Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Howarth of Breckland and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly. I welcome the corporate parenting principles in the Bill, but I hope that we do not end up making them so complex that local authorities find them difficult to implement by adding things that should perhaps belong in other places such as the national offer or in other parts of the Bill. We should keep the principles simple. However, I agree absolutely with the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and in particular with his Amendment 29. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, referred to it in terms of the other people who should be incorporated into taking responsibility for these young people. We will come to that, but I would rather we dealt with it in another part of the Bill rather than here.

I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Warner—as one of the other people in this Room who has been a corporate parent—that the phrase “have regard to” would become a major discussion around the table of a local authority in difficulty that had to make savings. It will not be true in places such as Leeds or Kensington and Chelsea, which really have a grip on this.

I will also say that, as the Minister knows perfectly well, the Ofsted report published yesterday showed that many of our care systems are doing much better. Eight out of 10 children’s homes are now rated as being good or doing well. They can improve, so we are not at the bottom. Certainly a lot of local authorities need to improve, but we are on the way up. I hope that anything we do here and anything the Government do in future will encourage the direction of travel that we appear to be on at the moment. But it will certainly not be helped by the phrase, “have regard to”. “Must” is a much better word.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, as the only person in this Room who will have applied the Children Act from the day it became law until I retired as a judge in 2005, perhaps I may say first that I agree strongly with what the noble Lords, Lord Warner and Lord Ramsbotham, said, and particularly with the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, who said that we must not make corporate parenting—which I entirely support—too complicated. There is just a danger that we may be putting too much in. Everything that is set out in the amendments is right, but I am not absolutely certain whether it all has to be in primary legislation.

I should like to pick up the phrase “have regard to”. I can see the Minister being advised by his team that it is a phrase which is used in the Children Act, particularly in Section 1, which states that,

“the court shall have regard to”.

In my view, there is a great difference between the court having regard and others doing so. Judges in family cases are trained to know what is meant by the phrase, which means that they have to take the issues into account and then they have a checklist to decide what in fact they should actually be doing. But it is interesting to note that Section 17 of the Act does not say that a local authority should “have regard to”; it talks about the “general duty” of every local authority. It seems to me that there is a very real distinction between having regard if you are a judge or a magistrate trying cases and having regard if you are a social worker with very considerable financial constrictions.

I cannot understand, I have to say, why we need the phrase “have regard to” when those who drafted the Bill took the trouble to say “must”. The phrase “must act in the best interests” is a very simple way of looking at it. But the phrase,

“must, in carrying out functions … have regard to the need”,

is, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, pointed out, a let-out.

So having started listening to this argument on the basis that “have regard” is a perfectly good phrase that I applied day in and day out for many years, I think that there is a real distinction between the judiciary and the magistracy having regard and the way in which local authorities should be told rather than being left to exercise their discretion, which is rather different.

Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Baroness Howarth of Breckland and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Monday 23rd February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

I certainly hope that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is right about that. However, with the government position under Clauses 1 and 2, including with Amendment 4, you do not have to prove that the young person is 16, 17 or 18 in order to get a conviction. You will have an aggravated situation if you show that it is in fact a child, say of 14 or 15, and not a young woman of 20, and the judge’s sentence will no doubt be greater. However, the issue of age will not arise for the jury to try because, under Clause 1, you do not have to have an age—anybody who is treated in the way that Clause 1 describes can be found to be a victim. This seems to me to be something introduced by the Bill which has not come in before and which will, I certainly hope, make a very dramatic difference to the way in which prosecutions are dealt with.

Another point that Kevin Hyland made, which I think is of some interest, is about control and prevention orders, on which we have spent virtually no time at all in this House. He told me about a group of Roma—not all of whom are Romanian; some are from other parts of Europe—who apparently are camping at the moment in either Park Lane or Hyde Park. They are begging, and the children are no doubt thieving, in Edgware Road and Oxford Street. He says that when the control and prevention orders come into place, if you can find that these children are doing this, a control or prevention order can be made against the adult—many of whom, of course, are not the parents of these children—and that can last for up to five years and will protect the children, who can also be taken into care. He also made the point that this could be done at the border by the border police, who can get a magistrate’s order in order to protect these children well before you have to come to a prosecution because the children are being exploited. I thought that these were quite interesting points to relay to the House.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I am somewhat bemused about where we are in this debate. My view has always been quite clear: we already have enough legislation. I think that some of these cases are already appearing before the courts under general children’s legislation.

As I understand it, CAFCASS has recently been involved in a situation where a child was begging. We have to remember that very often the people who are exploiting children are the children’s own parents or relatives. This child was being exploited and selling the Big Issue 12 hours a day on the streets. She was exploited by her father, who went to prison. That seems to be just the sort of case we are talking about, but prosecuted under quite different legislation—the children’s legislation concerning neglect. Maybe that is where we should also look. We should see where else action is being taken.

I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, very carefully. I do not agree with her amendment but I am very much in sympathy with what she was saying in her speech. She identified some very important issues. One issue that perhaps we have missed throughout this debate is the one found in proposed new subsection (6) of the amendment, about vulnerable children who find themselves in difficulties because they do not understand what they are being expected to do, and even if they do, they have been so groomed or so frightened that they carry out whatever action is undertaken quite unconsciously; and even if it is consciously, they are in difficulties. We need to look at that and make absolutely sure that we are not going to be prosecuting children and young people when they are in those sorts of difficulties.

However, I am still of the belief that if we look at all the horrific incidents in the newspapers that have happened to children and young people recently—never mind all the ones that we in the profession know about: the thousands of children on child protection registers and the hundreds of cases that go through the courts every day—we know that there is legislation that could have protected those children. There is no doubt that the girls of Rotherham could have been protected by the legislation that is there. That is what the inquiry found: they could have been protected. So I disagree with my noble friend—

Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Howarth of Breckland and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Harris. I will not go through all the arguments that have been made already. The Minister can easily read the NSPCC submissions, which are extremely pertinent. I will make three very different points.

I know that the Minister is extremely concerned about child abuse generally, and child sexual abuse and its prevention in particular. We are about to embark on a huge inquiry. We have discussed whether an inquiry looking at past abuse might obscure what is happening today. What we must do—I am repeating this and will continue to do so—is spend our time preventing abuse now. The lessons that we can learn from the past will help us, but it is crucial that we prevent abuse now.

I declare an interest as the vice-chair of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, where grooming was first defined and understood. In relation to grooming, any of the experts will tell you that the perpetrator clears a number of hurdles to reach the full stature, if you like, of a paedophile. The first thing that they do is test whether they can gain the confidence of a child just through kindness, relationship and involvement. As I understand it, none of the current statutes would intervene at the point where a perpetrator sent a message saying, “I am really fond of you, I would like to see you topless or in your underwear”, or “I would like you to talk about sexual things”, or, as in one recent case, “I would like you to do something to your sister in front of me, so that I can see and understand how your relationship is going”. It gets worse as time goes on. As the perpetrator finds that they can cross one hurdle, they then discover that they are enabled to cross the next one, and the next one, until they are meeting children, and until they are fully abusing larger numbers of children. That is the history of grooming; it is how grooming works.

If we are serious about prevention, we need to prevent at that very first point. What the Minister will hear from the police—I am quite sure that he is in discussions—is that they find it quite difficult to sort out how they move forward among the enormously confusing entanglement of present legislation. I simply hope that the Government will have a look at this. I am not a lawyer; I only know what I experience in my day-to-day contact with the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, the NSPCC and other children’s organisations. They feel that not enough is being done, that one single law is needed to make it absolutely clear that we are serious about protecting our children, and that we should have an amendment—if not this one, something like it—to be able to act at the very first point.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, there appears to be a gap in child protection for the reasons that the noble Baroness has just given. I do not want to repeat them because everything she said was entirely accurate and always worrying. One has only to look at the stories that we have been getting around the country, not of historical abuse but of current abuse and abuse in the recent past—not just in the north but in other parts of the country. Sexual communications and the opportunity to encourage children to behave in a way that they think that they are doing to their peer group, is something that really needs to be sorted. I am no expert in this area of criminal law but if this area is not covered, as I understand to be the case, it is a serious matter that should be covered. I therefore ask the Government to look again, whether by means of this amendment or amendment of other legislation. It is not a matter to push into the long grass; it is urgent. If it is not covered, then it is urgent to cover it.

Another matter arises when a child finds that an adult is involved. If, say, this is stopped and the child finds that they were communicating not with a friend but with a grown-up, the embarrassment and distress to the child of having shown a tantalising photograph of herself or himself—remember boys are also vulnerable —has led children to commit suicide.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Howarth of Breckland and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness in this amendment. At his request, I will also speak to the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. Is that separate? It is separate, so I will speak entirely to this amendment.

At the adoption stage, Part 1 of the Bill, a number of us spoke about the importance of sibling contact. I made the point—I make no apology for making it again to a different Minister—that the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation took informal evidence from a considerable number of children. One of the points made both by the group who were adopted and the group in care concerned the enormous sorrow they felt at losing contact with the siblings they knew. Very sensibly, one girl said, “I am not concerned about the siblings born after I left the family but I am very worried about my brothers and sisters”. Another child was almost in tears as he was so worried about his younger brother, not knowing what was happening to him and nobody being able to tell him. He said he woke up at night worrying about his brother. That is not acceptable. Therefore, it is important at each stage that those in charge of children or in charge of making arrangements and connections with children have the siblings in mind. The judge may well say that the social workers have given him all sorts of good reasons why they are not going to meet, but it is important that the judge asks. There is no requirement on the judge, or indeed the magistrates in the family proceedings court, to ask that question unless it is in legislation.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I know that David Norgrove was very concerned that judges spent quite a considerable time reviewing care plans and that might well delay looking at the future of children. However, I cannot see why this aspect should not be looked at. When the judge is looking at the placement of the child before him, he must look at the whole family, the parental position and what is going to happen to the siblings. Although I understand absolutely why David Norgrove felt that the local authority should be the one looking sensibly at the care plans, I do not at all see why the court should not look at the sibling placement.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Howarth of Breckland and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Monday 21st October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

I may be a lone voice here but, much as I agree—who cannot agree?—with the essence of what the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has said, I do not view legislation as the answer. I am sure that the Minister will say that we have a plethora of legislation. I have worked in this field and I could list it but I will not do so because it would take all the time in the world. The important message that we should take from the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, is how vital it is that we should do what the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, has been saying for so long. We still are not doing well in terms of PSHE and helping young people and children to understand as early as possible what it is to be a parent, to be part of a community and all that you have to do as a citizen. Teens and Toddlers is still going and the programmes through which young people learn at first hand about bringing up children are very important.

However, I believe we live with a myth that modern young men are all the same, which we need to face if we are to deal with some of these issues. The young men I deal with, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, deals with, who end up in prison or in serious difficulties certainly are not among those who see themselves as hands-on in childcare. They see themselves as at the football match, the pub or an alternative. Until we are able to get programmes that work directly with such young men, we will not make a difference to them while they are growing up. We should forget the myth that all young men are the same, particularly in understanding the wide range of cultures. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, mentioned young men from certain cultures. There are difficulties in many different groups and we have to be sensitive to all that.

I say to my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss that I do not think that there are many good reasons for men walking out on their families. They do it because they have not been helped to face up to those issues. However, the courts are getting tougher in ensuring that they face up to their responsibilities, which I am pleased about. I know that CAFCASS has been working for a considerable time on trying to make parents face up to what they will do to their children if they leave them.

Although my heart is with what the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has said, we need to get on with the practical application and the proper support for good social work intervention that will make a difference, rather than have yet more legislation on the statute book.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

Perhaps I may say that I had no intention of saying that it was right for young men—or older men—to walk out on their families. They may be justified in walking out on their spouse or partner, but to leave the children behind, or not to look after them, is unacceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

I rise very briefly to support this amendment, and to ask for it to be looked at in a broader context of social policy. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, talked of young men in prison. I want to give one example—something I heard last week—which relates to how young people can learn. I was told of a hostel for young women with their babies that was closed, probably for financial reasons. The young women and their babies were dispersed. Six of them were at university, and no consideration was given to this fact, to the support they received at the hostel or to what would happen to them in future. If we are thinking about how we can ensure that each generation gets the support they need, that story is a good example of how broader policy could make a difference.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, for the reasons already given, which I will not repeat, I, too, support this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I am extremely sad to have to disagree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd. I am also indebted to the noble and learned Lords, Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, for what they would like to have said, but they are both unable to be here today.

It is important to realise that there are two views of the judiciary, of the academics and of the lawyers, not only the view put forward by the noble and learned Lord. The first view is that of seven Supreme Court judges. Normally in the Supreme Court they sit in a five-judge court. In this case, no doubt because it was either the seventh or eighth case, they sat as a seven-judge court. I have the highest possible regard for Lord Justice McFarlane, but two of the judges of the Supreme Court were family judges of even greater experience and expertise than him. Both those judges, both of whom are family practitioners and both of whom have worked with me, were absolutely unanimous with the other five that the decision to which the Supreme Court came was the right one.

There are two issues. One concerns a situation where there has been no significant harm to the child, or in Re J, the case with which we are concerned, three children. However, there was very significant harm to one child who died. In that case, the mother and the father were the only possible perpetrators. Under the current law, it did not matter which of them had killed or injured the child. The child may have died of asphyxia from being rolled on to in the bed—the child was lying in the bed with the parents, which is a terrible habit. This child had been seriously injured before it died. Those are the facts. The mother, during the time she lived with the father, was in that pool of perpetrators and it was clearly not safe for the older child, born while the parents were engaged in the process of care, to live with them. They then parted and went to live with different people. The mother eventually went to live with a man who was the divorced father of two children who lived with him, and with him she had two further children. The pool was then a different pool, not the pool of two perpetrators, one of whom was bound to have done it, but a different pool in which nothing had happened so far. The judges in the Re J case said that there had to be some evidence from which to infer the likelihood of significant harm in the new group, and it could not be said that the mother had injured or helped to kill the child when she lived in the other group, where she and the father were the obvious suspects. In Re J, the seven Supreme Court judges, who were unanimous, said that you had to have some evidence to cross the threshold. Unfortunately in that case the only issue that the local authority presented to the Court of Appeal and to the Supreme Court was the fact that the mother was in the area pool of perpetrators; no other facts were presented at all.

The alternative view put forward by the noble and learned Lord was one he put forward in the earlier case of Re H, where he was in the minority; the majority found against him. In that case, there was a girl of 16 who the elder sister of younger children. The girl said that she had been raped by the stepfather. In the criminal proceedings, he was acquitted. In the family proceedings, the judge said he was not satisfied as to the appropriate standard that the stepfather had raped this girl, but there was a strong suspicion. In that case the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court held that they could not infer sufficient facts to say that the other children were at risk.

The noble and learned Lord referred to another judgment by that great judge, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, who gave a leading speech in a case called B, or A, which I was on in the Court of Appeal. It involved three people; namely, the mother, the father and the childminder. In that case, the noble and learned Lord said that in relation to those three in that pool where the child was injured—I think that the child died—clearly it was “grotesque” to say that because they could not prove which of the two, or possibly three including the childminder, had actually committed the injury, they should not take steps to protect the children.

However, that is not the present case. In that case, it was the pool of potential perpetrators, one of whom had done it. In this case, the mother had moved away. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, raised an interesting point. He asked whether there were any recorded cases where the only evidence was that the mother or father had moved from the pool of perpetrators into a subsequent pool where the current law meant that nothing could be done and the child had suffered. I have to say that I have not heard of such a case. I do not think that there is such a case because it would undoubtedly have been referred to in the later cases, particularly in Re J. I thought that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, made an extremely pertinent point that there was nothing to show that the current law has been to the detriment of children potentially at risk.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, pointed to the crucial fact that the mother in Re J was in a new pool. No one has suggested that the father of the other children had ever committed any offence. He was a totally respected man. In his note, the noble and learned Lord said that the fact that the mother was in the earlier pool of perpetrators was relevant, but by itself that was not sufficient. He went on to say that it could be relied on, together with any other facts or circumstances that might be relevant, to support the conclusion that the three other children in Re J were likely to suffer harm.

It is interesting that there are other important factors that neither the Court of Appeal nor the Supreme Court were allowed to deal with. The first factor was that the mother was very young when she was living with the man and the child died. Secondly, it was a new relationship with a totally respectable person. Thirdly, there were two further children and she was much more mature. There were factors against her which they did not take into account; namely, that she had colluded with the man in the first case. If they had taken that into account, they might well have crossed the threshold. Unfortunately, those facts were not taken into account.

Therefore, as I understand it, this is a sole issue that is unlikely and, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, said, it is extremely rare. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, who is one of the great family experts, and Lord Wilson, were both satisfied in this case that the threshold was properly not crossed. Lord Reed said in paragraph 98 of Family Law Week that if the current law as stated in this case was causing consternation, it would appear to be an overreaction because the one clear-cut point was not one that was likely to come up very often, if at all. I am extremely concerned that we maintain a balance between the right of children to their own family, the right of parents to family life and their own child, and the crucial importance of the protection of the child where there is danger to that child.

The very delicate balance in Section 31 has been studied and subject to the most careful judgments by the Supreme Court. I think it is a little unjust to the Supreme Court that while the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, spent a lot of time on what Lord Justice McFarlane said, he did not quote a single passage of what anyone in the Supreme Court said. They are worth reading and they have a very good point. I would say to noble Lords that we have to be careful to protect families from too ready an interference on the part of the state unless there is sufficient evidence to take the child or children away.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

It is not being suggested that the children should be taken away. The suggestion is whether we are able to move to the welfare question.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

I have to say that in my experience as a family judge, speaking perhaps as the only family judge present, although of course the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, is a family magistrate, those judges would be issuing care proceedings immediately and removing the child while they debated whether the issue could be concluded in favour of the local authority’s view at the care hearing. On the interim care proceedings I have no doubt about the protection issues. Based on this, they would remove the child.

It is also interesting to note that despite some very strong attacks by two well known and respected family academic lawyers, another well respected family academic lawyer, Andrew Bainham, a reader in family law at Cambridge, has gone exactly the wrong way and has taken the view that the Supreme Court was right.

The last point I want to make is this: are we really right to change the point at which the threshold should be crossed, something on which seven Supreme Court judges have reached a conclusion with the greatest possible care? I urge the Committee not to do so.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Baroness Howarth of Breckland and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Monday 5th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I encourage the Minister to accept the amendment. I do not think for one moment that it cuts across the Government’s own policies or—as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, continually tells us—deficit issues. Looking at this might improve those deficit issues. If we do not have good expert witnesses, the consequences could be very high costs in some cases.

I have to declare an interest as the vice-chair of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation. Lady Faithfull was of course an eminent Conservative in the House of Lords. She developed the foundation to work with abusers, and the foundation continues that work. One of the things that we do is make assessments in very complex cases so as to make recommendations to the courts on whether some individuals are safe to remain with their families. It is absolutely crucial that these experts are maintained. However, at £63 an hour, the foundation has to subsidise that work at the moment. We cannot do that for long. I use that as an example of one of many organisations that find themselves unable to produce these experts.

I also declare an interest as having been the chair and vice-chair of CAFCASS for some eight years. I absolutely agree that there are too many expert witnesses. Children’s cases have been held up in court over the years because reports have been commissioned by judges and have had numbers of witnesses. Many of these have been commissioned by people who, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said, can afford to commission the reports themselves. That is a difficulty. We have a serious administrative muddle. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, gives the Government the opportunity to review and sort this out.

No one is saying that we want to maintain the high level of expert witnesses in the court. We want to ensure that, where expert witnesses are needed, they are available. If they are not available, that would be a really serious miscarriage of justice for children. Mistakes will be made and children will be put in danger. It is quality not quantity that really matters on this issue. If you talk to judges, social workers who work in the courts, or expert lawyers, they will always tell you that this will be the consequence.

My only other point is that the assessments being made by the Legal Services Commission are usually based on some sort of broad criteria that have little to do with expertise but have to do with qualification. If you are a poor social worker, you come very much at the bottom of the pile in terms of what you are worth, whatever your extra qualification might be. Lucy Faithfull Foundation social workers are experts in their field—psychologists and psychiatrists do not come near them, as anyone will tell you. Yet, in making their assessments, they are still paid at this sort of level. I encourage the Government to accept the amendment, not because it will mean that every expert is preserved but because it gives an opportunity to put the system on to a safe footing.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, this amendment is a timely reminder of a potential major problem which already exists but which will be much exacerbated in future. I have considerable, sometimes very uncomfortable, personal experience of large numbers of experts in the courts before me, so I should like to make three specific points. The first is on quality.

Quality, as the Norgrove report said, is variable, and I can tell you that it is variable. There are experts who are over-enthusiasts. There were two extreme examples, of brittle bones and salt, which reverberated about the medical consultant profession. The trouble is that they were not the only two. Other experts are giving evidence because they happen to have a line.

When I was president of the Family Division, I had very useful discussions with the Chief Medical Officer about how we could identify appropriate people who one might call middle of the road. They were not at one or the other end of the continuum; they were not people who said, “Nobody ever injures a baby”. I once had 13 doctors giving evidence in a shaken baby case, of which there probably needed to be about five. This was absolutely unnecessary. Half of those experts were giving evidence from a preconceived notion rather than from the evidence that they actually had, and it was extremely difficult to get them to do something sensible. It was an appalling case. It was not the only one—it was just the worst that I remember.

Quality is a real point. It is not the numbers but the people who can do it that matter. The Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, and I really struggled to see how we could identify for the benefit of the judiciary and the lawyers the doctors who would be middle of the road. It is unfinished business and, particularly in a time of financial stringency, it becomes all the more important. So quality is really very important.

Secondly, it is a problem of numbers—there are far too many. That ought to be dealt with in directions hearings, but they quite often get appointed before the case ever gets to the judge or the justices. Something must be done about numbers.

The third point is fees. There is no shortage of very distinguished doctors, particularly in the London area but right round the country, who will not put their heads above the parapet because they do not want to expend the time and trouble on going to court. On the fees that are now suggested—and I heard the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, talking about £90—I have heard the figure of £63 mentioned in the endless e-mails that I have had, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, was saying. Quite simply, if you cannot get the best experts now, what on earth is going to happen to the welfare of these very high-risk children if they do not have the doctors to help the judge or magistrates to decide whether they can safely go home or will for the rest of their lives be denied the real natural family? It is the most appalling decision. Shaken babies are an example. There is still no agreement on whether having hematomas on the outskirts of the brain within the skull or problems behind the retina is or is not an indication of a child having been shaken rather than suffering a natural trauma. How on earth does a judge try that—and these are High Court judges—if they do not have some help? What they need is good help; they need other people who will turn up and give sensible advice to the courts.

Social workers need more support. They are not having their evidence taken sufficiently seriously, and there is no shortage of cases where it would not be necessary to have several doctors if the sensible social workers’ advice was taken by the courts. Too many local authorities are pulling their social workers out of a case after six months. In a case that takes two years, there may be four social workers in charge, and the result is that no social worker is really on top of a case. If something could be done about that, you would need fewer doctors.

The amendment deals with the review and is a timely reminder of the real need to have a look at this and involve the Chief Medical Officer—if I may respectfully suggest it—to see what could be done to get the right doctors in the right place, and not too many of them.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Debate between Baroness Howarth of Breckland and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Monday 6th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Bichard. I want to concentrate on the people who are likely to abuse. I declare an interest as the vice-chair of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, of which I have been a trustee for some 20 years. It is the organisation that pioneered the work in grooming and understanding the nature of abusers.

As the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, said, there is no doubt that these individuals will see this as open season on children—and I choose my words carefully. I have probably been involved with more of these men than most—some women, but mostly men—and so I know just how deceitful, clever, manipulative and strategic they are. They have a long view. These individuals do not just move in, see a child and think they are going to abuse them; they plan their moves carefully. There has been talk about building trust, but when a teacher can systematically abuse a child in a classroom, as in a recent case, noble Lords should take that as an example of what these kind of individuals can do, and then recognise that there are others right across the country who are thinking at this moment, “Will there be another opening for me to reach a child?”.

I have also worked with victims of that abuse. Imagine it was your son or daughter who had been buggered or raped by one of these people, who had gained their trust. The child or young person involved believes that they are implicated—the trust means that they carry the guilt. This is why often these youngsters will not come forward early, but if you talk to rape crisis lines or the people who deal with adult abusers, time after time they will tell you how the guilt kept them from telling. Research may show that if you talk to young people there is less of it, but many youngsters will not say that it is happening to them because they have that guilt.

As far as supervised access is concerned, anyone who has recently been to any of the youth provision that is around will know how hectic it is—properly so, for young people enjoying themselves—and that “supervision” is a strange word. In fact, you are just about maintaining the peace in some of these organisations. It is very easy for these individuals to make contact with the young people. As has already been said, modern technology makes it even easier.

I can see the Minister sitting there thinking, “We have heard all this before; we have our position”. But I would say to him that if you really care about our nation’s children and what happens to them in their adulthood after these incidents have happened, when they are unable to make relationships, when their marriages break down, when they have problems with their own children, when they end up in mental hospitals or in prison—if you look at any of those cohorts you will find that a lot of these youngsters have been abused—then you will find a way to absolutely ensure that it is not as loose as this. Anyone who is likely to abuse a child must be able to be checked so that certainty can be held by a parent and indeed by the child—and in some ways by the individual themselves because the abuser’s life is destroyed as well if they are not helped to not go through all of this. I hope the Minister will do so.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I hope that I do not sound a discordant note if I congratulate the Government on the fact that they have looked at CRB checks and come to the conclusion that they go too far and too often. It is very important to recognise that a large number of people are CRB checked again and again, far more frequently than is necessary. I must say that I am a governor of a boys’ school, which I will visit tomorrow, and I am CRB checked. I have never yet spoken to a single pupil without another adult present, and nor would I do so. It is quite unnecessary for governors to be checked, unless they have particular roles in the school.

However, there is a very difficult balance to achieve. The balance is at its critical point on the amendments now before the House. There is a special case about the situation with secondary access, with those who are not immediately in charge, but who are supervised. The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, has perhaps unrivalled experience in this House. She manned Childline, for goodness’ sake. She has done so much to deal with victims, and through the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, she has done much to deal with perpetrators. What she has to say is of great importance.

I started listening to this debate, thinking “Well, actually, everybody’s going a bit over the top. Why shouldn’t we continue the excellent work the Government are doing, cutting through a great deal of red tape?”. Indeed, I hope that the Government will go on doing it. However, on this secondary access, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, says, supervision is a loose word. The Government might think that there is some point in this amendment and in the following amendments with which we are dealing. However, for goodness’ sake do not get rid of the notion of cutting out a great deal of CRB checks that are totally unnecessary, or which if achieved, should not then be done again and again.

My main point is therefore, keep at it, Government, but just look at this amendment—there is a point to it.