Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, my amendment in this group is Amendment 28. But before I turn to it I should say that, having listened to all the points that have been made, whether on speech and language difficulties, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, the kinship carer issue mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, or the splitting up of siblings—all these issues are so important. The fact that they have not been addressed effectively does not speak well of what we have achieved so far. We must ensure that we achieve more appropriate success in future.

My Amendment 28 stresses the need for a recovery principle to guarantee therapeutic support for looked-after children. Amendment 1, to which I spoke, also proposed that relevant bodies must also ensure the provision of appropriate support to advance looked-after children’s,

“recovery, happiness and emotional stability”.

As many as six in 10 children in care are there because they have experienced abuse or neglect, yet our support offer often falls woefully short. Between 60% and 90% of children who have experienced sexual abuse will not get access to therapeutic support. NSPCC research has also found that as many as one in five children are turned away from CAMHS after referral to a service. While the average waiting time between referral and assessment is two months, unbelievably many children are waiting up to six months.

Around 100 children contact the NSPCC’s ChildLine service each week about mental health concerns and abuse. This has profound implications for children. Looked-after children are four to five times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers outside the care system. Research from the United States also indicates that nine out of 10 children who are abused go on to develop a mental health condition by the time they are 18.

Young people who worked with the NSPCC to provide evidence for the Education Select Committee’s inquiry into the mental health of looked-after children said that the traumatic reasons that caused them to enter care are often never really dealt with. One said:

“Wounds turn into scars that will never heal”.

Another child, describing her care experience, explained to the committee that she had just accepted that she did not deserve the best in life. No children should ever have to carry these burdens with them throughout their lives.

It is therefore vital that the Government accept this amendment. Some £1.25 billion is on the table to improve mental health provision in the UK, and we must ensure that this reaches looked-after children. A robust legislative framework that puts the needs of looked-after children first is a vital way of achieving this.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

Amendment 33 in this group is mine. In the natural parent system there are normally one or two people who are linked to the child, and that link continues. When children go into care, the difficulty is that the staff looking after the children are apt to be different from day to day and week to week, and certainly from month to month. My proposal is that when a child comes into care, a member of the local authority care staff should be appointed with a responsibility for the well-being of that child. When I use the phrase “well-being”, I am thinking of course of the Care Act and the wonderfully large coverage that that phrase embraces. It is extremely important that this should happen.

Inevitably, there will be a need for change from time to time. I have therefore proposed that where it has to be changed, a new appointment is made so that there is always some individual responsible for the well-being of that child. An example of where this can happen and be important is in relation to the provision for the child. If a child is being provided for in a certain situation and it appears that a more inexpensive arrangement can be made for that child’s care, the idea might be to move that child from the more expensive arrangement to the less expensive. It is important that someone with responsibility for the well-being of that child should have an opportunity to be involved in that kind of decision. That seems to be well worth while.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, in his report on deaths in custody, suggested that where a vulnerable person came into the custody system it was important that a single person should have responsibility for looking after the well-being of that vulnerable person. I do not think the Government have actually refused to accept that particular proposal but they have not accepted it as yet. What lies behind that proposal is very much the same as what lies behind mine and I hope the Government will accept both.

Child Support Fees Regulations 2014

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I want to comment on Regulation 7(3) of the fees regulations and, incidentally, on Regulation 8(2). I have interests in children’s charities and care organisations, which may or may not be relevant to what I am going to say now but I declare them for caution.

It is rather remarkable that the Explanatory Memorandum comments on this provision and puts the point rather succinctly:

“The introduction of fees is politically significant. Child maintenance elements of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 had a difficult passage through the Upper House and charging persons with care, often single mothers of limited means”—

I do not know how many people are of unlimited means, but anyway it is quite clear that these are people of rather limited means—

“remains a controversial issue for stakeholder groups, service users and the wider public”.

I assume that I am included in the wider public.

I am entirely in favour of everything that can be done, and that this Government are doing, to try to help people who have had a relationship that has broken up. I am familiar from long ago with divorce cases; I did a lot of them but, as the Committee knows, that was a long time ago. However, the difficulties of interpersonal relationships were as formidable then as they are now, and I wish every success to the moves that have been made to try to help people by the Department for Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Education, which are involved in the Children and Families Bill, which is having its Third Reading tomorrow. I went to a meeting that Ministers organised in connection with that Bill, and I had to remind them that the DWP was also working in this area of trying to help people. Of course, they said that they work very closely together, so I am glad to hear that. The closer they get together, the more chance that their measures will be successful. As I say, I wish them every success in that. Unfortunately, so far those efforts have not produced universal success, and the regulations contemplate at least the possibility that they will not have universal success in future.

The point that I want to stress is that when it comes to the obligation to maintain a child, the parents’ obligation is absolute. It does not matter what sort of dispute they have had with the other party to the arrangements in the past. I accept immediately that there are many different types of squabble that can emerge, and it is by no means clear that the non-resident parent is always fully responsible. I entirely understand that for the question of the break-up of the arrangements, both parties usually have some degree of responsibility. When it comes to the payment of maintenance, though, that obligation is absolute and is not qualified by the fact that the other party to the arrangement has been terrible, difficult or whatever. That is what these fee regulations are concerned with.

The collection fee that I have referred to appears when the collection system comes into operation. That happens only when the Child Maintenance Service, not the other party, is satisfied that without the collection service, maintenance is unlikely to be paid. That is in Section 137 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012. The decision that the collection service comes into operation, with its charges, is entirely the responsibility of the Child Maintenance Service and has nothing whatever to do with any responsibility of the parent with care. In that situation, the imposition of the collection charge on the parent with care is unjustified in principle.

Of course, this is not by any means the first time that I have raised this issue, and I thank the departmental Ministers, who have changed over time, for the courtesy with which they have listened to the same thing being said again and again. That has not been an altogether unproductive process, because concessions have been made that I warmly welcome. The concessions are narrated in the Explanatory Memorandum; I will not weary the Committee by going over them but I agree that they are quite substantial. The most recent one was the reduction from the 7% to 12% charge that was originally thought of to 4% in the case of the parent with care. As I say, I welcome that very much and am glad that it has happened. However, as the Explanatory Memorandum says, this charge remains controversial, and I think it is unjustified in principle.

I did not feel inclined to table a Motion of Regret or a Motion to set aside the regulations, for pretty obvious reasons but primarily because the Government know what our House decided about this matter long ago. Of course, it was overcome by the financial protection of the House of Commons and therefore went through. But as the Explanatory Memorandum says, the passage through the upper House was not entirely easy. That vote is there and, as far as I know, opinion on that point remains.

I submit that the review that is to take place 30 months after the matter comes into force will take particular account of this point, which I am sure will remain controversial until the inquiry is completed, whether or not I am here to promote it—although that may be a matter of opinion. I do not intend to weary your Lordships further but I do wish to indicate the principled objection to this that remains.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, your Lordships may remember that I was one of those who supported the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, in the very important amendment that he has just referred to. I, too, remain concerned that despite the concessions made by the Government in reducing the application fee for a child maintenance calculation to £20 and reducing the parent with care collection charge by 4% on every payment—on which I congratulate them—there is a real danger that the effect of the new charging regime will be that fewer children end up with fair and reliable child maintenance.

In this respect, I share the conclusion of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which found that,

“although the transfer scheme may make savings it may imperfectly achieve the overarching objective of providing financial support for children”.

I want to press the Minister for assurances that the Government will closely monitor what happens to maintenance for children whose CSA cases are closed during the next three years. After all, the department has details of the parents and children so can track what happens to them, case by case, in terms of future maintenance arrangements—or the lack of them.

It will not be enough for the Government to congratulate themselves if fewer parents apply to use the statutory maintenance service, unless they know for certain that the parents concerned have made private arrangements for maintenance that result in regular payments of realistic amounts for the children concerned. Similarly, it will not be enough to be satisfied that fewer parents are asking to use the collection service and have opted for a direct payment arrangement—again, unless they know for certain that those direct payment arrangements are resulting in regular payment of the liabilities that have been calculated by the Child Maintenance Service.

In the past, the department has said it can assume that every direct payment arrangement is paid in full and on time because, if not, parents with care would ask to use the collection service. Even if this assumption were true now, it will certainly not be true in the future, given that the collection charges are expressly intended to deter parents from asking to use the collection service, regardless of the circumstances. I therefore seek full assurances from the Minister that the department will track in detail how children fare as their CSA cases are closed down and charges are brought in.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, it has been an extremely interesting debate and all sides have contributed a lot to one’s thinking. I am sympathetic to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Perry. Perhaps I should declare my interest as president of the NGA, because I think that the vast majority of governing bodies are responsible organisations that represent local areas considerably.

I agree that there are two points. Should primary schools be part of the scheme? Yes, I think that they should be. Are they so different that we have to wait for the next Bill to come through? I rather doubt that. We could begin the process now. The Secretary of State has considerable powers already and bodies such as diocesan boards are clearly strong partners.

Bearing in mind the issue of special educational needs, which is important to us all, I would like to know whether SEN pupils will be disadvantaged if we go down this route because they will not have the same backing from the local authority to provide the extra resource support that they are getting. That is my test. We could certainly begin with experiments now. I hope that the Minister can convince us that he will take a view on all these things before he gives the appropriate timescale for schools to apply to become academies.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, I very much follow the line that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, has taken. Assuming that some primary schools would eminently qualify—I rather thought that the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, said that there were some—I cannot see why it is right to delay the power to deal with them while you wait to see if others should join them. One has to remember that this is for primary schools and the time spent in primary school is comparatively short. We would deprive children who might well benefit from the system for a considerable portion of their primary school life. While delay is attractive from some points of view, it would damage those who are qualified now to obtain the benefit.

I believe that it is right for the Secretary of State to have discretion to receive these applications and to refuse those that he considers to be unsuitable or to delay them. I have no reason to doubt that he will exercise that discretion wisely. Apart from anything else, as the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, said, the Secretary of State will be judged and, if the schools are failures, that will come home to roost. I have no doubt that the noble Baroness is aware of that problem.