Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister may mention this in her response to my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe’s question about the data task force, but I just wanted to mention the Cabinet Office Evaluation Task Force, which is tasked with improving and addressing data across every area of government. Obviously, it cannot do that with every area of government, so it picked 10 priority areas, one of which is children’s social care. I mention it in the context of the excellent amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, because it could make a huge far-reaching difference. If it were to be looked at, then perhaps speaking to the Cabinet Office might be useful.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, briefly, these clauses are going to be incredibly important to empower information sharing, but I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for having raised so many of the practical concerns. The noble Lord, Lord Meston, has just asked for some objective criteria, but from my experience in general practice and, many years ago, in paediatrics, there did not seem to be a clear line very often—there were of shades of grey, an index of suspicion and a sense that something might not be right long before you could establish any objective evidence. The objective evidence sometimes came far too late.

I will never forget a child who, 50 years ago, had been dipped in boiling water. I was the admitting person in the A&E department as a junior doctor, having only just started in paediatrics. There were children admitted with injuries, and then when we went into it, we discovered that things had been going wrong for a long time previously. Later on, when I was on the health authority for Gwent, we had some tragic cases there, which I cannot disclose details of, but one of the recurring themes was that people had not put together the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle or connected the dots to realise what was happening.

So I worry that we will not ever be able to have absolute criteria; we have to allow discretion, which is what this amendment does. I note that subsection (7) of the new section states that:

“A disclosure of information … does not breach any obligation of confidence owed by the person making the disclosure.”

That is helpful, because, hopefully, you will see the person over and over again once you have an index of suspicion to try to ascertain what is going on before you trigger the referral, and the Bill says that each of those encounters must be documented. So you would document why you had not triggered at that point but you might trigger later.

It would be really helpful if, when the Minister responds to this debate, she can outline the way that the system is thought to work in practice and where the central repository of data will be. There is a concern that you can put data into a system, whatever the system is, but if you do not mine that data—if you do not have flags that come up that put the pieces together—you may get a lot of people, all saying, “Oh, but I reported it in”, and it goes into some kind of data black hole without really being joined up. There will need to be a responsibility for saying, “This looks like more than a one-off occurrence. There’s something going on here and it needs to be investigated”.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, my remarks on this group have shrunk somewhat, thanks to the Minister’s earlier reply, so this is really an opportunity for her to confirm and clarify some of her earlier comments in relation to the use of the NHS number, which is addressed through my Amendment 51, which I think shares the aims of Amendment 52, which the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, presented in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, earlier.

The context for considering this group of amendments is the long debate that has run for many years about whether there should be a consistent identifier for children and, if so, what that number should be. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, has campaigned on this very actively over many years, so I am sure she is here with us in spirit.

I was very reassured to hear the Minister say that there would not be a database and therefore that we do not have to worry about some of the concerns surrounding ContactPoint and other similar projects today. As your Lordships’ House knows, the Children’s Commissioner and leading children’s charities all support this move and believe that a consistent identifier

“will enable a child to be identified with more confidence”

across the multiplicity of information management systems that we know exist and therefore allow information

“to be shared more efficiently and securely when consent has been received or a safeguarding decision has been made to do so”.

Rightly, the assumption in their statement is that is that information can be shared only with consent—or, to be fair, if a safeguarding decision has been made to do so, which implies that there is no consent. So obviously, this will apply in both cases.

My amendment would do two things. First, it would put in the Bill that the consistent identifier would be a child’s NHS number. Many commentators on the Bill have said that it is important to do this rather than leaving it to regulations, and we need to be clear that the Government are not tempted by another major IT adventure in this area. Secondly, it would allow the Secretary of State by regulations to make provision relating to the consistent identifier. Our intention is to get clarity in the Bill that it is the NHS number, but then give the Secretary of State the flexibility she needs to keep the approach up to date. I know that the Minister has said—I do not want to put words into her mouth—that the Government are exploring using the NHS number, and it looks like the front-runner. Those are definitely not the words she used. I wonder whether she could elaborate a little, to the extent that she feels able, on whether it is really the NHS number or whether anything else is realistically in contention. Therefore, if that pilot was not successful, how much time and money would this set us back?

In debates on earlier groups, other noble Lords mentioned the limitations of the NHS number. Of course, there are children who do not have one, including unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, but the Minister has already given a constructive way through that, and there are also adoptive children. I know there are real concerns that adoptive children should have a single NHS number that does not change. I felt there was a hopeful hint behind her words, but maybe she can expand on that. I think there have been cases where changing numbers and not having that history of a child’s health has not been in the best interests of the child.

It would also be good to hear the Minister’s reflections on the concerns expressed by my noble friend Lord Jackson about families who might be driven away from registering with a GP because of concerns about how their data might be used, thus preventing access to basic healthcare for their children. How real a risk does she believe that to be? Either way, we think that those risks just pale in comparison with those of another new IT project and a number created purely for these purposes. If I have understood correctly that the NHS number is the front-runner, could she expand a little more on the Wigan pilot? Is it the only pilot that the Government are intending to run? How long will it run for? Will there be others? Will they be evaluated? Can she give us any hint on a timeline? I assume there will be no wider rollout until that work is complete. With that, I beg to move.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group and strongly congratulate the Government on having picked up the concept of a unique child identifier. I was part of the group, with the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, when we did not get there on previous legislation, and we were told that one reason was that the Department for Education could not see how it could do that and link with health, so seeing the Department for Education involved is particularly cheering.

I will make a case quite strongly for the NHS number rather than anything else, partly because I think we need to learn lessons from other number systems. If we look just at hospital records, different hospitals have different numbers and then there is the NHS number, and that has resulted in all kinds of clinical muddles and potential errors. The other thing is that children move around. People do not stay in the same area all the time, and the NHS number moves with them. If they have one number and move to a new area and register with a GP, for example, and then go to register with a school, if there have been major concerns then eventually those case notes will come through and people will become aware.

Going back to my previous experience, sometimes we found that the families with the highest risk had multiple addresses, out of town and in different cities. The other advantage is that, although we have devolved healthcare systems, we have a unique NHS number so, if people move between Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England, that number will persist. That is not a central database; it is simply saying that the number is there.

Children’s names change and their “known as” also changes. They may be known as another name but the number, a little like their genetic make-up, is fixed, which is really helpful. It will also avoid problems of lots of children having the same name, which is when muddles happen. I am from Wales, and we have a lot of people called David Jones and David Evans, and quite a few called David Williams, let alone Siân and Ceri. They are great names but, if you are trying to differentiate between them, you have to be really careful.

The final reason why I think this is particularly important is about transition and children who have learning difficulties and neurodiversity. Transition is an extremely difficult time for children. In those late teens, hormones are kicking in all over the place and all kinds of things are happening. Their relationships with the people who have been their carers through childhood change, and they can be at particular risk during those times, particularly during puberty if they have real learning difficulties.

I really hope that the pilot with the NHS number continues. When the Minister responds, it will be very helpful to know what kinds of numbers are being evaluated in those pilot areas—I hope there are more than one—so that the studies are sufficiently powered to be valid. Where have the objections come from? Who has not complied with being engaged? There may be some education needed to remove any sense of threat, because it will make safeguarding easier for people who have responsibility for children.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I was not going to intervene but, after hearing my noble friend, I cannot help but recall having to deal with some of the children of a man who, on inquiry, had had 11 sons by 11 different women. Because he was the sort of man he was, he insisted that each of them had his name.

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I reiterate the point I made earlier that it is not necessary for everything to be determined before the NHS number—if it is to be that—could start to be used. We can have an incremental introduction of the NHS number. We do not need to wait until everything is sorted. I hope that, with those reassurances, noble Lords will not press their amendments.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

As the Minister was speaking, I was thinking that the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has been campaigning for this for a very long time. I hope that she will be able to confirm that her officials would have involved the royal college in any discussions over any difficulties and doubts, because I think it would want to be very helpful. It represents, of course, the group of doctors who end up seeing some of the most severely damaged children.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am pretty certain that officials will have already consulted with the royal college, but, if they have not, I give the noble Baroness an undertaking that they will.

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[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the very good amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. If we are spending significant amounts of money on collecting this data and building a database and we have some of the best research facilities in the world, it seems to be sensible when looking at longitudinal studies to utilise that data properly.

My second and more prosaic point is that maybe I am missing something, but it seems to me that subsection (5) and subsection (14) are at variance with each other. They are quite loosely drafted in new Section 16LB. Will the Minister comment on that, because the great thing about the noble Lord’s amendment is that it has pointed out that there seems to be a discrepancy between the two subsections?

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I shall briefly speak in support of these amendments and of research. We do not need to have a national database established in order to do research because, first, research has to go through research ethics committees, so that is carefully scrutinised. You could take a representative sample of areas and use properly anonymised data. We can do that now. We can anonymise properly rather than using the old-fashioned pseudo-anonymisation, which was not helpful.

But in all these areas, I am afraid, we lack the evidence that we need to make sure that all our services are best targeted. When we are looking at very vulnerable children, we need to know which flags that are currently yellow flags should become red flags and which items do not show a correlation—although there has been an urban myth that they do correlate—so that the index of suspicion is appropriately targeted. To pick up on the point made by my noble friend earlier about having criteria, it is only through good research that we will get good criteria to determine the point at which we trigger an alert that a child is at risk and get that to happen earlier. It may well be that we are missing some important pointers just because they are not in people’s current consciousness, and there is a real danger in reacting to what I would call urban myths.

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[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, I support these very useful proposals, which, as my noble friend has just outlined, would ensure that child contact centres are adequately funded and their staff and volunteers properly trained to guard against domestic abuse.

However, I would add a further recommendation, also made within the final report of the Ministry of Justice on research into safeguarding processes in child contact centres in England. This urges a greater exchange of learning and good practices, to improve consistency across contact centre procedures and policies. Child contact centres themselves can benefit from learning networks, across and beyond their region or local authority, by comparing notes on what is necessary and what works best, including not only the prescriptions of this proposed amendment but the advocacy of certain other proven expedients, whereby the spread of knowledge of their collective efficacy then serves to raise standards, both here and abroad.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for her generous words.

These centres are really important for children who have come from extremely disturbed backgrounds. One thing that they need to be able to do is to have contact with the parent with whom it is not safe for them to be in custody in another area. As they grow up, if they do not have that contact, they can end up feeling resentful towards the state, and that the state separated them from the parent, rather than understanding what happened. I will not go into the various cases and stories, but there are certainly quite a lot to illustrate that issue.

The reason this amendment is important is that we know that there is a lack of basic safeguarding training in some contact centres; in others, it is at an extremely high standard. There is variability of practice around picking up and escalating concerns, and challenges are faced by the courts in identifying safe and affordable contact arrangements. As has already been alluded to, the harm panel report of 2020 highlighted that child contact centres have a role.

I could speak for a long time about them, but I will not. I hope that the amendment speaks for itself, and that we might be able to have some conversations beyond Committee and before Report about whether there is some way that the Government would like to incorporate in the legislation the principles behind this amendment, accepting that they may not like the wording as it is on the page at the moment.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I would like the Government to incorporate the wording of this amendment into the legislation—it seems admirable. I am asked by my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss to indicate her support for it as well. Accredited child contact centres are safe, neutral places providing for both supported contact and supervised contact arrangements—that is an important distinction. They allow children in separated families to see and enjoy contact with the non-resident parent and sometimes other family members.

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[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a valuable discussion, and I thank all noble Lords for their insightful and knowledgeable contributions. Child contact centres do indeed play an integral role in allowing parents to see their child in a safe environment for both parties involved. They allow parents not only to see their children, which is precious, but can act as a service to reconnect following significant time with no contact. Wherever safe and possible, parents should be able to see their children, and child contact centres allow this to happen.

Amendment 65 seeks to introduce regulations on child contact centres to ensure that they are accredited as regards safeguarding and prevention of domestic abuse. Child contact centres appear to be mostly under the umbrella organisation, the National Association of Child Contact Centres. This is a charitable organisation and, while these regulations appear sensible, we are concerned about the ongoing cost of implementation and structure. It would require inspections to take place, which would be a further financial burden, requiring additional staff to ensure compliance with these standards. We know that charities are already under pressure from increased national insurance contributions.

Of course, we respect the views of the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh, Lady Finlay and Lady Burt, and the noble Lord, Lord Meston, and we absolutely agree that these child centres should operate as a safe and enjoyable place for children to play, but we believe that this amendment has the potential to act as a regulatory burden on those very charities that are providing the service.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

I slightly question the noble Lord’s assumption that inspection would be required at the level that he has outlined. Very often, you have a very caring parent who is extremely worried about the welfare of their child or children, who is then having contact with another parent about whom there has been a great deal of concern. If that very caring parent finds that the contact centre to which they have been referred has not had mandatory training—and I would expect them, in this day and age, to look up on the internet details about the contact centre on its website—they are likely to raise a complaint early, and waiting until there is a formal inspection may be too late. The problem is that, if we do not require training and set some standards, it becomes extremely difficult for a court determining what is to happen to a child to be able to go in-depth and know whether its recommendation and judgment are going to be in the best interests of the child.

So I respectfully slightly challenge the noble Lord over that and suggest that other people, such as grandparents and aunts and uncles, who are very concerned too about what will have been a tragic situation in their family, would be very likely to check out whichever contact centre it is and would want to know the standards that should be there—because they can see whether they are happening or not. A bit like the Care Quality Commission doing spot checks on hospitals, that is how they will get the data: not through a formal inspection. So identification of problems could emerge if this is written into the Bill.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for her intervention and contribution. It was very interesting to hear the noble Lord, Lord Meston, say that a lot, if not all, of the contact centres are accredited. According to the NACCC website, there is DBS checking and there is provision in place. I take on board what the noble Baroness is saying, and that is why we are having this discussion—to get everyone’s views aired and come to an agreement.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I was unable to speak at Second Reading and I will resist the temptation to make a Second Reading speech now. Rather, I wish to concentrate on Amendment 1.

Any consideration of a proposed purpose clause should take us all back to the Renton report, in which it was said that sometimes such clauses can be useful and sometimes they can be unnecessary, and that they should be used selectively and with caution. On one view, the scope and effects of this Bill are clear enough and there does not appear to me, at least, to be any complexity for which a purpose clause would help interpretation.

However, there is perhaps some value in this amendment, which uses the word “improve” three times, emphasising the intention of the Bill—and the Bill as amended in due course—to achieve improvement in the areas specifically mentioned, and not to maintain or simply tweak the status quo. For that limited reason, I would support Amendment 1.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, in responding I hope the Minister will be able to point out that the purpose of the Bill has a golden spine running through it, and that is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The different clauses should be able to read across to the convention, and wherever the child is and whatever group they are in—and we have lots of groups in this Bill—fate can be extremely cruel, and we know that every day around 127 children lose a parent.

Bereavement is a major issue and hits different groups in different places at different times and affects their outcomes. I hope that we will have a statement from the Minister in responding to this which is about the principle of what we are really trying to do for children across the whole nation, everywhere.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I do not intend to make a Second Reading speech, but I am probably fairly unique in this House in that I was brought up in a children’s home. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Bird, who is not in his place, and I have a joke that he got to prison and I ended up in a children’s home but we both somehow ended up here.

What I find lacking in the Bill is that I have never felt that it is dealing with children; it is dealing with administration, with very worthy things. I do not feel that, when I was in a children’s home, I would have benefited from the feelings in the Bill. It just does not seem to take me anywhere. One of the problems we have to face is the attitude of society to children.

I am not going to tell a long sob story, but I was extremely badly treated by my parents. A lot of people tried to help—teachers, social workers, neighbours—but there was an air of embarrassed indifference. People wanted to help but did not feel they could; they did not know how to. One of the things we have to get away from is the idea that it is someone else’s job. For about five years I was chair of an outfit called the association of Labour social workers. That was when I was in the Labour Party, incidentally, I say to friends on this side. One thing that struck me was how difficult their job is. One false move and you are condemned. You often look at a child as a social worker and think, “This child should be in care. I should be going to a magistrate”. But as you work your way up the food chain, caution comes in. It is not cruelty; it is caution. People say “Are you sure? We don’t want to be all over the Daily Mail. We have to be careful. We have to respect the rights of the parents”. This is legitimate, but I do not think we should imagine that there is some golden, secret, easy way of dealing with this. I have said in this House before that you cannot privatise compassion. Whatever you do and however much you say, “Let the private sector deal with this”, you cannot deal with the human and emotional cost.

I will mention the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. He was leader of Sheffield City Council, of course, some time after I was in its care. If anyone wanted to see a local government machine which worked, it was the county borough of Sheffield. I was extraordinarily well looked after. They probably put me in the Labour Party for about 30 years, before I found my natural home.

Sheffield, under the formidable presence of Alderman Grace Tebbutt—I think only the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, will remember that name—ran the children’s homes in an extremely compassionate and direct way because she knew what was going on there. She knew quite a lot of the children. The lesson I took from that was that you have to respect the children. I was not an easy child by any means—any more than I am easy now.

One thing I will give a man called John Freeman and his assistant Mary Armitage, the director and deputy director of children’s services in Sheffield, was that they listened. They were prepared to listen to a 13 year-old child. That helped enormously, because I felt suddenly that I was valued. Someone wanted not only to hear what I wanted but to explain why it could not happen, to help it happen or, often, to half help it happen, because I had not understood the situation and they had. They also understood the need to listen in order to shape the outcome to the need. That is why intervening on this amendment is relevant—because that does not come through in the Bill, and I am not sure I have the expertise to bring it through, but I am willing to work with anyone who thinks they have.

The old children’s department network was a success. When I began my official career as the research officer for the Committee on One Parent Families, Baroness Lucy Faithfull, who was a Member of this House and knew an enormous amount about children, and Barbara Kahan—who never joined this House but was the children’s director for Oxford and a member of the Finer committee—helped inform us of what it felt like to be a child. That was missing. We had a lot of seminars with very well-meaning people—often men, I have to say—who told us what children wanted, but, until Lucy Faithfull came along, we had very little contact with children who were actually in care, to try to shape things for them.

So I say to the Minister—this is not a criticism but is meant as a help—that we must try, if we can, to reshape the Bill just slightly so that it brings the child to the fore, rather than the administration, because it is the children who, at the end, will be affected by the Bill. It is they who will, in years to come, either bless or curse us for what is in it. There will not be much from the officials—we will all have long passed away—but it is the children, some of whom are not yet born, who will be the recipients of the policies we end up with.

We are all people of good will here—including the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, behind me, and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, whom I knew by repute when he was leader of Sheffield, although I had long left—and we try to do our best. We must now extend that to the Bill, so that we have done our best.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

Children are the fabric of the future, to paraphrase the excellent maiden speech from the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed. Legislating for the welfare of children is crucial, and we must take this opportunity to provide equal protection of children in law from assault. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health strongly supports such amendment. Its report last year showed that children who experience physical punishment were up to 2.6 times more likely to experience mental health problems and more than twice as likely to be victims of serious physical abuse. This is because the definition of “reasonable punishment” is unclear.

Last year, Worcestershire’s safeguarding review into the murder of nine year-old Alfie flagged up the difficulty in distinguishing

“between what is lawful and proportionate and what is harmful and abusive”.

The preceding year, after the death of Child AK, Norfolk’s review concluded that the current law was confusing by allowing a defence of reasonable chastisement in criminal prosecutions for assault. I was glad to hear others raise this and hope the House will support this overdue change. Scotland and Wales have already tackled this; giving children equal protection against being assaulted in the name of chastisement does not criminalise parents. The Scottish Government’s implementation group has not noticed a significant impact on work in the Procurator Fiscal Service or Police Scotland. Wales introduced a rehabilitative alternative to prosecution with no increased criminalisation of parents. We cannot leave the current legal confusion in place and leave children living in fear of common assault.

Ten years ago, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health called for a single unique identifier, using the NHS number, but we failed to get it into previous legislation. Sadly, the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel reported that 485 children were affected by serious child safeguarding incidents in 2023-24 and the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care recently emphasised that a consistent identifier is essential for frictionless sharing of information between public agencies. So this clause is to be welcomed, but red flags must be rapidly acted on. I hope the Minister can tell us how, and how the process will be evaluated.

A unique identifier will help healthcare professionals quickly identify who has parental responsibility, especially for children in kinship care or with complex needs. This is especially important in emergency and palliative care, and the prevalence of children with medical complexity has risen almost threefold since 2000. Having kinship carers on the face of the Bill is welcome. Like any parent, they must be involved in decisions about their child, especially when the situation is critical and life-threatening. Sadly, parents in crisis at such times can feel inadequately listened to by clinicians and others.

There is a gap between the two parts of the Bill. This relates to bereaved children. No data is collected on the number of children bereaved of a parent or sibling, and half of bereaved children, young people and adults who spoke to the UK Commission on Bereavement said that they received little or no support from their educational setting after their bereavement. More than half of kinship carers said that their kinship children had mental health difficulties, often linked to bereavement. We must put well-being at the heart of education, especially for children who are bereaved, abused or vulnerable. We have work to do.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th January 2020 Lords Chamber

When this agreement was reached between Ministers at Westminster and the Welsh Government, the draft Bill did not contain any provision for Ministers, by regulation, to transfer the functions of the IMA to another body. That is why, now, we need this amendment. It is necessary to include this provision to ensure that there is no danger of UK Ministers circumventing the appointment of members. Over the decades, there could be good reasons for a number of cases falling and for the merging of the IMA’s functions with another tribunal or court. If that is to happen, it is essential that these safeguards are built in. The point of this amendment is to try to ensure that that happens, if not in the Bill then perhaps by a statement from the Minister responding tonight. That would give some assurance that the agreement reached privately in Cardiff underpins the Government’s thinking at this stage in the process of the Bill.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, the background to this amendment has been well explained by both my friends who have spoken. I would like to stress the importance of this as signalling to the Welsh Government a way forward and a real commitment to make sure that the devolution settlement is respected, now and into the future. Amendment 59 seeks to ensure that if the functions are transferred to another body—I stress “if”—the same obligations should apply as far as is possible in respect of the appointment of a member with a knowledge of Wales.

We now have legislation and regulations in Wales which are interpreted as providing a degree of divergence in some areas; health has already been cited and other areas include education, agriculture and local environment. Therefore, a very real difficulty could arise if the function is transferred to a body that has a mandate only for England, or to a body with governance that does not involve members from Wales who have a working knowledge of Wales and understand the detail of the regulation by which the Welsh Government have overseen services and their organisation and strategy.

If the Minister believes that such an amendment is unduly detailed for inclusion in the Bill, I hope that, at a minimum, he will make a commitment before the House that Ministers intend to act in accordance with the spirit of the provisions on the IMA if functions are at any time transferred to another body.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, my contribution to this debate on Amendment 59 will be very brief, because everyone has said what I want to say. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, for tabling this amendment and giving me the opportunity to add my name to it. I am also grateful for the detailed analysis that he and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, provided, and for the comments of the noble Baroness.

The independent monitoring authority for citizens' rights will, as noble Lords have outlined, be composed of an independent board of members with experience of matters covered by the citizens’ rights agreements, and—this is important—knowledge of the relevant laws and issues in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and, I believe, Gibraltar. As the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, pointed out, it is important to note that these qualifications for membership of the IMA are the result of many hours of negotiation between the Government and the devolved Administrations. The qualifications have been taken very seriously. The amendment seeks to ensure that if the functions of the IMA are transferred to another body, the same qualifications for membership of the new body should apply. This seems to be an eminently sensible, simple and straightforward request. I hope that the Minister can commit to it from the Dispatch Box tonight.

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[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, it is of the nature of the IMA’s function that it involves consideration of the views of the devolved Administrations and Gibraltar. It also involves consideration of the interests of those in England. We have to have regard not only to Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland but, in this context, England and Gibraltar. It would be appropriate to consider all their interests if we were to put forward a proposal for the abolition of the IMA. Indeed, I find it difficult to conceive of a situation in which we could put forward a proposal for the abolition of the IMA at the joint committee without having consulted the devolved Administrations. It strikes me as so improbable that one should not give much weight to it.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

I hope the Minister will forgive me interrupting. I was wondering whether I would wait until the end of his remarks, but this follows on from the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. In the event of the transfer to another body and a view that the IMA could be slimmed down, can the Minister provide assurance that the required consultation of the devolved Administrations would happen—with the devolved Administrations having a say rather than it being tokenistic consulting; I am not asking for a veto—and that there would be no possibility of them then being charged in any way or being requested to provide financial support for having as a member somebody who had particular knowledge of their area, whether it is Wales, Scotland, Gibraltar or Northern Ireland?

Can the Minister explain to me—this is my ignorance —why paragraph 39(1)(b) of Schedule 2 is in italics and the other parts of the Bill are not? Is there some significance to it being in italics?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, I am not immediately aware of the significance of the italics, but no doubt someone will pass me a piece of paper in a moment that explains them—or not, as the case may be.

We have not yet determined the cost—this also responds to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves—or budget requirements for the IMA. I therefore cannot comment further on that. The obligation to ensure that it is fully and properly funded lies on the Secretary of State and therefore on the UK Government. What further or future negotiation there might be about cost sharing is a matter beyond the terms of the Bill. I would imagine that if we start with an obligation that lies with the Secretary of State and the UK Government it will not easily be transferred in any form to the devolved Administrations. Perhaps one day we will have a reverse Barnett formula, but we do not have one at present.

In the circumstances I have set out I hope it will be appreciated by the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, that Amendments 58 and 60 are not required in this context. The approach that we take to exercising the powers with regard to the IMA will be proportionate and appropriate and it would therefore not be necessary or appropriate that the procedures in the Public Bodies Act 2011 should apply. The bodies to which that procedure usually applies are those established on the basis of domestic policy. It will be appreciated that this is a rather different body which is the product of an international agreement and therefore it has to comply with the obligations we have entered into at the level of international law and it should not be tied to domestic legislation.

On the noble Baroness’s observations about the italics that appear in the Bill, it may well be that she alighted upon an issue that may arise later in the day, but I am advised very clearly that it is a misprint. Apparently, the entire Bill should have been in italics.

I have sought to reassure noble Lords about the concerns that have been raised and which have motivated these amendments. We have sought to design the IMA to provide robust, effective and fully independent oversight of citizens’ rights and our commitment to citizens’ rights. It is necessary to bear in mind that we are implementing international law obligations that we have incurred by entering into the withdrawal agreement. The clause and the schedule in their present form meet those international obligations and the demand for robust, effective and fully independent oversight of citizens’ rights and obligations. I hope that noble Lords will not press their amendments.

Asylum Seekers: Employment

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I agree with what most of what the noble Baroness says. Asylum seekers can do voluntary work, which would certainly improve their mental well-being, but I disagree about the benefit to the economy.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, can I ask the Minister how many of those waiting in the system are healthcare professionals at any level? While they are waiting, are they being provided with English language skills and tuition to enable them to take the examinations they need in order to work subsequently in their own profession?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I do not have disaggregated figures on what types of skills people claiming asylum possess, but I agree with the noble Baroness that anyone settling in this country should have English language proficiency. It is the best route to economic empowerment.

Global Gender Equality

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the Minister on the leadership she has shown, both in her speech opening this debate and in the way that she is taking these issues forward. The theme is rightly on Women Deliver: it is worth reflecting that we have already heard in the debate how women deliver not only children, but their upbringing; they deliver food and water to those who need them; where they receive education they then deliver education in spades; they deliver—and really are the route to—peace; and when older they deliver as grandmothers when a mother is ill or has died.

In March 2018, the Department for International Development published its strategic vision, stating its intention to,

“step up and deliver results for girls and women, pressing DfID and its partners to take action across the board to make gender equality a reality”.

Education and healthcare are of course key priorities in addressing gender inequality, particularly maternal, sexual and reproductive health rights. As has already been pointed out, every year more than 300,000 women die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth; 99% of these deaths occur in developing countries and more than half in sub-Saharan Africa.

The vast majority of maternal deaths, injuries and illnesses could be prevented but, sadly, not all. Even when high-quality reproductive and maternal health services are in place, things sometimes go wrong. On my way here, in preparation for the debate, I had a communication from UNESCO’s Bioethics Group, of which I am a member, representing my department at Cardiff University. It concerned something that happened last week. Following the death in delivery of a patient, a mob attacked the intensive care unit at a hospital, assaulted the staff with rods, including the female gynaecologist, and left her severely injured. In Darjeeling, violence against medical professionals seems to be reaching new heights, as this recent case of assault shows. The incident took place at the Darjeeling Sadar district hospital on Saturday, when a pregnant woman with a history of cardiac illness, thus already at great risk, was brought there by her family. She collapsed in the ward and was rushed into coronary care but when the doctor conducted a ventouse—that is, a vacuum delivery—in difficult circumstances, sadly the baby was delivered dead. The patient was intubated immediately after delivery, but all resuscitation efforts failed and she died within a few minutes. The news of the patient’s death reached the family and an angry mob rushed in, attacking the staff and vandalising the ICU. I was sent photographs of this poor woman sitting on a bloodstained floor with her head bandaged, having been attacked when she had done all that she could to resuscitate the patient.

There are movements highlighting the problem of women delivering healthcare being attacked. In the eight months to the end of last year, 60 women doctors were beaten up in Kashmir. The result, sadly, has been that some women doctors are staying away from labour wards because they are just too frightened to deal with women with complications. There are movements such as “stop violence against doctors” and “doctors are also human”. In all our debates, we must remember that unless we protect women healthcare workers, we really will not be able to provide the services that women need, particularly because they often need them from other women. An interesting recent study from America showed that women providing front-line clinical care carry a much greater burden of the childcare and domestic duties than their partners do, even when they are working full-time or more than their partners are.

Maternal mortality rates are notably high in areas of conflict. In conflict, access to contraception is often one of the first things that women lose. Clinics close, doctors move on, medical supplies diminish and, as we have heard, women often become the victims of gender-based violence. That violence continues long after a peace agreement has been signed. UK development and peace and security strategies must ensure that there is a gender perspective to protect the human rights of women and girls and, as has been said, ensure their participation in conflict prevention and conflict resolution. As has been said, in war zones women and girls are often targeted for rape. Women and their children make up approximately 80% of all refugees, as stated by the State of World Population report. Emergency contraception can be critical, and it is also important for women who are unable to have their partners negotiate condom use.

Women who are affected by conflict often lose their homes and their income. They may be forced into prostitution and other exploitative relationships in order to feed themselves and their families. Despite the role of condoms in preventing sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, if the partner refuses to use one, women have little power to persuade them. A recent report by Family Planning 2020, FP2020 Catalyzing Collaboration 2017-2018, found that the push to boost the number of women in the poorest countries using safe contraception seems to be slipping. Despite an increase of 46 million in the number of women accessing contraception in the last six years, reaching a total of 317 million, the report said:

“Looking at projected trends, the hill is simply too steep to climb in the two years remaining in this initiative”.


As we have heard, the impact of sexual violence lives on for decades. As the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, has said, in Vietnam there is a major problem. The Lai Dai Han are the tens of thousands of children of Vietnamese women raped by some of the 320,000 South Korean soldiers deployed to fight alongside the US during the Vietnam War. The story of one woman is quite telling. She was a young nurse, a virgin at the time, who became pregnant and was then ostracised by her family. Her attempted abortion failed and she gave birth to a daughter. Suffering a life of shame, secrecy and prejudice, she was later brutally raped twice more by soldiers, giving birth to another girl and a boy. She has raised her children singlehandedly, but they have all experienced bullying and cruelty from the local community.

Some of those raped or subjected to sexual violence were as young as 12 or 13. There are more than 800 such victims alive and tens of thousands of young adults of mixed Vietnamese-Korean heritage living in the shadows in their own society. Many live in severe poverty, with no access to healthcare and education. Because many are illiterate, they cannot advocate for themselves.

Even in peacetime, affordable contraception can be an elusive goal. I recall an auntie who, in the 1960s, volunteered to provide family planning services when she was living in the West Indies. She said that even though they fitted women with diaphragms, she discovered that the diaphragms were being collected by men after sexual intercourse and held as trophies, so they were becoming single-use contraception only, rather than being for repeated use. It highlighted the problem for these women in avoiding pregnancies when they wanted to do so.

The recent report from the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, the watchdog scrutinising spending, highlighted that between 2011 and 2015,

“DFID did not pursue the strengthening of health systems to provide quality maternal care with the same intensity as it did for family planning, nor did it do enough to address the barriers that the poorest women face in accessing health services”.

Although Britain has been praised as,

“a vocal champion of family planning and safe abortion”,

I ask the Minister why DfID are not doing more to champion safe pregnancy and delivery. We know that,

“severe shortages of beds, trained personnel, equipment and supplies”,

mean that women are dying from “basic obstetric complications”, including obstructed labour, uterine rupture, eclampsia, haemorrhaging to death and dying of infection. This very high maternal mortality cannot be tolerated around the world. We should be making sure that, during birth, every woman is attended by somebody who knows what to do when the biggest emergencies arise.

Sierra Leone has the highest maternal mortality rate: one in 17 women there have a lifetime risk of death associated with childbirth. In the Pujehun district, for example, there is just one ambulance for a population of 340,000. In the fallout following Ebola, healthcare has become more difficult overall, and it is predicted that this mortality rate will rise further. In Sudan, the aid ban is exposing women to risky births; the story of one woman was covered in the Guardian in 2017.

In some countries, things are being done well. In some Middle Eastern countries, mosques are serving as more than just centres of faith and are being used for training people in the insertion of IUDs and so on. The WHO has launched a new tool on safe contraception for front-line care providers, which provides guidance on the who and how of delivery, including a checklist to confirm that a woman is not pregnant.

The UNFPA’s aim to achieve three zeros by 2030,

“zero unmet need for contraception; zero preventable maternal deaths; and zero gender-based violence and harmful practices, such as child marriage and female genital mutilation”,

is laudable. We must cling on to that. We must also follow the example already given and provide leadership across the world.

Schools: Free Sanitary Products

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I have tried to relay that issue; I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, asked her Question in the first place precisely to addresses these issues too. These girls are embarrassed and some of them do not come to school because they cannot access these products.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

Will the guidance given to educational establishments on procuring sanitary towels, and possibly tampons, include some guidance about the ecological effect of disposal? Will it make sure that, rather than simply going for the cheapest option, girls also go for the least harmful products in terms of environmental destruction?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am glad that the noble Baroness has raised that point because one of the concerns that will be addressed in the procurement exercise is to see whether there are organisations which can in fact provide the sustainable products she has talked about on a large scale.

Refugees

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I can only say “in due course” at the moment, but I am very happy to meet with her and the Red Cross.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

Have the Government undertaken discussions with the banks? The problem is that universal credit is paid to banks, but refugees cannot prove residency and therefore need an alternative system to prove that they are refugees when opening a bank account.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I certainly recognise that bank accounts are a difficulty for refugees. Local authorities were doing a pilot in 19 local authority areas, appointing 35 local authority liaison officers. They are there to give just that type of support, because we recognise that that is an issue.

Amesbury Incident

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, after the Salisbury attack general practitioners in the area and the emergency department were advised to phone 111 for information. That resulted in delays in clinicians understanding what to do. It is completely understandable that complete secrecy is needed while an investigation goes on for that investigation to be secure and for national security. However, there is also a need to link with somewhere such as the National Poisons Information Service so that clinicians at the front line can receive appropriate targeted clinical information. Has such a system now been put in place following the concerns expressed by GPs last time? Unfortunately, we all feel that there may be further incidents in the future involving acts of terrorism.

Health: Alma-Ata Declaration

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

We need to remember that, in Alma-Ata in particular, we are referring to some of the poorest countries in the world. We have the best health service in the world. That is not just my word; that was recognised by the Commonwealth Fund, which produced that statistic saying that we have the best healthcare. It is a tremendous service. In many of the countries that we are dealing with, people have to travel for days or weeks to get any sort of health intervention. We need a priority to ensure that those people are brought into the ambit of the sustainable development goals so that they get the healthcare they need and we save lives as well as being mindful of the important responsibility we have in this country.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

Given the excellent public health record that now 91% of the global population has improved water—up from only 76% in 1990—does DfID still recognise that 2.3 billion people do not have access to a decent toilet and that it is important for our own health that the 9 million new cases of tuberculosis worldwide are diagnosed early and managed appropriately? Will DfID undertake to work with those of us in end-of-life care and pain relief to make sure that the 150 countries where there is virtually no access to any pain relief are encouraged to come into line with modern science in pain relief?

[Lord Bates]

I am very happy to do that. Of course, with these waterborne diseases, clean water and sanitation are important. They come under sustainable development goal 6, which we are committed to as well. We are dealing now with the Rohingya situation in Cox’s Bazar—the diphtheria outbreak there is waterborne. There is a massive outbreak of cholera in Yemen. These are important issues, which is why we are drawing on the resources of British taxpayers and ensuring that they are distributed to the people in need.