Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Baroness Evans of Bowes Park

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 2 in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran. As we have just heard, it has a simple purpose: to allow families access to a family group decision-making meeting at the earliest possible opportunity in the child protection process. As I am sure noble Lords have seen, the Family Rights Group briefing, for instance, noted that, when a local authority issues parents with a pre-proceedings letter, concerns around a child’s welfare will already be serious and could mean that an intervention at this stage through a family group decision-making meeting is, unfortunately, already too late. The British Association of Social Workers and Coram have expressed similar worries that waiting could mean that opportunities to bring families together are lost, with difficulties having escalated too far to be addressed.

I believe that research on the ground shows that family group conferences can be effective whenever the time is right for the family—in most cases, that may well be the sooner the better. Indeed, some local authorities are already successfully offering family group conferences earlier on in the child protection process. As my noble friend outlined in her opening remarks, having a family group decision meeting earlier on would allow the wider family to more fully understand the local authority’s initial concerns, and it could— I am not saying it would—allow them to demonstrate that they were able to protect the child concerned.

I hope the Minister will look favourably on this proposal, which aims simply to ensure that families have the best possible chance of staying together if— I stress “if”—issues around a child’s welfare can be properly addressed at the earliest opportunity, or at the very least to ensure that the measures put into the Bill do not force this option to be totally closed off.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I was a family judge for about 35 years, and I tried mostly care cases. I very much support this amendment and will make three points. First, I entirely agree with the previous speakers: hold the meeting as soon as possible, because it is unlikely that the decision to make a make an application for a care order or an interim care order comes at a very early stage. One hopes that the social workers would have been working with the family before this becomes inevitable. Consequently, the sooner the discussions can be had—and the other members of the family identified where possible—the better it will be, and it may not be necessary to have the care application before the magistrates’ court in any case.

Secondly, not only is it important to have the meeting early but there must be a degree of ability for the local authority to deal with members of the family—because, not in every case but in some cases, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, has said, there will be very unhappy divorce proceedings pending, whereby the parties will use the children as the arena for their attacks on each other. That is the typical sort of unhappy divorce case—fortunately not frequent, but one that occurs in care proceedings. Consequently, you may find that one or both of the parents should not at some stage be at the meeting. It is crucial that local authorities are warned, if they do not know already, and given at least, under statutory guidance, some help on how to deal with that issue—not in this Bill, of course, but in statutory guidance.

The third absolutely crucial point that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, made is not to let a particular parent or someone with parental responsibility have the opportunity to use the meeting to delay the proceedings that are necessary. Again, it is absolutely crucial that, if a member of the family is trying to delay the proceedings, the local authority can go ahead without having the meeting. That is the one point that worries me about saying that they must have the meeting, although I think that probably, under the later part of Clause 1, it is possible not to have it. Again, in the statutory guidance it is crucial that local authorities are warned that the family meeting must not take place if, in fact, the delays are there for that particular reason.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Baroness Evans of Bowes Park

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, unusually, I entirely disagree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, has put forward by way of an amendment. It is not just overambitious—in my view, it is plainly wrong, for two reasons.

Although there is—thank goodness—a minority of almost insoluble family cases, there are other ways in which to deal with mediation. Some of the work, although not all of them do, and I do not think that a local authority should interfere in private law cases. Perhaps more importantly, there is a brilliant system started by the then Lord Chancellor, Alex Chalk, and the present President of the Family Division; I think it is called Pathfinder, but I am not entirely sure. It has been rolled out in four places. When a family starts contentious divorce proceedings, all those involved with the family—the local authority specifically, Cafcass, the police, local health people and anybody else who may be involved with the family—meet to decide whether it is a domestic abuse case, in which case it goes through a longer channel, or a case in which the parties are behaving properly but cannot agree.

In the majority of cases, as the President of the Family Division has told me—he also gave evidence to one of the Select Committees in the House of Commons on this, perhaps the Home Affairs Committee—he or other family judges get rid of the case within two hours; they are completed. It would be unnecessary and unsuitable to have a family meeting of the sort proposed. There are real dangers to it in the other cases, particularly since there are other systems. So unusually, as I very often agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, on this occasion I think that she is wrong and very much hope that the Government take no notice of her amendment.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I, instead, speak in support of Amendment 6. As we have heard, reunification is the most common way for children to leave care but, sadly, the number of children who re-enter the system remains far too high, as many reunifications break down due to lack of support. There is currently no strategy by which to support reunifying families, and 78% of local authorities admit that the support that they provide is inadequate.

A breakdown in reunification not only is tragic for the children and families involved but costs the Government around £320 million annually. Action for Children estimates that the cost of providing family decision-making support to meet the costs of all reunifying families across England would result in significant cost savings of a potential £250 million.

On the basis that this is accepted and viewed as a positive step among professionals, should be in the best interests of care for children leaving school and, finally, has the potential to provide cost savings to the Government, which could be recycled into the system, I hope that the Minister will look favourably on including in the Bill a duty to offer family group decision-making during reunification.