Children and Families Bill

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the Government on producing their amendment, which is a significant milestone. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, spoke of a long journey. I pay tribute to all those who have been on that journey, including my colleagues at Loughborough University in the Young Carers Research Group who were there at the outset and I think coined the phrase “young carers”. They have done a lot of research which has helped lead to this conclusion. Therefore, it is very gratifying for me to thank them and all the others who have contributed to this outcome.

I pick up a point made by my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch about parents caring for disabled children. Carers UK points out that: it is three times more costly to bring up a disabled child than a non-disabled child; parent carers are more likely to be reliant on income-based state support; 34% of sick or disabled children live in households where there is no adult in paid work, compared with 18% of children who are not sick or disabled; parent carers are more likely to suffer relationship breakdown and divorce, and three or more times more likely to suffer ill health and health breakdown than parents of non-disabled children; and more than half the families who responded to its survey felt that a lack of statutory services was the key factor contributing to their feelings of isolation. A recent study by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner carried out with disabled children found that for many disabled children and their families the impact of low income on basic needs was compounded by inadequate services, personal support and information. In some areas necessary housing adaptations were hard to obtain, long delays were experienced and appropriate provision was achieved only through persistent parental pressure.

Will the Minister explain why this group does not seem to come under the whole family approach that he rightly emphasised? Will he consider having another look at this as it is now a gaping hole? I hope that he might take another look at this hole and be willing to fill it on Report.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, no one can be anything but absolutely delighted at the government amendment. I, too, was at the joint meeting with the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, but wish to ask some further questions, following on from the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Tyler. I am concerned that, even if a local authority had a duty in this regard, there would be extreme difficulties in continuing this journey. We are on the first step of the journey. As a long-standing practitioner, I know that the problem arises with the actual implementation of these services.

When I asked a supplementary question about the parents of disabled children, I was told that it could be dealt with in this Committee. We do not get those services for disabled children, or a proper co-ordinated family approach in local authorities, because of the difficulties they have in meeting their commitments currently. I have said this before, but I sometimes think I am living in a parallel universe where our aspirations and our joy at achieving excellent legislation cannot be matched by reality. My own local authority is about to face further cuts of £145 million on top of previous ones. Every noble Lord in this Room should know what their own local authority faces and what the implications will be for services on the ground. I want to hear from the Minister how we can meet the young carers approach and about what we might do for disabled families, because they need the services, not more legislation.

There is an answer. If we had good, co-ordinated family assessment and family workers with no duplication—I speak as a trained family case-worker in the past—where one worker undertakes the assessment and knows which experts to call on when other expertise is needed, and much more focus in terms of the work, we might actually save resources. However, I do not know how that gets into regulations. I would be very interested to see whether or not we can do that because we could revolutionise some of these services by the approach we take in implementation. We have legislation that says that disabled children should receive X, Y and Z for particular conditions, but I fear that the services are simply not there to meet the need. I am sorry if that sounds a slightly sour note—it is not meant to, as I am utterly delighted that we have this in the Bill. What I hope we can do now is to start to revolutionise services so that it actually happens, day to day, in people’s lives.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I will briefly follow what my noble friend has said in terms of the practical implementation of this very welcome work that the Government have undertaken. I remind the Committee of the difficulty posed by having continually changing professionals. We debated earlier the issue of children making their transition to adult services. On several occasions, parents have raised with me the difficulties posed by the fact that they will have several changes of social worker just as the child comes to access adult services, such that the advocacy for that child as it goes into the adult services is lost. I am very familiar in children’s services, particularly those for looked-after children, with people complaining and saying, “Look, I have had five social workers in the past two years”. People have had multiple social workers, which is very disadvantaging. When we talk about working together to improve outcomes for children, as we are here, we need to keep a good eye on the practicalities and ensure that there is more continuity of professional care. We need to keep and retain our social workers and other professionals, and not keep moving them around all the time.

Here, I would just like to raise the concerns that I have heard in the past when speaking to psychiatrists working in the health service. They feel that the service is changing and being reformed so often—with the best of intentions—that, once they get to build relationships with partners in other disciplines, they or the partner are moved on. They do not know the other people and cannot work in the kind of way I think we are talking about at the moment. I make a plea that we avoid more large-scale reorganisations of, for instance, the health service in the near future. The same story comes from social workers in local authorities, who continually experience reorganisations of their local authority, which overburdens them and, again, breaks up the relationships necessary for them to be able to make effective partnerships work in the way that we want them to work in this part of the Bill. I hope that is helpful to your Lordships.

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[Baroness Perry of Southwark (Con)]

I am sure that we are all very happy to bring this fascinating discussion to a close, but I want to make one point. I was seized by what the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said in discussion on the previous amendment. We can sit in this building and make laws, decide what should happen and sometimes even get it into legislation, but what matters is how it is delivered in reality. My only point is that all these splendid things—citizenship, relationship education, spiritual and moral development and so on—have to be delivered by teachers. Unless we have the right teachers who are properly trained, it simply will not happen. We can write it into the books, but we ought to spend far more time addressing what actually happens in the selection and training of teachers than simply on what we ask them to deliver.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

Since the noble Baroness has just mentioned my name, I will say one sentence. I absolutely agree with her; all I will ever talk about is implementation and application. However, in this context the revision of the guidance on sex education would be such a support to teachers that it would make a difference.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, following what has just been said, the strongest reason for making PSHE statutory has been the case put by teachers. This would be the way to ensure that teacher training bodies really put a priority on training for PSHE. Teacher training is skewed towards what is statutory in the curriculum. The noble Baroness is absolutely right. We need to empower teachers so that they have the confidence to hold these conversations with young people. Doing what is suggested in these amendments would make that more possible.

I warmly welcome the words of the vastly experienced noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I vaguely remember that the previous Government commissioned an expert group to produce a report on this topic which was presented some time ago. I felt at the time that it was a little soft. I so admire my noble friend Lady Howe, who is absolutely right to bring forward, very late in the day, her Bill to regulate the availability of this material on the internet. Perhaps the Minister will be able to use his good offices to take back to those thinking about the Bill a little encouragement to move ahead with the Second Reading because it is so concerning. I hear from other sources concerns about gangs of boys and the way young women are treated, and how that has changed because of what young men are seeing on the internet. It is very troubling. I support all these amendments.

One particular point has always niggled at me. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, referred to same-sex education in particular. I had an experience some years ago when visiting a children’s home. The manager was gay. There was a young man there who certainly dressed in quite an effeminate way and could have been called gay, and the manager was saying, “Well, this young man is gay”. My concern is that it is of course a common experience for children to be attracted to the same sex as they grow up, but many of them grow out of it. Those who take the most active role in this particular area are sometimes overly enthusiastic in promoting an attitude. In dealing with these sensitive same- sex issues, on which people get so polarised, there should be a recognition that young people experience attraction to other young people of the same sex, but most of them grow through it. There should not be a misunderstanding that if one seems to be attracted to other members of the same sex in one’s mid-teens, for instance, that that is one’s sexuality and how one is now set. I am sure that that is not the intention, but it is my sense of how this sometimes comes out. Some reassurance on this point, not necessarily in Committee, would be welcome.

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[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I wish to speak briefly in support of the amendment, and I am very pleased that it has been tabled. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, have both talked about destitution. I was a member of the Parliamentary Inquiry into Asylum Support for Children and Young People. That was a slightly wider group than that on which this amendment is focused, but the point is the same. We said that:

“Although the inquiry’s focus was on those in receipt of asylum support, the panel was shocked to hear of instances where children were left destitute and homeless, entirely without institutional support and forced to rely on food parcels or charitable donations. Evidence received by the inquiry cited counts where children made up between 13-20% of the local destitute population”.

I find it shameful that we have anyone in the population who is destitute in a society as rich as ours. It is particularly shaming that people who have come to this country to seek refuge should be destitute, and that children should be destitute.

Perhaps I may reinforce what the noble Earl said by referring to a case study which has been provided by the Refugee Children’s Consortium. It states:

“Case study: Matthew—a young person from Iran. Matthew is a torture survivor who came to the UK from Iran when he was aged 17. He was refused asylum and wanted to appeal but his solicitor did not want to support his appeal so he went to court unrepresented. His appeal was rejected and children’s services stopped his support. He was made homeless for one year. He was seeing a psychologist while being supported by children’s services but once the support was cut off, the counselling stopped as well. While homeless Matthew’s health deteriorated”—

is that surprising?

“He couldn’t sleep at night. His hair was falling out. He experienced a lot of violence when he was sleeping on the streets. Sometimes he was able to work for his friend in exchange for accommodation. He was desperate to stay in the UK because he feared for his life if he were to return to Iran. With help from The Children’s Society he was able to get a new solicitor and put in a fresh claim”.

This really should not happen.

I was also involved in the launch of a report from Freedom From Torture about the poverty experienced by torture survivors. One of the strong messages in that report was how poverty undermines the rehabilitation of torture survivors. This is dreadful. Torture survivors, who are psychologically scarred, then have to go through further ordeals when they get to this country. I hope very much that the Minister will be able to say something rather more positive in response to this amendment than perhaps was the response to the previous amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Nash.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I support this amendment. Noble Lords will recall that I talked about a similar group of young people who were privately fostered. It was then subsequently discovered that those with whom they had been privately fostered were not in fact family, or if they were, they had not sorted out the children’s immigration status. When they reached the age of 18, or sometimes 16, and went to college, they found that they did not have the appropriate paperwork and they then became illegal immigrants.

As a country, we have totally failed to grasp a very straightforward issue, which is that if these children are in our country and are at school, they can be checked by the school, by the local social services or by the health services wherever they find themselves. Surely we have a responsibility to sort out their status before they reach the age of 18. Some of these young people clearly could go back to their country of origin, and there are voluntary organisations which work in that area. Others, however, clearly cannot do so. Recently I met a young man at a reception provided by the Children’s Society for the work it is doing on its Here to Listen? campaign. That young man was bright and intelligent, and wanted to get on with his life. I asked him about his immigration status, and the answer was, “I have not yet got a passport”. My heart sank because I knew that what might well happen, if this could not be sorted out, would be that he would possibly find himself being sent back to whatever he had escaped from.

We pride ourselves in this country on the work we do with children and child protection. Look at the lengths we go to in order to develop child protection procedures. We go to huge lengths to ensure that young people, including these young people, have a proper education. How can we be so neglectful as to not notice that when they reach later adolescence they will become destitute, be sent back to appalling circumstances or have a hugely strenuous set of interactions with the law to try to gain proper status so that their lives do not fall apart? I have been an advocate for some young people who have found themselves in this position at 18, trying to go through our complex system in order to get this sorted.

I do not think it is beyond our departments to find a system that looks at all of these groups of young people. I agree with the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that young people who are trafficked are particularly vulnerable. All these young people could easily have their status sorted out earlier in the process. We would not then be faced with these kinds of difficulties.

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[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and other noble Lords for this amendment and for stimulating some important debate.

It might be helpful if I explain how the existing legislation works. Unaccompanied children who apply for asylum are supported by local authorities under the Children Act 1989 and under similar legislation in Scotland and Northern Ireland in the same way as any other child in need. As children their immigration status is, rightly, irrelevant to their entitlement to support, and remains so until they reach adulthood. The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, made an extremely cogent set of points, especially on picking up at an early stage the challenges for some of these children. Local authorities already have a duty under the Children Act to plan the transition to adulthood of care leavers. She made an implicit point about when that ought to be examined and not left until the young person is about to turn 18.

For unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in care, this planning should include the different steps required in response to different immigration outcomes. The guidance is clear that local authorities should work with dedicated case workers at the UK Border Agency. As we set out in our letter to noble Lords on 1 November, the Department for Education is currently developing an action plan to drive forward improvements—which I think is what the noble Baroness was flagging—in the way local authorities identify children in, for example, private fostering who are at risk and where there may be concern about a child’s identity and immigration status. The noble Baroness specifically mentioned schools. We are currently exploring options with interested agencies and partners and hope the noble Baroness and any other noble Lords who are interested will contribute to that process by sharing their expertise and discussing any outstanding concerns in more detail.

When young people reach the age of 18, the position may be different from the one I have just described for under-18s. If they have been refused asylum, have not been granted any other form of leave to remain in the UK and have had an opportunity to appeal against the decision to an independent judge, then automatic access to further support from the local authority ends. That is what we are addressing here. It is important to recognise that support may still continue where it is necessary to avoid a breach of a person’s human rights. Whether this is necessary will depend on an assessment of the individual circumstances, but should include any failed asylum seekers who are taking reasonable steps to return to their countries of origin but need time to make the necessary arrangements because they are awaiting the issue of a passport. Equally, those who face a temporary barrier to departing because, for example, they are too sick to travel, should continue to receive support.

I turn to trafficking, which was mentioned in this context. Noble Lords will remember that we had a very important debate on this subject earlier in Committee. We will have further discussions on it, both in the Chamber and outside it. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, highlighted this issue and other noble Lords picked it up. In the case of potentially trafficked children, the first step is to assess whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that the person is trafficked. If the answer is yes, in practice it is likely to be considered as a breach of the child’s rights to refuse leave to remain. I hope that somewhat reassures the noble and learned Baroness.

We believe that the existing arrangements already make provision for those who have a genuine need. I realise that this is a probing amendment which is trying to get to the bottom of this particular challenge. We are concerned that, if we were to accept it, it could create further incentives for young people to claim falsely to be under 18 when they apply for asylum. This is a problem that local authorities already struggle to deal with. It could even put more young people at risk by providing an incentive to make dangerous journeys to the UK to claim asylum in order to receive extended support. The dangers of these journeys are well evidenced in the courts, by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and by UNICEF.

The Government remain committed to ensuring that young care leavers whose immigration appeal rights are exhausted do not face an abrupt withdrawal of all support. It is important that their options are clearly explained, including the availability of generous reintegration assistance from the Home Office if they agree to return voluntarily to their countries. It is important that any genuine barriers to preventing return are identified. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, I emphasise that the local authority must assess each case individually, and if the authority considers that stopping support would breach a person’s human rights, it should continue. The Home Office provides funding to local authorities to cover the cost of extended support beyond the point at which a person turns 18. It already continues for three months after the person’s immigration appeal rights are exhausted, specifically to allow the local authority time to make the necessary assessments of individual cases. If an assessment shows that additional time is needed to complete the practical arrangements to leave, or where there are real obstacles to leaving the UK, further support should continue. However, we are aware that some local authorities are unsure of the practical steps they should take to assess individual cases properly. Young people in different areas may experience different levels of support. The Office of the Children’s Commissioner is currently examining local authority practice in this respect. We believe that it is right to wait for the findings of that study before considering whether further work with local authorities is required to ensure more consistency in case assessment. I hope that this information is useful to noble Lords.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

I apologise for interrupting the noble Baroness. Can she give us the timing of the study in relation to the progress of the Bill?

[Baroness Northover]

The report should come through in February. It will inform what the Government might or might not need to do to address this issue. I hope that noble Lords will feed in any experiences which they feel need to be looked at so that the study can be as effective and far-reaching as possible.

I hope that I have reassured noble Lords that the Government take seriously their responsibility to provide appropriate support where care leavers no longer have leave to remain in the United Kingdom. As I have mentioned, there are a number of different categories where it would not be expected that people would be required to leave—for example, trafficked children. On that basis, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

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I accept that many, although not all, foster parents are currently found by agencies. However, fostering is a very different situation. Foster parents are inspected by the local authority and have a close relationship with it. In the case of childminders and agencies, they would no longer have that, which causes me a lot of concern.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I want to ask the Minister how the vision and the application of this proposal will work together. The Government have a laudable wish to increase the level of childcare that is available to families—mostly women who find themselves unable to work because they do not have good childcare arrangements. The Government want to provide good quality childcare and ensure that the costs are manageable. They want to reduce bureaucracy and provide a focus for childminders so that they can share some of their understanding together. I appreciate the last point in relation to agencies, but the others I find very difficult. I cannot see how the solution fits the vision.

On transparency, I share the views of other noble Lords, which is that anyone who has been involved in inspections—noble Lords know that I have been a regulator in at least three different agencies—knows that asking a regulator to inspect its own is fraught with danger. That is my major concern with regard to ensuring that child protection issues are picked up. We know how easy it is, as they say, to consume your own smoke within an organisation. Transparency and protection issues in all this would be difficult.

It has been demonstrated that the increased costs would, in the end, increase the cost of childcare for families. Some childminders are already extraordinarily expensive. The childminder employed by my niece—who I brought up as my daughter and who has the equivalent of my grandson—is extremely expensive. That is because she is confident that the care is of high quality and meets the right timeframes for her. I would like the Government to find a solution to some of the issues they have identified that matches the vision which I believe they have for the care of children when mothers need to return to work in order to increase their own opportunities.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, to the Grand Committee. It is very helpful to have a parent who is bringing up her children taking part in the Bill and it was good to listen to her tribute to her childminder, Margaret. I am also grateful to the Minister for hosting a meeting on this matter. The discussion was useful, and it was particularly helpful to be reminded that childminder agencies will be one way to help childminders feel less isolated. I have visited childminders in the past. They were part of childminder networks which they found very useful. They would meet regularly and take on training together. That is the positive side of this.

I want to encourage the Government to be open-minded in terms of how they develop childcare in this country. Perhaps I may highlight the value of nursery schools and other things that the Government are involved in, but I should voice my concern that an over-emphasis on private provision may not be helpful. After all, the cost of this provision is in the pay and training of the women—and it is women—who do this work. Historically, it has been very difficult for these businesses to make a profit. These nurseries have found that they just do not get enough bums on seats and therefore it is costly to run the whole business which means that they have to drive down price by cutting training or pay. We know that pay in nursery care has historically been very low indeed. The risk is that by having too much provision in the private sector we will move towards something which may not be much cheaper but may be inferior in quality. From memory, the turnover of staff in nursery schools is about 4% whereas in some of the large private providers the figure can be 14% or 15%. I recall that the latter offer quite a different setting. It is so important that our young children have continuity of care and that their professionals stay around for them for long periods. There can be stagnation but in general we want that long-term relationship with the carer.

I conclude with a quotation from Childcare Markets: Can They Deliver an Equitable Service?, edited by Eva Lloyd and Helen Penn. Professor Penn states in her summary:

“The key question is whether the childcare market is a reliable and equitable way of delivering childcare. For neoliberal countries, the risks and complications involved in allowing entrepreneurs to provide childcare are either unrecognised or deemed acceptable—or a combination of both”.

I think this was what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, was referring to—the possible extra costs of placing more emphasis on the private sector. Professor Penn continues:

“In other countries where there is a childcare market, it is carefully controlled and generously funded, and although there may be many kinds of provider, the type of funding and the regulatory framework means that for-profit companies have limited room to manoeuvre. In yet other countries the childcare market is altogether unacceptable, and the government takes on the responsibility for providing childcare”.

Given that we are having a clause stand part debate, I remind the Government that a range of options are available and they can benefit from taking a very active role in this regard. Professor Penn concludes that there are,

“limitations and tensions in relying on the childcare market. Viewing childcare as a commodity to be bought and sold undermines equity and quality, and regulation has to be comprehensive and wide-reaching in order to try and compensate for these failings”.

This also speaks to the concern that has been expressed about relaxing inspection in these new arrangements. I do not consider that I understand the area sufficiently to be particularly critical or to be either for or against what the Government are proposing but I encourage us all to be as open-minded as possible in this area.