Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Howarth of Breckland and Baroness Scott of Bybrook

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said. The spirit of these amendments strikes me as very appropriate. What we need is a duty that is appropriate to people who are not corporate parents but have a duty and a responsibility to do what they can within their sphere of responsibility to help the corporate parent to carry out the corporate parent’s responsibility. Of course there is another area where in a sense this happens: in ordinary families. These authorities may well have a duty as well to try to help the ordinary parent, not just the corporate parent, to fulfil their responsibilities. That is not so easy these days for many. So while I entirely agree that this is a proper course to take, and I suggest, along with the noble Lord, Lord Warner, that it should be drafted along the lines of the Care Act, we ought also to have at the back of our minds the fact that there are other children who sometimes need special care, too.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I speak as a corporate parent. I am a corporate parent for the nearly 400 young people in the care of Wiltshire Council. I have concerns about the amendment. I believe that I am responsible as the corporate parent for such a child’s life chances—so I am responsible for the plans for the child’s health and for challenging the local commissioning group and the local GP who is responsible for looked-after children in our county to give that child the right services. I believe that that is my responsibility, as it would be my responsibility as a parent.

I am concerned that if we move some of the responsibility to another body, it will not do it as well as it would if we were pushing it to do it. So I welcome the strengthening in the Bill of the responsibility of the corporate parent, but that corporate parent is responsible for not just health but life chances, including apprenticeships, traineeships and jobs into the future. That is my responsibility as a corporate parent, just as it is to give support to my own children as they move on through their life chances—not, I have to say, just up until 18.

I very much look forward to debating looking after a looked-after child for many years into their future. I am still looking after mine; a couple of them are in their 40s and they still come home for advice and support. In Wiltshire we are looking at how we might use volunteers, the voluntary sector, mentors in the communities and people who are special in those young people’s and young adults’ lives to help us to do that. So please strengthen our role and allow us to be the ones to strongly challenge other departments to deliver the services that our children require.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, perhaps I may say that those of us who also have been corporate parents do not disagree at all that somebody clearly has to be a corporate parent. What we would like to see in the Bill is for other departments—particularly government departments, which are nowhere in other legislation—to have a responsibility to work with that corporate parent in legislation, and to give that support. That is what I think everyone who has spoken means.