Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hodgson of Abinger and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 17 and 21. In doing so, I draw attention to my various educational interests as set out in the register. I thank the officials who were generous with their time between Second Reading and now in helping to answer a number of points for me.

I support the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, on her Amendments 10 and 16, which deal with mental health and social and emotional well-being. Those seem essential in the essence of what we are trying to do here. I support wholeheartedly the corporate parenting principles. Earlier today my noble friend the Minister described them during Oral Questions as bringing together what it means to be a corporate parent for the first time. Clearly, we want to make changes and improvements to them but it surely must be the right ambition to build on the Children Act 1989. I am conscious that the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, and I are the only two people speaking in the Committee who were affected as children by that Act. For me, it had the happy consequence that I went from a primary school that had corporal punishment to a secondary school that did not. I am deeply indebted to my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay for that.

The purpose of my first amendment takes up what the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, was saying about the driving forces behind this group: prevention and having ambition for children. Amendment 17 is really about ambition and would insert “educational” before “outcomes” into the fifth of the corporate parenting principles. I gave the reasons for doing so at Second Reading because it seems odd to me that while health is rightly mentioned in the first of the principles, education is not mentioned explicitly in any of them. Yet the life chances agenda which is commendably at the heart of the Government’s legislative programme shows that there is no better way to improve a child’s long-term life chances than to give them a great education.

We know that for many looked-after children, the education they receive is sadly not yet good enough. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has already referenced the gap in performance at key stage 2. At the end of primary school just 52% of such children reach level 4 in their English and maths SATs, which is the expected standard, as compared with 80% of other children, and indeed boys do even worse than that. Previously looked-after children do not do much better, so we really have a problem here. That is not to say that lots of bodies are not engaged in trying to solve it, but the reason for the amendment is to ensure that there is absolutely no doubt whatever that all the agencies and institutions involved in the lives and improving the life chances of these children should be focused on dramatically raising those unacceptably low standards. That is why I believe that “educational” should be included.

To complement the insertion of the word in the principle, I continue to urge the DfE to commission the two relevant What Works centres, the Education Endowment Foundation and the Early Intervention Foundation, as well as Ofsted to commission reviews of interventions that are particularly effective in raising the educational standards of these vulnerable pupils. If we are to achieve our ambitious goals for them, it is only right that we equip teachers and schools with the tools to do so.

The aim of Amendment 21 is to bring to the fore my own and indeed the department’s belief in the power of developing “character, grit and resilience”, to use the department’s words, in order to help young people to live happy, successful and independent lives. This clearly complements Amendments 10 and 16. One of the great benefits of character education—and I speak as someone who has set up two schools which have this philosophy at their heart—is that its effect is greatest on those who start from the lowest point. The Nobel Prize-winning academic James Heckman found that character strengths, which are sometimes called non-cognitive skills, are malleable. The leopard can change its spots, and this is especially true of younger children. Developing in these children from an early age character strengths such as self-control, gratitude, compassion and so on has a positive impact on life chances that continue to have effects as they grow up.

The benefits of having these strengths are clear. For example, a 2011 study from New Zealand found that children with strong character skills are less likely to be involved in crime, while equally children with weaker self-control have poorer outcomes. However, we know that this can be changed with judicious intervention. A working paper from Harvard University has shown that children affected by violence can be taught courage and self-control to help turn off toxic stress. What a powerful intervention that could be for some of the children under discussion today—not only children who are in care but also refugees, trafficked children and others. Many other studies show similar benefits. In his book How Children Succeed, Paul Tough talks about the KIPP charter schools in the US which have been incredibly effective at getting young people into college by developing their character strengths so that they can escape poverty. I visited one of those schools in the South Bronx area in New York, which had a graduation rate from high school into college of 8%. But that school had a rate of more than 80%, which is a really extraordinary improvement in life chances.

I think that all in this Room agree that the Government are serious about improving the life chances of vulnerable people and about putting character development at the heart of their educational approach. Amendment 21 seeks to connect the dots between these two ambitions, which in my view would undoubtedly have a positive effect on the future success and happiness of looked-after and previously looked-after children.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

I shall speak to Amendments 23 and 25, and I support the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey.

The noble Earl has raised the issue of siblings. For children separated from their parents, siblings may form their next-closest relationships and therefore, wherever possible, we must also seek to avoid the separation of siblings. This can have devastating effects on those who have already undergone the suffering of being removed from their homes and filtered through the social care system. Many describe knowing they have a sibling that they are separated from as having a piece of themselves missing.

Your Family, Your Voice, which briefed me, states that currently 50% of sibling groups in care are split up. I find that an astonishing statistic. We sometimes read stories in the papers about siblings who were adopted and find their brother or sister later in life. Do we really think it is acceptable to be creating situations like that in this day and age? I accept that from time to time there may be a case for splitting up siblings, where one is very disruptive or has a detrimental effect on other siblings. However, the normal situation should be that priority is given to keeping siblings together—and, if it is considered desirable to split them up, the local authority needs to explain the reason why it is doing so.

It is important that we listen to what children want, and facilitate it. With regard to Amendment 25, where it is clearly unsuitable for a child to remain with their parents, relatives or close friends may be able to step in to prevent them having to be taken into care. For a child, being taken away from their home, whatever their circumstances, must be highly traumatic. However, where they are going to live with a friend or relative who is already known to them, this will lessen the strain and upset, and in many cases will mean that the child is raised within their family.

There are an estimated 200,000 children being raised by kinship carers, 95% of whom are not classified as looked after. The briefing that I received from the Kinship Care Alliance, which I understand is serviced by the charity Family Rights Group, stated that,

“children in kinship care are doing significantly better than children in unrelated care, despite having suffered similar early adverse experiences—in particular they feel more secure and have fewer emotional and behavioural problems and are doing better academically”.

So this approach also has the economic benefit of savings for the state if the child is not taken into care, although I understand that at present kinship carers are not being given any financial help. This aspect needs to be looked at. Having an extra child or children in the house may create financial hardship in terms of both needing bigger accommodation and having more mouths to feed. I understand that a large percentage of kinship carers have to give up work to take on the extra children. It would therefore be helpful to give them some support. I understand that local authorities often seek close relatives and friends to look after the child, but I would like to see in the Bill that this has to be done and considered, because it seems to be a much preferable outcome for the child.