt views about the best way of doing this, and I am sure that we will return to the issues of ethnicity and adopter recruitment, as well as many other issues, as the Bill progresses. I am pleased that noble Lords have welcomed the Government’s commitment to clarifying the position with regard to kinship care and fostering for adoption, and I look forward to sharing our progress on that in Committee.
I turn briefly to family justice and particularly to the question of parental involvement, as addressed by Clause 11 and in this debate by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Howarth, and my noble friends Lady Perry, Lady Tyler, Lady Hamwee and Lady Benjamin. As has been recognised in the debate, this issue is a balance that it is essential to get right. The Government are clear that the provision in Clause 11 does not change the principle that the welfare of the child must be the court’s paramount consideration. We believe that it is important to make clear, especially to parents, how court decisions are made. Wherever possible, parents should work together to resolve disputes about their children’s care. This clause will encourage them to do so by making clear that unless there is a good reason, children should have a relationship with both their parents. Of course, however, it will not achieve this by itself. That is why we are putting in place a wider package of measures to help parents, including better information, advice and support outside the court system. DfE and MoJ officials will be working closely with the NSPCC and others to achieve this.
I turn to Part 3 on SEN. It is clear that noble Lords have a wealth of knowledge and expertise in SEN and disability issues which is long-standing in many cases. I will cover a number of key points raised by noble Lords and write more fully. Almost every noble Lord has spoken on this issue and they will forgive me if I do not pause to list them all. The noble Baronesses, Lady Morris and Lady Howarth, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, emphasised how achieving the ambitions of Part 3 will depend on a change in culture and approach and in ways of working on the ground. That is a crucial point to recognise. The Bill provides a framework for these changes to happen. We will build on the work of the local pathfinders to take the measures forward sensibly and carefully from September 2014 onwards.
I believe that opinion across the House is behind the principle of the SEN provisions. However, questions have been asked about their scope. It is important to be clear that the purpose of the new approach set out in Part 3 is to reform and bring much-needed improvement to the support for children and young people with special educational needs. This rationale was first set out in the Green Paper and has been followed through to the Bill. However, the reforms are enabling. Local areas can apply the principles behind them to a wider group of children, including to those who are disabled but do not have SEN. Some pathfinder areas are already taking such an approach.
The noble Lord, Lord Patel, spoke passionately about supporting children with health needs, specifically children with cancer. I would like to reassure him that the Minister for Children and Families recently met with CLIC Sargent, where he gave a commitment to see what more we can do through the SEN code of practice and other means to provide the additional support that we all want to see whereby no child, particularly a child with cancer, misses out on the opportunity to fulfil their potential.
Noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Rix, Lord Low and Lord Patel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, while welcoming the new duty on health bodies, have raised the issue of a specific legal duty on local authorities to deliver the social care provision in EHC plans. Existing duties in Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 and, in the case of disabled children, the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, already provide important protections, and we expect authorities to provide care services to meet assessed needs. However, prioritising children with EHC plans as a matter of course over all other children in need of social care would risk other groups being marginalised—for example, children suffering neglect.
My noble friend Lord Addington and the noble Lord, Lord Rix, raised the very important issue of access to apprenticeships. Young people with SEN should have access to the same opportunities as their peers. That is why we amended this legislation following pre-legislative scrutiny to enable young people on apprenticeships to receive support through an EHC plan. Of course, it is also essential that apprenticeships are stretching and prepare individuals for sustained employment. Work is currently under way to reform the apprenticeship programme, following an independent review by Doug Richard. The recent consultation included questions about English and maths requirements and accessibility. We will be publishing an implementation plan for apprenticeship reform in the autumn.
On dyslexia, my noble friends Lord Storey and Lord Addington mentioned the need for teachers to be sufficiently trained in supporting children with SEN. Teachers’ initial training must enable them to meet national standards. This includes their ability to adapt their teaching to meet individual needs. My department has worked with the National College for Teaching and Leadership to develop specialist resources for ITT and new advanced-level online training resources in dyslexia and other types of SEN to support teachers in developing their skills in these important areas. I am also pleased to say that currently 39 special schools are designated teaching schools that are investing their particular skills and specialisms in developing the next generation of teachers.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and my noble friends Lord Storey and Lord Addington spoke with expertise and passion about young people with SEN in the youth justice system. I agree with noble Lords that all young offenders, including those with SEN, need to receive the right support and access to education, both in custody and when they return to their communities. I have listened to the debate this evening and echo the undertaking given by the Minister for Children and Families to identify further improvements to the support that this vulnerable group of young people receive while they are in custody that will complement the transformational reform of education in custody being undertaken by the MoJ.
My noble friend Lord Storey raised the issue of children with health conditions in schools. His concerns were echoed passionately by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, the noble Baronesses, Lady Gibson and Lady Young, and my noble friend Lord Addington. There are already strong legal duties on schools to support children with long-term health conditions such as asthma, diabetes and epilepsy, including in the Education Act 2002 and the Equality Act 2010. Schools must make reasonable adjustments to their practices, procedures and policies to ensure that they are not putting those with long-term health problems at a substantial disadvantage. However, simply giving schools additional legal duties would not tackle the root cause of poor practice. The DfE will issue revised guidance to school leaders, local authorities, staff and governing bodies later this year to replace the Managing Medicines in Schools and Early Years Settings guidance, which dates back to 2005.
The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, spoke with extensive knowledge and passion about the choice for parents of disabled children when it comes to placing their child in school. The vast majority of children with SEN have always been taught in mainstream schools. Our policy on inclusion recognises that. The Bill will change the general principle that children with SEN should be taught in mainstream settings and will extend it to young people in further education. I look forward to discussing her specific concerns about disabled children without SEN further.
The Bill also improves choice for parents and young people by giving those with EHC plans the right to ask for a place at any mainstream school, FE college, academy or free school, non-maintained special school, independent specialist college or independent special school organised to make provision for children with SEN that is approved by the Secretary of State under Clause 41. The local authority will be obliged to name the preferred school or college unless it would not be suitable for the child’s age, ability, aptitude or SEN needs, not compatible with the efficient education of others or an inefficient use of resources.
As recognised by my noble friend Lord Lingfield and the noble Lord, Lord Rix, successful local implementation planning will be key to the smooth introduction of reforms. Feedback suggests that general awareness of reforms is already high, including in non-pathfinder areas, with many areas already starting to establish or planning to establish new systems and processes. We have established the pathfinder champion programme and are funding the Council for Disabled Children and other voluntary and community sector organisations to ensure that local areas have access to a comprehensive package of support. We know that a number of non-pathfinder areas are already preparing to implement the reforms and working with pathfinder champions, and we are currently looking at what additional support might be needed. However, I know the noble Lord, Lord Rix, speaks with extensive expertise in this area, and I would welcome the opportunity to discuss the questions he has raised with him and with other noble Lords who would be interested in more detail ahead of Committee.
Tonight’s debate has universally welcomed the fact that the new system will be from birth to age 25. However, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, my noble friends Lord Lingfield and Lady Sharp, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, asked specific questions on the post-16 aspect of the new system, which I will seek to address now. We all recognise that some young people with special educational needs require more time to complete education beyond the age of 18. The Bill rightly enables them to do so, but we want to avoid the expectation that every young person with SEN will have an entitlement to education up to the age of 25 regardless of whether they are ready to make, or have already made, a successful transition into adult life.
I assure noble Lords that no young person who needs an EHC plan to complete or consolidate their learning can be denied one just because they are over 18. I should like to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Rix, specifically that supporting young people into employment is very much one of our ambitions. Chapter 6 of the indicative code of practice makes it clear that EHC plans should be focused on achieving outcomes and helping children and young people to make a positive transition to adulthood, including paid employment. We have also developed supported internships, which can be delivered by all colleges from this September.
My noble friends Lord Storey and Lady Sharp, among others, asked about the inclusion of higher education in the new SEN framework. Securing a place at university is a positive outcome for any young person. The higher education sector has its own very successful system of support in the form of the disabled student’s allowance and we should not seek to duplicate or replace it. However, we will look to improve the transition to university in the regulations and the SEN code of practice.
A number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Storey and the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, asked about our proposals for childminder agencies. This proposal is a small but significant part of the Government’s childcare reforms, which must secure higher-quality parental choice and affordability. We expect that Ofsted inspections will focus on ensuring that agencies are adept at assessing the quality of childminding and putting in place arrangements to drive up quality, ensuring that agencies provide proper support, training and guidance to their childminders and that parents can have confidence in their quality. Ofsted will bring forward specific proposals for inspection arrangements in due course and consult on them.
I am pleased that the House has welcomed the provisions in Part 5 on the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. I am grateful for the comments of the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey, Lady Gibson and Lady Lister, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro, the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and my noble friends Lord Eccles and Lord McColl. I look forward to further discussions about how the commissioner’s new powers will operate in practice. Meanwhile, I refer the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, to the note that my honourable friend the Minister for Children provided to the Standing Committee in the other place, which explains how the appointment process will work in line with the office of public appointments principles and code of practice.
I welcome the comments made by my noble friend Lady Perry and echoed by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, who rightly pointed out the importance of the measures in the Bill for women. The introduction of shared parental leave and the extension of the right to request flexible working will help to balance the roles and responsibilities in relation to childcare across the genders. I agree with my noble friend Lady Perry about the importance of these measures for fathers. This is about achieving real cultural change, which undoubtedly will take time. Families need and demand the changes in the Bill that will enable this cultural change to happen. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, rightly said, the Modern Workplaces consultation included consideration of a “daddy quota”—leave and pay reserved exclusively for fathers—although economic restraints mean that it is the wrong time to take this forward. I believe that the additional flexibility that shared parental leave will give families will provide far more choice and opportunities for fathers to take on more childcare responsibilities and to play a full role in their children’s lives.
As my honourable friend the Minister for Children has said, we are considering how the legislation for young carers might be changed so that rights and responsibilities are clearer to young carers and practitioners alike. We will also look at how we can ensure that children’s legislation works with adults’ legislation to support the linking of assessments, as set out in the Care Bill, to enable whole-family approaches. The Minister for Children and Families and the Minister for Care and Support will soon jointly meet the National Young Carers Coalition to discuss the key principles for taking this work forward over the summer, as well as how we can most effectively involve the NYCC during this period. I know that noble Lords will be keenly interested in our progress in this area, and we will be pleased to meet those who are interested to discuss it further.
I shall also address in writing the important issues raised by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, the right reverend Prelates the Bishop of Leicester and the Bishop of Truro, my noble friend Lord McColl, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and others concerning issues affecting care leavers and others in the care system, as well as support for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and care leavers. A number of noble Lords also raised the important issue of trafficked children, a particularly vulnerable group. I will respond to the specific points raised in writing following today’s debate. I will certainly agree to meet the noble Lord, Lord Knight, to discuss bereavement leave, and I will take the noble Baroness, Lady Young, up on her invitation to meet the families that she mentioned.
The later stages of this Bill, Committee in particular, will provide an opportunity to consider the detailed issues that noble Lords have raised today. I look forward to those debates and to engaging with noble Lords outside the House to clarify and discuss the Bill’s provisions. Again, I offer my thanks to all noble Lords who have spoken today. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.