Modern Slavery Bill
Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Howarth of Breckland(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I want to speak briefly on what might appear to be a rather discordant note. I support the government amendments for the following reasons. I have great sympathy with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, which has been supported. However, when the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, raised the issue about child exploitation, we talked about the spectrum of people with needs.
In local authorities there are individuals with as high a level of need as some trafficked individuals—and I am not saying that trafficked individuals do not need a specialist service. I work with some of the relevant organisations, and a specialist service is needed. There are numerous sexually exploited young people who the local authority is attempting to support—the Children Act 1989 was as special as this legislation is—but because of cuts in local authority spending, children’s services are unable to provide the level of service needed, particularly in mental health support services, hostels for runaways and a whole range of services that we would expect to be given to asylum seekers. It is therefore difficult to set a standard for one group of individuals and say that we are not going to meet it for others.
I would be delighted if the Minister were able to say, “We are going to set this standard, and it should be for all individuals who have these needs”. However, under the 1989 Act, children who are described as being in need—there are thousands on local authority books—are simply not receiving those services. I wanted to inject that into the debate because someone has to speak for the local authorities, which are continually derided as not providing services appropriately. I speak as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, but that is neither here nor there. I simply hear from social workers and people in communities who are attempting to deliver services but against all odds. If there are specialist advocates who can give a high-quality service, such as guardians ad litem—I was eight years in CAFCASS, and I know all about the services such specialists are able to give—we need to look to enabling local authority social workers to give such services to every child in need.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, we dealt in the previous group of amendments with the distinction, or lack of it, between “reason to believe” and “reasonable grounds to believe”, and to which the noble Lord, Lord McColl, referred. Here, just as on that issue, the guidance will be important in making clear the position. That is because the first few days are so critical, as the noble Lord and others have said.
Guidance will also be important as regards our international obligations, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, referred. Looking at Amendment 78, I have been wondering whether it is necessary to detail what are already obligations, or whether one should have simply the general umbrella description, so that we are not stuck on any particular points. It might be necessary because we are, we hope, making quite a step change. It might also be necessary because having them spelt out in primary legislation will be an easier route to a remedy through the courts; but I raise the point because, if the amendment is not accepted, the guidance will be important in that regard.
Modern Slavery Bill
Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Howarth of Breckland(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I would ask for some clarification. I am becoming very confused about the difference between the idea of slavery and trafficking and that of child neglect and exploitation, which we have been dealing with for many years through general children’s legislation. Listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, describe her cases, as an ex-director of social services and a social worker, I am appalled that action was not taken. However, I know that it is difficult to work between the criminal and the civil law. Under civil law, social services will act to remove a child and protect it, while at the same time trying to act through the criminal law against the perpetrators. There may be a gap there. Others have worked for years trying to ensure that those things hold together, but that is different from having a new piece of law about exploitation that then overrides the existing provisions in children’s legislation. Is the Minister prepared to look at this, maybe with lawyers, to see whether there is a gap in children’s legislation which this could plug and whether we are not being firm enough about practice and training?
We have seen what happened in Rotherham. In talking to the police this morning at a round-table meeting following the work that the all-party parliamentary group did on children and the police, it was quite clear that they have learnt a great deal and are moving in their practices and procedures. We will see change there. I would like to ensure that similar change happens in local authorities because, although there is good practice, as a former local authority worker I am sometimes appalled and ashamed at what we do about poor practice. I have two questions for the Minister. First, is there a gap? Secondly, what are the Government doing to ensure that everyone is encouraged to practise within the existing law to the highest possible standards?
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, “cautionary” strikes the right note. I am glad that the noble and learned Baroness added to my lexicon. I was searching for the right term and I share her caution.
The EU Rights of Victims of Trafficking in Human Beings, which was published last year, makes it clear that:
“The child’s best interest shall be a primary consideration and shall be assessed on an individual basis”.
That reflects the directive, which refers to a child-sensitive approach but does not provide for a separate offence relating to children. It deals with penalties and special treatment but makes it quite clear that children are within the overall offence. The noble and learned Baroness also referred to the issue of consent, with which we have just dealt.
The forms of exploitation that are listed in the amendments and about which we have heard today are absolutely abhorrent, but I am one of those who are concerned that we do not inadvertently weaken the position in looking after children. In its pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, the Joint Committee on Human Rights refers to,
“the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child”,
and says what a shame it is, in effect, that the Government have not responded to that in time for the detail of the response to feed into the Bill. Having made that criticism and referred to that more up-to-date piece of work, the committee goes on to say that although it is “sympathetic”, it recognises that,
“there is considerable evidence to support the Government’s view that there is likely to be a serious practical problem in prosecuting child-specific exploitation and trafficking offences”,
for the reasons that it sets out in the report. I, too, take the Government’s—and indeed the DPP’s—point about proof of age. Age may be an aggravating factor that will go to sentence, which is how I think it should be dealt with.
Reference has been made to article 2 of the directive. Indeed, as has been said, the amendment quotes from article 2. However, as I read it, those words are there not as a stand-alone offence but, in effect, to define exploitation in the context of trafficking for exploitation. Those words are in article 2.3, although the offence is in article 2.1. We will come on to this, and I am prepared to at least be persuaded that we have not got the definition of trafficking wrong. There is a lot of concern that trafficking, as it is dealt with in Clause 2, is not spelt out sufficiently extensively. Article 2 of the directive uses terms including “harbouring” and “reception”, which might answer at least one of the examples that we have heard about. The description of exploitation in article 2 is not there, as I read it, as a separate stand-alone offence.
I cannot let this go without echoing the points that have been made about both practice and training. They are not central to these amendments but, my goodness, they are central to the whole way in which, as a society, we respond through a number of different agencies—and indeed as individuals—to the abhorrence of slavery and trafficking.
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill
Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Howarth of Breckland(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, I shall speak briefly in support of this amendment and make three points. First, during my life, I have worked in some of London’s most insecure areas and seen insecure estates in the rest of the country. In north Brent and Brixton, crime was rife and burglary, in particular, was at a very high level. On a huge estate—I will not name it, because it has improved so much and I do not want to give it another bad name—I saw design improvements which removed some of the interconnecting corridors and looked at locks, considering the way in which the whole design process was put together so that it reduced crime substantially. If we start with design and local authorities have the option of putting design in place, we will ensure from the beginning that we do not create new estates where problems begin and residents suffer great dismay.
My second point is the localism argument, which has already been made very successfully. The third point is that anything that prevents burglary anywhere must be supported. Like other speakers, I do not understand how it is possible to assess where burglary is going to take place before an estate has gone up. In any case, people should be protected equally. Anyone who knows people who have been victims of burglaries, particularly some of the most vulnerable, will know that we should do everything in our power to prevent the emotional trauma—it is almost like rape—that they feel when they go into their homes and find tremendous damage. It is not just that things have been stolen; it is the feeling of intrusion into their lives.
There are very good reasons to support this amendment. The technical reasons have been put clearly by the noble Lord who moved the amendment and other speakers, and I support it on those grounds.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I have been enthusiastic about designing in security for as long as I have had any involvement in planning, not just for the protection of property, but for the protection of people.
Two things confuse me about the amendment. One is that the debate, both on the last occasion and to a large extent today, seems to be about products and materials. I have always thought that designing in security starts with things such as defensible space, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Condon, and lighting, sight lines and corridors, mentioned by the noble Baroness. I am puzzled why so much of the debate has been about the strength of locks and window locks which, if they are considered anywhere, seem to be more a matter of building control than development control of the planning area.
Like many other noble Lords, I am instinctively against topdown impositions of requirements which should come about bottom up, organically, by local authorities, police and others working in partnership. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, talked about localism and I of course support that, but I would like to ask the Minister some questions relating to this. Perhaps he can explain to the House, and flesh out a little, the extent to which the security issues which we have been discussing can be taken into account in the refusal or imposition of conditions on planning consent currently made by a planning authority. Are there material considerations? I am asking whether the planning authority can currently specify as a condition the sort of security issues that we are all concerned about.
What the amendment proposes is, in a sense, statutory guidelines that would be discretionary in their application. That takes me to the second area where I confess to being a bit puzzled. I am unclear what precludes a local authority drawing up guidelines without having legislation requiring the guidelines to be there and available for the local authority to adopt at its discretion. Do we actually need something in an Act of Parliament which says, “Let’s do some work on something very sensible, but we are not even going to require it to be implemented”?
Children and Families Bill
Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Howarth of Breckland(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I want to intervene briefly to say two things. All this is about perception as against fact and we have to ask ourselves why we are dealing with this clause at all. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, will know very well that CAFCASS, when being pressed by fathers who were saying that the presumption was against them, carried out research which showed that there was no presumption either way.
Of course there are miscarriages of justice. We cannot deny that from time to time in all areas of the law there will be miscarriages of justice, for both women and men, but that is not to deny the overriding information and the principle. I am very concerned that if we lose the paramountcy of the welfare of the child, the confusion that will follow will lead to other perception issues.
The other perception issue is very clearly, as one or two noble Lords have intimated, what is in the press—and that is that the father, it is usually the father, will be able to gain shared parenting. What they mean by shared parenting is half and half. We know how damaging that would be to a child, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, said, when seen through the child’s eyes. If you talk to children and young people who are before the court, they want their parents to stay together—you have to work through all that—and then they want their lives disrupted as little as possible. They want to remain in the same school; they want to be able to see their friends at the weekend; they do not want to take a suitcase somewhere else every two weeks—although, I have to say, some children quite enjoy it. I have talked to kids who really enjoy having two places and adjust to it. However, many do not, and therefore it is important that the child’s wishes and feelings are taken firmly into consideration. I think the perception will be that fathers, in particular, can get a different agreement from the court, rather than the paramountcy of the welfare of the child being the main issue.
Several noble Lords have alluded to the Australian experience but we should take it extremely seriously. If this has been tried elsewhere and has gone seriously wrong, why should we do it here and create the same situation? We should remind ourselves that they had this legislation and that the research evidence showed that the number of cases where children’s time was divided increased substantially. The whole thing became dysfunctional to the point that in 2011 the Australian Government were forced to legislate again to prioritise the safety of children over the wishes of adults. I am quite sure that this Government, particularly the noble Lord, Lord McNally, would not wish to find that we were not prioritising children and had to change the legislation after damage had been done. So let us deal with the perceptions and base our legislation on fact.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, the noble and learned Baroness says that the judges would cope with Section 1 of the 1989 Act being amended by this but I do not think we want to wait for a judicial review as to exactly what would be meant if the new words were inserted in Section 1. If they were inserted in the form that we have in Clause 11, we would have Section 1(1) saying that welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration—if that is not a presumption, I am even more concerned about it; then Section 1(2) saying that in dealing with delay the court shall have regard to that general principle; and then proposed new subsection 2A referring to presumption unless the contrary is shown.
I have never practised in this area so maybe it does not matter, but I am very unclear as to how weighty the contrary needs to be. To put it in different terms, are we talking about the contrary shown on a balance of probabilities or beyond reasonable doubt? The noble and learned Baroness has those words in her amendment, to which I and my noble friend Lady Walmsley, who is not in her place, have added our names. I do not think they would have the same difficulty when tied to having particular regard as they would to a presumption. I become more and more confused as to what Clause 11 means by a presumption unless the contrary is shown. A presumption is a presumption.
Children and Families Bill
Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Howarth of Breckland(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, I shall speak only briefly to the amendment because I presume that the Minister’s response will be that this should not be necessary because it should be provided by local authorities through good practice. I support the amendment simply because the postcode lottery in local authorities means that some will get good services, good information and steady support but a large number will not. The Government, in setting a framework, have a responsibility to ensure that there are consistent services right across the piece.
Many years ago, when I was dealing with children in care, I had to deal with what we called yo-yo children—those children who came in and out of care. When you identified a child who was not consistently either in care or at home, you settled down and set a proper assessment and programme for that child and made sure that there was a good way forward. I hope the Minister will have an answer to the kind of practice that is happening, otherwise, at a later stage, I will need to support the amendment.
As to special guardianship, when we were sitting in the adoption committee it became clear that there was very little difference between some children who were adopted and many children who were in special guardianship placements. The one difference was that those in special guardianships were struggling even more than those in adoption placements because, although the support is poor for post-adoption, it is even less for post-guardianship. Any services that are extended to adoptive parents must be looked at in relation to special guardianships, because these very often are the same children but have the benefit of being placed with those who know them and who loved them even before they were placed with them. I believe that is what the Government have been trying to do.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I support what the noble Baroness has just said about special guardianship. It is a paradox that there were obstacles to special guardianship when it was a desirable outcome in particular cases.
I thank the noble Earl for arranging the meeting with the group of young people 10 days or so ago. I found it encouraging and disturbing at the same time. They were a remarkable group of young people. I do not think I could have been nearly as resilient as most of them seem to have been in the conditions they described. In support of the amendment, I shall read from a few of my notes: “There was no checking on the conditions I’d be going back to”, and the noble Earl has referred to the capacity of the mother and the physical conditions; “it depends on the child to tell or to ask for help”, which is a very salutary thing to have heard; “I went home once a month but no one checked up or even asked how the weekend went”, and the picture that I got was of variable circumstances and variable support depending, frankly, on where the child was. One—I hesitate to call him a child—young person said, “I should not have been allowed to go home”.
Baroness Hamwee
Perhaps I may briefly put on record my support for the amendments, in particular for that of the noble Baroness, Lady Young. It struck me, listening to those who spoke in support of it, that we are talking about not casual interest but real need on the part of the children and young people concerned. It is important to understand that.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
Perhaps I may say something briefly, going back to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey. What has happened to good recording? In the distant past when the Data Protection Act came into being, I was involved in writing some of the guidance—it is such a long time ago that I do not think I have a copy of it or any reference to it—about how data should be made available and where we should redact the information that should be kept separate. Good recording demanded that there were separate parts to the record which were absolutely clear and identified, so that if there was an appeal, someone could look at the separate parts of the record.
What has happened, I ask the Minister and local authorities, to personal story books? What has happened to the need to keep packs of photographs, which used to happen when I was in children’s departments and, early on, in social services? What has happened to those good social workers who shared their recording? I shared my recording with those people I was working with, so they had a copy—unless there was a child protection issue which could not be shared. Therefore you asked other people involved for their permission at the time to share information.
Some of those principles of recording have been lost over time. Perhaps Ofsted could look at the principles of recording these days. I am not saying that it is a simple issue. It is not; I understand how complex it is; but I think that some of the basic principles have been lost. If we returned to some of those, the issue would not be a forward issue. Clearly we have an issue going back for those people who find themselves unable to access records. I have seen records which are so redacted that they are unintelligible. I have had to go through them as an information officer. I felt so strongly about the professional issue that I wanted to intervene briefly.
Children and Families Bill
Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Howarth of Breckland(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Hamwee
I too have my name to Amendment 11. It seems that these issues of religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background have been the subject of a pendulum that has swung considerably backwards and forwards over the years. It may be that these issues are not everything but they are certainly not nothing. As other noble Lords have said, the Government have recognised that these issues should be considered along with all other relevant factors.
I thought what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, had to say about identity was so powerful that I do not want to pursue the issue myself because I could not say it as well. I just wrote down the word “identity” with big marks against it when I was making my notes for this debate. We must not suppress these issues. Our society comprises a huge variety of combinations of these different matters, and an increasing variety as people from different ethnic backgrounds marry one another and different mixes appear. There should not be excessive emphasis.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, used the phrase, which I think the Minister also used, “ramming the message home”. It is not for legislation to ram a message home; legislation should get the measure right rather more calmly. There is a danger that the message that will be taken is that these issues should now be ignored, when what really matters, as other noble Lords have said, is a placement with adopters who understand the issues and can support the child. You might come from exactly the same ethnic origin or religious background but not be able to support the child; they are not the same thing. The indicative guidance that we have received recognises this. I think that it talks—and if it does not, it should—about the need to recruit adopters from a range of backgrounds.
I do not think that there is a difference of view between what we are all saying and what the Government are thinking; it is not about the “what” but more about the “how”. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said that she was at a loss. I do not think that I am at a loss. There has been an oversensitivity, if I can put it that way, to what some parts of the media regard as “political correctness”, and there are better ripostes to that attitude in the media than the change in legislation that is proposed. I strongly support the amendment.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I would like to say something about where I think this all came from. We should remind ourselves that in the 1980s racism was rife. When I was working at that time in local authorities, we had people called “race advisers”, some of whom were not the most helpful people. Some changed the whole attitude to racism; some made social workers take a particular view of race. I know that because I was the head of a social work department and was battling to get something rational, while the irrational was being pressed on the workers.
I make this point because I think that this Bill has so much of value and would hate to see one dogma replaced by another, but that is what is happening here. As the pendulum has swung, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, so the Government are feeling that we can stop all this and get placements moved on. However, we need to think about the issues—those points have been made eloquently and I shall not repeat them—and I hope that the Government take a rational rather than a dogmatic view of this issue because it is important for the children. I, too, have talked to young people whose ethnicity is extraordinarily important to them, even though they were placed, and have grown up, in white homes. They need to understand their ethnicity and their links. I hope that the Minister will accept that the welfare checklist is a very straightforward document and that this could be included without any difficulty.
Adoption Agencies (Panel and Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2012
Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Howarth of Breckland(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Baroness very much for bringing this matter to the Committee, and for her quite splendid chairmanship of our committee. I thank the Minister and Tim Loughton for the meeting last week. I am very flattered to have been confused with the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, I must say. The meeting was extremely useful and I hope that we made it clear that members of the Select Committee share with the Government the objective of the best possible outcome. We have received powerful evidence about the impact of lack of permanence, particularly in the early years.
Given the jigsaw of interlocking procedures, it is important for the Government to explain why they are taking one step of several steps that may be available, and which I suspect will be taken quite soon, when a number have been identified. It is not always entirely clear why one step should be taken in isolation. I appreciate that one can argue it the other way—that if you have identified a step you should get on and do it—but this is quite a complex area.
The Explanatory Memorandum says that the objective of the regulations is to remove both delay and duplication. Delay is, of course, a loaded term. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, has experienced, as I have, that when one is arguing planning applications in local government, delay does not actually go to quality. She is agreeing with me. Taking time may sometimes be necessary. Taking time unnecessarily is a bad thing, of course. The duplication that the Explanatory Memorandum refers to, as the Norgrove report did, is between the panel and the court. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, will know how long a judge is typically given to read the papers—I suspect less time than a panel is, although I am always amazed at how quickly panels assimilate information.
The Government are not pointing to duplication between the panel and the decision-maker, who does not need the prior work of the panel, in the view of the Government. It seems to me that the decision-maker must need the same information as the panel, and Coram, to which the noble and learned Baroness has referred, regards the panel as providing quality assurance. Coram has given us some very helpful evidence, and the noble and learned Baroness has referred to the possible slippage in quality because of the loss of the independent element.
Coram also talks about adoption decision-making being delegated to less senior staff or the creation of a dedicated role that would not be integrated in the same way that the current post is. It also talks about the removal of independent panel chairs, and we have heard some very forceful evidence, particularly from BAAF, about the contribution made by independent members. The expertise from outside the authority brought to panels is really quite important. Alongside that, we are hearing quite a lot of concern about the lack of experience of adoption work among social workers. We asked the Local Government Association for its comments on these regulations, and, after a moment’s thought, one of the councillors who was at our session more or less said that authorities would invent a structure to replace panels. Admittedly, she might have been thinking about the abolition of panels as a whole, but it was a very practical response. If an authority sees a need to bring in outside expertise, it will find a way to do so.
The Government say that panels add no value, but I wonder whether the converse of that is the risk of abolishing what is excellent practice. We have heard that, in practice, panels meet frequently—weekly if necessary. If they do not meet often enough and are causing delay, their practice needs to be improved. I also wonder whether, if a panel is retained for matching a child with a family, that panel would not need to cover much of the groundwork that would have been covered by the panel dealing with placement.
When we met the Minister, Mr Loughton, he told us about the visits that he has made to sit in on and observe panels. He commented on the amount of material that panel members are expected to absorb, but he did not seem to say that they are failing. There are professionals, sometimes from different professions, who become skilled through the job that they are doing. I have to say that, as a society, we are very lucky that there are people who are prepared to do this job. I am not convinced that they should lose this role.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I do not intend to repeat the very clear, coherent points made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, but I shall add to them. I am delighted that this debate is being held because the committee was extremely concerned when it saw the instrument. It is important to make the point that if the Government ask a Select Committee to undertake a task—in this instance to look at adoption—the committee should be kept well informed and other decisions should not be made without cognisance of the evidence that it is hearing and has heard. If it is not, we might as well all go home, rather than continue to work hard on the issues. I know that the chair is unable to say that but I think I can.
I shall say a little about some of the work around the family justice review, which was extremely complex and fraught. I know that because while it was being undertaken I was chair of CAFCASS, which was central to the disputes and discussions about delays and whether systems should be changed. David Norgrove did not say a great deal about panels but they are what I call low-hanging fruit. In looking at structures and systems, panels are one layer that you might be able to take out. You would then have removed a level of what looks like bureaucracy to move things forward. However, David Norgrove found an extreme level of mistrust between all the partners. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Hill, spoke to him during that period. He was almost obsessed by the relationships between judges, social workers, CAFCASS and the other stakeholders in dealing with the issue. Therefore, finding good recommendations was important to him, and there is much in his report that takes us forward.
It is clear that, at present, many children spend far too long in care, moving in and out of it before decisions are made, and that we have to find ways of speeding this up. Views about adoption panels and whether they help or hinder the process are mixed. There is no systematic evidence. There has not been any decent inquiry into the working of panels. Again, I will not repeat what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, have said about the evidence that we have heard from other parties, but people have anecdotal evidence that is as strong as any that might come from a review. I think that that would be useful. Personally, I am agnostic about panels and I suspect, as CAFCASS said, that they could be reviewed; that they come far too late in the process; and that the important thing is that the multi-professional information is gathered appropriately together to properly inform the decision. I do not think that the way in which that is processed has been properly looked at in relation to the decision to remove panels. Those are the things that would make a difference.
One of the other things that we know—I shall repeat this—is that when information gets to the judges, if they do not believe that they have enough expert information, they will commission experts to give it to them. A piece of work we have done recently is that of reducing the number of experts in court, particularly in the family courts, in order to reduce delay and speed up good quality decision making. It is quite clear that social workers and CAFCASS officers have a high level of expertise, but we also know that local authorities vary hugely one from another. What is the Minister going to do to make sure that when information goes to court, it does not add to delay because the judge is looking for the right information which he or she does not think has been quality tested? At the moment, they have the assurance that it has gone through a number of experts in a panel. It may be that there is an answer to this; I am looking for it.
I am also extremely concerned about the amount of work that falls on the shoulders of both decision-makers and independent reviewing officers. We have seen examples where the level of caseloads—certainly for independent reviewing officers and, I am sure, people up and down the country who have to make these decisions—is quite inappropriate in terms of being able to make the quality of decision that is needed. If Tim Loughton, when sitting in on panels, thought that they had a lot of material to digest, imagine what it would like for the decision-makers if they have to digest the material for themselves without having an expert opinion across a range of issues. They will be looking at psychiatric problems in some children who are going to be placed, or children with learning difficulties. We know that children who are being placed for adoption and coming through care are not straightforward babies with no difficulties. The panels help to assess that information before it is given to the judge in relation to the placement.
However keen you are on adoption, it is necessary to remember the balance between birth families and prospective adoptive families. There is a danger that, if you do not have good information on their families, which social workers in local authorities have to assess, there will be miscarriages of justice. That is of deep concern to me.
I would ask the Minister to answer the questions from the NSPCC which were repeated by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. It is extremely concerned about the mix of practice across the country. I also ask him to tell me how he, being responsible in central government, can ensure that local government, with all the decentralisation, do not overwhelm those who have to make these decisions so that quality decisions continue to be made. I will rest my arguments there.