Child Vulnerability (Public Services Committee Report)

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, I start, as others have, including the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, by paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, and her committee for the work that has been done on this report.

I do not think it is ground-breaking, actually. Depressingly, it repeats things that we already knew—things that we have heard before. From reading her previous report on public services during Covid and what can be learned, we are just not learning these lessons. There is nobody in this Chamber who has not heard the arguments before about data sharing, information sharing, early intervention and prevention and the need to work across government. We have all heard that a hundred times, yet it seems so fiendishly difficult for the Government to implement. I share the disappointment at the Government’s response so far but there is obviously always hope.

The LSE estimates that failing to invest in early years costs £16 billion, as the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, said. This is just a social and economic failure, as we all know. It is good that we have this opportunity to have this discussion. As I am getting to know the Minister a bit better over various things that we are having to do, I am pretty confident that she would share many of the things said by noble Lords this evening.

I would also like to welcome the Minister this evening, as she has been remarkably stoic in recent days. She has had the filleting of the Schools Bill to deal with, and the resignation of fellow Ministers. She is still here and still smiling, and we are very pleased to see her. Regardless of the drama happening at the other end of the building, it is good to have this opportunity to discuss this report from the Public Services Committee.

Could the Minister let us know whether she has had a chance to discuss any of these issues yet with the new Health and Education Secretaries? I know that, with three Education Secretaries in the last three days, it is not exactly a normal week, and we are realistic about what focus they would have been able to give, but we cannot carry on like that. These issues are urgent, and we need to attend to them as quickly as we possibly can.

This report reminds us that the number of vulnerable children was increasing even before the pandemic. It calls on the Government to publish a national strategy on child vulnerability, alongside long-term, protected funding for early intervention and prevention. The central point that the committee makes is not a new one: there is too little co-ordination, insufficient sharing of information across government, inadequate planning and a lack of focus. As I have said already, we have all heard this before; it is depressingly familiar. These are not things that the Government have to avoid—there are things that they could be doing now to approach this far more effectively.

In their response to the report, the Government say:

“Providing the right support at the right time for children and families is a priority across Government ... This focus must and will continue.”


While these words are welcome, it is striking that the Government are not as forthcoming with the means that the committee suggests would make a difference. As the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, said, there really should be a strategy. It is all too easy for the Government to say that they agree that early intervention is the best way to support vulnerable children, but if that is true, why did successive Tory Governments dismantle the support that was available in the form of Sure Start, early help and youth services?

The starkest paragraph in the report says:

“Spending on early intervention services in the areas of England with the highest levels of child poverty fell by £766 million between 2010 and 2019 … In areas of England with the lowest levels of child poverty, spending on early intervention services reduced by £182 million … Walsall, for example, has some of the highest levels of deprivation anywhere in England. Spending on early intervention services there fell by 81% … Surrey has much lower levels of deprivation, but overall spend on early intervention children’s services fell by 10%.”


As the noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, says—although I know that she did caveat this—funding is not the only thing that matters. Absolutely, but it does matter; it really makes a difference.

It might interest the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester that early intervention spending in Middlesbrough, where he worked, reduced by 64% between 2010 and 2019. I know Middlesbrough very well, as my family is from South Bank. When you read statistics like that and you know that community, you have to wonder what on earth was going on that a decision such as that could have been made. We know why it happened—it is because there was no strategy. If there had been, decisions about local government spending would not have been divorced from decisions that were made about child poverty and the Department for Education. Those things just have not been joined up. When local government finances were squeezed from 2010, when local government was responsible for many of the early intervention services that we are discussing this evening, what did Ministers think would happen to support for the most vulnerable children, often provided by their local council?

In their response to the report, the LGA said that

“funding announced by the Government in the Spending Review to invest in children’s health and wellbeing and parenting support was helpful. However, with spiralling demand on children’s social services and future cost pressures in children’s social care set to increase by an estimated £600 million each year until 2024/25, councils still find themselves in the unsustainable position of having to overspend their budgets.”

This is not the best way to encourage child-centred, cross-government support.

This is important because support for vulnerable children is not just about the Department of Health and the Department for Education; it requires leadership from local government, the Home Office, the MoJ, DCMS, Defra, the DWP and probably others as well. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, co-ordination among regulators would also help. I do not know how we will get this without a strategy. Working across government, as we are witnessing and as the Government have proven, does not happen organically, especially at a time of cuts in public spending. It takes leadership from the centre, a clear vision, priorities and a plan. What we have are multiple and, to an extent, complementary initiatives, plans and programmes, but we lack the energising leadership that government intervention always needs if it is to be sustained and effective.

Vital too is the role of the private, voluntary and charity sectors. We heard from my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley that local statutory services should work closely with the voluntary sector to identify and understand need. I agree with her that that is important and I would be interested to know what the Minister, with the invaluable experience she brings to this role, can say about how the Government can make this happen. In my experience, voluntary and community organisations are particularly good at building relationships of trust with parents that can help encourage positive engagement in health and other services.

Will the Minister also comment on why it appears that the Government are not adopting the recommendation for a local authority duty to evaluate local early intervention programmes? We agree that it is essential to assess the effectiveness of locally provided services and that this is not always straightforward, especially in the case of early intervention, given the length of time sometimes needed to demonstrate impact, but does this not make it all the more valuable for practitioners to agree sensible ways to regularly assess and evaluate programmes? Better still, how about an approach that allows co-production, so that interventions have the best chance of success?

On family hubs, the Government say that they

“welcome the committee’s feedback and thoughts on family hubs, which we will consider carefully.”

That is not really saying anything much, so have the Government really thought about what the committee has had to say on family hubs? I do not accept that family hubs are a progression from Sure Start. Hubs followed the decimation of Sure Start. Sure Start focused on the very youngest because that is where the biggest impact is made. If the choice were hubs or Sure Start—I wish it were a choice for us—I would have Sure Start every time. Hub coverage is just not comparable, but if the Government could extend the reach of hubs to cover the 20% most deprived communities, that would be a very good move.

The committee praised the fact that family hubs support children up to the age of 19, and I agree that that is a really good thing to do. The committee went further, though, in proposing that each hub should include domestic violence and addiction services, mental health support and parenting classes. Those are sensible suggestions and I would be very grateful if the Minister could let us know whether she will take them away and think about them. Will she also let us know what plans the Government have to speed the roll out of hubs and to make sure that the most vulnerable children are able to benefit?

It is really difficult not to compare family hubs with the Sure Start centres that came before them. It has been devastating to see the closure of so many Sure Start centres. Sadly, most of them were not around long enough for their full benefit to be known. The range of services, the inclusive ethos, the breaking down of barriers between communities, the understanding that everyone struggles from time to time when you have a young child, the infectious enthusiasm and sense of mission of the staff, from health visitors to managers and volunteer storytellers, were all irresistible. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, said, family hubs are supposed to be Sure Start-plus-plus-plus, but she is worried about a lack of urgency and so am I.

Not only does this report explain the inadequacies of the Government’s current approach but it highlights a way of doing government that is not joined up, where words are not followed by deeds, and individual plans are not supported by strategy. The Minister should use the opportunity of a new Secretary of State and his desire to make an impact in his first Cabinet role to explain this report to him so that he can reconsider the Government’s approach and commit to a national strategy. Will she do so?