Children and Families Bill

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, we are all aware of the passionate concern of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, for victims of trafficking, and of the concern of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I support the amendment strongly and do so as patron of the child trafficking unit at the University of Bedfordshire, which does amazing work in supporting young people who have been trafficked. The issue foremost in its mind is the importance of guardianship and advocacy. Children are still at risk and the present arrangements are not adequate. The noble Lord, Lord McColl, eloquently detailed the need for guardianship, and I wish to add a few remarks.

I remember when the noble Lord, Lord McColl, introduced the Second Reading of his Private Member’s Bill on human trafficking to the House in November 2011. These issues came up then. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich spoke of trafficking being an issue for our common humanity. Nothing seems to have changed and, in particular, children who are trafficked need all the help they can get. A guardian who advocates in the best interests of the child is a vital element in that support.

Many of these children remain unidentified unless they are associated with criminal offences. I am thinking of young boys who work in cannabis factories, of which, I read in the newspaper, there are about 500,000 in this country. These boys get caught and the bosses escape. I am thinking of girls sold into the sex trade, who have their passports removed and are kept locked away to have sex with dozens of men a day or are sold into domestic slavery. Sometimes, if these children escape or are discovered, they are passed around the systems. They do not speak much English and they have no knowledge of the support systems that might help them. Many simply go missing.

Even if they are found and receive support, it may be well meaning but inappropriate. I remember one girl who was accommodated in a flat in a suburb outside London with no friends. On Christmas Day, a social worker took round a cake. Apart from that she was isolated, and the isolation of such children can mean that they are at real risk of being unprotected and retrafficked.

These young people need a guardian, as the noble Lord, Lord McColl said, to help with language difficulties, legal issues, accommodation, finding a friendship group and protection. It may be the case that the people who trafficked the young person will come looking for them. Importantly, as the noble Lord, Lord McColl, emphasised, the guardian can help with the liaison between the agencies concerned with the child, such as police, social workers, health and education. This is an issue of child protection and should be in the plans of every local authority. Guardianship is the best way to ensure that there is a positive outcome for these children who have undergone the most horrendous and degrading experiences.

The University of Bedfordshire’s child trafficking unit provides interventions for trafficked young people, with individual and group support and education. I want to share briefly the story of one such young woman, just to show that enormous progress can be made with sympathy, understanding and formal support. I first met this young woman when she was about 17 and had been trafficked from a country in Africa. Her English was poor and she was still traumatised. Two years later she came to an event here in the Cholmondeley Room in the House of Lords, where trafficked young people presented their experiences in works of art and short speeches. The noble Lord, Lord McColl, attended and I think he was impressed. He certainly took many photographs.

The young woman I am talking about spoke very passionately to about 80 people. After the ceremony she said to me, “Did you notice anything about me today?”. I said, “Not in particular”, although she was confident, attractive and charismatic. She said, “I read my speech”. Two years earlier she could not read. This young woman, with support and encouragement from guardians and advocates, was now attending college and had ambitions. I do not think I need to say any more about the importance of guardianship and advocacy for trafficked children.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I intended to put my name to this amendment but failed to do so. I have supported each of the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and I strongly support this one. He has set out extremely effectively, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, nearly everything that needs to be said and I do not propose to say very much.

I wish to pick up on what the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said about this being an issue of child protection, among other matters. As I said earlier this week, very often when children go missing from local authority care, the local authorities do not know that they are trafficked children. Therefore, no one is identifying them and looking for them with the special care that is required for this small group of children. They are treated as ordinary missing children who will probably come back. This is a very serious child protection issue.

The other point made by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, is so important that I shall repeat it. There is a real need for one constant person to take an interest in the child, meet the child early on, offer a mobile phone number, be at the end of a telephone and be able to answer the questions that a child with very limited or no English will need to ask someone who can be there. One of the sadnesses highlighted at the Still at Risk event that I was glad to attend yesterday is that these children have multiple social workers. We all know the underresourcing and overwork of social workers, so can they give a special degree of care to a foreign trafficked child who is not even under a care order? Consequently, they have to cope with no one person in their life.

What the noble Lord, Lord McColl, is suggesting in this amendment is crucial. We are failing a small number of grievously disadvantaged foreign children. We are talking about hundreds, not thousands. There was a particularly worrying case in Kent, where children who had been trafficked into Kent were being trafficked out by the same traffickers. Fortunately, Kent Police got hold of this, but if there had been a guardian, that guardian would have kept in touch with the child, with any luck, and would probably have been able to prevent it as they would be the one person who would know where the child was and, in any event, would be in touch with the suitable authorities to try to deal with it.

I have been talking to Barnardo’s about whether it would be prepared to offer some sort of service. The most important point that it makes is that there has to be a sufficient legal status because the majority of social services and, indeed, the NHS, talk about the confidentiality of teenage children and so on, so they will not necessarily tell somebody coming in what is going on. If the person has legal status, people have to open their records. In the absence of that sufficient legal status, a wonderful organisation, such as Barnardo’s, the NSPCC, the Children’s Society and so on, would not be able to offer that service, even if it were to be financially supported to do it.

The noble Lord, Lord McColl, has raised a very important issue. He and I were, if I may put it rather bluntly, fobbed off by the Government in 2011 and 2012 on the basis that there would be this report, and nothing is happening now. Children are going missing and are suffering the trauma of trying to cope with inadequate English through the multiplicity of agencies with which they have to deal. Quite simply, it is unjust. It is not good enough, and we as a country should be rather ashamed of ourselves.

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[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, we share the concerns of my noble friend Lord McColl for the victims of the terrible crime of child trafficking. I pay tribute to his determined and enduring commitment to these children. I am sorry if the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and my noble friend Lord McColl feel that they are being batted away in any sense; they are not and will not be. These debates are extremely important in taking things forward.

At the previous session of this Committee, the failure of some local authorities to fulfil their statutory duties towards these child victims was discussed. We heard, as we have heard again today, some heartrending accounts. I start by emphasising that these failures are absolutely unacceptable. Local authorities should ensure that these very vulnerable children receive the care and support that they so desperately need. In fulfilling those duties, a looked-after child who has been trafficked should be allocated a social worker by the local authority, as noble Lords have heard. The social worker should be responsible for planning the care of the child, ensuring that they are safely accommodated and that their welfare is supported.

The social worker should plan to ensure that all the needs of the child are met. They should take particular account of the specific needs of a trafficked child, including planning to prevent the child going missing from care, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, providing safe and secure accommodation and ensuring that the child understands any procedures in which they are involved. Throughout this they should treat the child as a victim of crime.

The child should also be allocated an independent reviewing officer who would, among many responsibilities, ensure that the child is aware of the implications of their immigration and asylum status and that the local authority considers these as part of its plan to meet the child’s needs. Further, as noble Lords have said, the child would have the right of access to an independent advocate responsible for accurately representing the child’s wishes and feelings. Advocates can support children on all issues, not just their care plan. Social workers have a duty to tell all children about their right to an advocate. Advocates can and do support children of all ages, even the very young children to whom my noble friend referred. The child’s needs and interests are best protected when these professionals work well together and fulfil their statutory responsibilities.

Legal status, perhaps unfortunately, is not the point. Local authorities have a statutory duty to assess and meet the needs of trafficked children. The issue is one of practice and, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee pointed out, trying to ensure that what should happen legally actually does happen.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and others mentioned Scotland, and I inquired as to whether this had solved the problem. I understand that the pilot of guardians in Scotland has, thus far, had mixed results. I can reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that we are keeping in touch with the Scottish Government to see what lessons we can learn from them, but it seems again to come back to practice; even setting the arrangements in place has not cracked it in Scotland.

I realise that my noble friend Lord McColl does not accept this point but we continue to feel that adding another person in the form of a child trafficking guardian to those already working in the interests of the child could add another layer of complexity. There could be a real danger of confusion about the role of social workers, independent reviewing officers and the new guardians. The current system is clear about who is responsible for taking decisions about how best to support the young person. However, we accept, as I said on Monday, that this is clearly not working out in practice as it should do. Noble Lords will know that the statutory framework includes specific duties to consider the particular needs of the trafficked child and, for example, keeping the child safe from their traffickers.

From November, every Ofsted inspection report must say how local authorities are doing in reducing the number of, and supporting, children who go missing. It is therefore vital to focus on the reasons for the failure of some local authorities to provide adequate support to trafficked children, rather than perhaps to conceal those failures below further operational layers.

Noble Lords have made reference to the Still at Risk report. They may have noted that several of its recommendations highlighted that all agencies need to implement properly statutory and practice guidance. The structures already exist to provide the support required by trafficked children if the relevant authorities put them into effect. The report showed that effective multi-agency working is an essential part of providing the right support.

I said on Monday that we have already put in place a major programme of reform to transform the care system. We want to see stable and permanent placements, high-quality education and health support, and better support for care leavers as they transition to adulthood. We will ensure that, as we implement these programmes, we will take account of the particular needs of trafficked children. As I said on Monday, we have already published revisions to the statutory guidance on missing children, which strengthen advice on meeting the needs of child victims of trafficking. However, I repeat that we recognise the strength of feeling and the strong arguments around this issue. As I said on that occasion, we would like to take this issue away and I invite further discussions to try to take this forward, drawing on every noble Lord’s expertise. In the light of that, I hope that my noble friend will be willing to withdraw his amendment.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

Perhaps I may ask two questions. First, I cannot accept that a guardian or advocate would add an extra layer to the system in supporting trafficked children. The guardian or advocate is supposed to link the layers together and support the child. Secondly, will the Government be talking to Barnardo’s, the NSPCC, the Children’s Society, the University of Bedfordshire and ECPAT in order to hear first hand the experiences of dealing with trafficked children?

[Baroness Northover]

I heard what noble Lords said about feeling that the guardian would cut through those layers; my noble friend Lord McColl put that case extremely cogently. I should like to reassure noble Lords that we are seeking to tackle this problem as effectively as possible. In some ways, it is perhaps slightly dispiriting to hear that it has not been cracked by the Scottish model. It looks to me as though we need to look further into why this is not working. That is why it is important that we meet up for a discussion, and it is vital that the organisations that the noble Baroness referred to feed in their expertise so that we can best take this forward.

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Moved by

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

44: After Clause 9, insert the following new Clause—
“Support for family and friends carers when children are not looked after
(1) Each local authority must make arrangements for the provision within their area of family and friends care support services, including—
(a) counselling, advice and information; and(b) such other services as are prescribed, in relation to family and friends care.(2) The power to make regulations under subsection (1)(b) is to be exercised so as to secure that local authorities provide financial support.
(3) At the request of any of the following persons—
(a) a relative, wider family member or friend caring for a child in any of the circumstances (hereinafter referred to as C) set out in subsection (4) below;(b) a parent or other person with parental responsibility; or(c) a child living with C in circumstances set out in subsection (4) below; or(d) any other person who falls within a prescribed description, a local authority must carry out an assessment of that person’s needs for family and friends care support services.(4) The circumstances referred to in subsection (3)(a) and (c) are—
(a) the child comes to live with C as a result of enquiries or plans made under section 47 of this Act;(b) the child comes to live with C following an investigation under section 37 of this Act;(c) C has been granted a residence order or a child arrangements order to avoid the child being looked after, within care proceedings on the child or following the accommodation of a child;(d) there is professional evidence of the impairment of the parents’ ability to care for the child; or(e) the parent is dead or in prison.(5) A local authority may, at the request of any other person, carry out an assessment of that person’s needs for family and friends care support services.
(6) Where, as a result of an assessment, a local authority decide that a person has needs for family and friends care support services, they must then decide whether to provide any such services to that person.
(7) If—
(a) a local authority decide to provide any family and friends care support services to a person, and(b) the circumstances fall within a prescribed description, the local authority must prepare a plan in accordance with which family and friends care support services are to be provided to him, and keep the plan under review.(8) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about assessments, preparing and reviewing plans, the provision of family and friends care support services in accordance with plans and reviewing the provision of family and friends care support services.
(9) The regulations may in particular make provision—
(a) about the type of assessment which is to be carried out, or the way in which an assessment is to be carried out;(b) about the way in which a plan is to be prepared;(c) about the way in which, and the time at which, a plan or the provision of family and friends care support services is to be reviewed;(d) about the considerations to which a local authority are to have regard in carrying out an assessment or review or preparing a plan;(e) as to the circumstances in which a local authority may provide family and friends care support services subject to conditions (including conditions as to payment for the support or the repayment of financial support);(f) as to the consequences of conditions imposed by virtue of paragraph (e) not being met (including the recovery of any financial support provided);(g) as to the circumstances n which this section may apply to a local authority in respect of persons who are outside that local authority’s area;(h) as to the circumstances in which a local authority may recover from another local authority the expenses of providing family and friends care support services to any person.(10) A local authority may provide family and friends care support services (or any part of them) by securing their provision by—
(a) another local authority; or(b) a person within a description prescribed in regulations of persons who may provide family and friends care support services, and may also arrange with any such authority or person for that other authority or that person to carry out the local authority’s functions in relation to assessments under this section.(11) A local authority may carry out an assessment of the needs of any person for the purposes of this section at the same time as an assessment of his needs is made under any other provision of this Act or under any other enactment.
(12) Section 27 (co-operation between authorities) applies in relation to the exercise of functions of a local authority under this section as it applies in relation to the exercise of functions of a local authority under Part 3.”

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, my amendments in this group address the issue of kinship care. Amendment 44 concerns:

“Support for family and friends carers when children are not looked after”.

Amendment 45 addresses carers’ allowances and financial support. I should ask for the Committee’s patience in my speaking to these amendments; some of these issues are rather complex and all are important.

Both amendments seek greater support for family and friends carers. Last week, I described such people as heroes—and so they are. They take over the care of children, very often in the direst circumstances, and lack the support that they need and deserve. I am grateful to the Kinship Care Alliance, which includes many organisations concerned with children’s families’ rights, for its tireless and highly professional support for family and friends carers, and for its determination to seek a better deal.

The House has discussed family and friends carers many times before. Some colleagues may remember the discussions, which have notably taken place in Bills concerned with welfare. Ministers from both sides of the House have been sympathetic, and some adjustments to the situation have been made, but not enough. I used to meet kinship carers regularly when I chaired the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, because many of the carers looked after children of a relative who had a drug or alcohol problem. I became aware of what a brilliant job these carers do, often without or with very little support, and often to the detriment of their own physical, emotional and mental health, particularly if they are older carers such as grandparents. Kinship carers take over the care of young relatives because they want the best for them, often in an emergency, such as the sudden death of a child’s parent. I remember a grandmother in a London borough whose daughter died suddenly late at night, and who took over caring for three children aged between one and 10 in a one-bedroom flat. “You know what they call us?”, she said, “The midnight grannies”.

Two key issues underline what I have to say. One is that the outcomes for children who are looked after by a relative are better than those for children looked after outside the family. Secondly, such care saves an enormous amount of money. The cost of a place in independent foster care is £40,000, and the average cost to the state of care proceedings is more than £25,000. However, research indicates that most family and friends care arrangements—86%—are initiated by carers themselves, rather than social workers seeking them out.

An estimated 300,000 children are being raised by relatives and friends. Only an estimated 6% of children who are raised in family and friends care are looked after by the local authority and placed with approved foster carers. By far the majority live with their relatives and friends outside this care system, either with the parents’ agreement, or under a residence order or special guardianship order granted by the courts. Despite the lack of support, children in the care of family and friends do better in terms of attachment. They have a sense of belonging, a sense of safety and the confidence that they will not be moved about. This results in better educational outcomes and fewer behavioural problems. There is a greater likelihood of an ethnic match—88% as opposed to 78%.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes)]

My Lords, it is now 5.12 pm. I apologise again to the noble Baroness for interrupting her mid-flow. The Grand Committee is now resumed.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

It was quite a welcome break in this long speech. I am moving Amendment 44 and speaking to Amendment 45. They support financial and other support to family and friends carers. I was summarising briefly the benefits to children of such care and the hardships suffered by family and friends carers. Although there is a duty on local authorities to establish a special guardianship support service, similar to adoption support, this does not give an individual carer the right to a specific service. Moreover, there is no equivalent support service for children in kinship care under a residence order or no order. A survey of family and friends carers shows that those with special guardianship orders are the most satisfied with the legal order compared to those who do not have such orders.

Secondly in the list I started earlier, despite the Government’s 2011 guidance on family and friends care, most local authorities are not proactive in supporting family and friends care. There is no dedicated family and friends care team, for example, in most local authorities. This means that the carers and children are dealt with—here we go again—by different teams in children’s services, who may not have specific expertise.

The third factor is that there are no official statistics published on the number of children in family and friends care either nationally or locally. One analysis by the University of Bristol excludes friends care, for example. Local authorities do not routinely collect such data so it is difficult to see how they can design and finance such services. The 2011 guidance is clear: it requires all English local authorities to have a family and friends care policy stating what support they would provide by September 2011. Sadly, much later after that deadline, more than 30% of local authorities still have not published a family and friends care policy. The guidance does not change the legal position but while local authorities have to provide support for looked-after children placed with family and friends carers, which is 6% of children, they do not have to provide support for the 94% of children in family and friends care who are classified as not looked after.

I am aware that, in the climate of financial restrictions, local authorities are seeking to reduce service provision and that non-statutory services are being cut. My Amendment 44, which mirrors the special guardianship support service required, seeks to redress the shortcoming by requiring local authorities to provide support to meet the identified needs of children being raised by family or friends under a private arrangement or residence order. The circumstances as to when this would apply restrict the support to children who would otherwise be in the care system because they are at risk or their parents are incapacitated, dead or in prison. I hope the Minister will be able to address these concerns and meet with the Kinship Care Alliance to discuss the urgency of this situation.

Amendment 45 seeks to insert a new Section 77A into the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992. It aims to ensure that family and friends carers receive a basic financial allowance from central government to support them in raising a child who cannot remain with their parents and would otherwise be in the care system. Support would be restricted to cases of children whose parents are incapacitated, dead or in prison. The amendment would provide the mechanism for local authorities to provide discretionary support to meet more effectively the assessed needs of children in family and friends care under residence orders or where there is no order at all. However, this does not address the additional costs to family and friends carers of raising a child who is not their own.

Of course, the legal liability for maintaining children lies with the parents at all times, even if their children are cared for by someone else. At no point does legal liability transfer to family and friends carers, except on adoption, but these carers often have existing financial responsibilities—for example, caring for an elderly relative or their own existing children.

They may apply for child benefit, although there are sometimes problems in transferring this from the parents to the carer. They may apply for tax credits according to their means, and an allowance for the child where they are in receipt of income support. However, there is no recognition in the benefits system of the additional costs of raising a child who is not their own. Caring for a child, according to the Fostering Network, is calculated to be 50% higher than the cost of caring for a birth child. This is partly due to emotional distress in the children, maintaining contact with parents and other family members and engaging with social workers and health and education staff. This is why foster carers receive specific allowances from local authorities, paid at substantially higher rates than state benefits and tax credits.

Briefly, there are four key financial issues for family and friends carers in raising a child outside the looked-after system. First, there is the immediate cost of a child coming to live with a carer, often, as I said earlier, in an unplanned or emergency situation. Secondly, there are the costs of applying for a legal order to provide the child with security and permanence. Thirdly, there is the lost income resulting from the carer reducing their working hours, leaving paid work, forgoing career opportunities or losing pension rights. Finally, there are the actual costs of raising a child, which may include a larger home, higher utility bills and so on.

When special guardianship legislation was passed, it was envisaged that many foster carers would apply for special guardianship orders for older children in their care. There have been cases of successful orders in such situations but many foster carers are reluctant to apply for such orders because they fear that the financial support received would be inadequate, as compared to the mandatory support they and the child would receive as foster carers. It is likely that more foster carers would apply for special guardianship orders if they could be guaranteed continued financial support. The regulations should be amended accordingly. I hope that these two amendments will be favourably received by the Government, so that family and friends carers get a much better deal.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I support these two amendments. I am either patron or president of the Grandparents’ Association and I have a particular example of a friend of mine, who took over the care of her goddaughter at very short notice. She would otherwise have gone into care. The social workers encouraged my friend to keep the child and to take a residence order. Eventually she got a special guardianship order, which she has at the moment, but once she got the residence order she discovered that the social workers were basically saying, “That’s fine; now we don’t have to pay you, which is a very good reason why we didn’t want you to be a foster mother”. This is not as it should be.

It is not unusual for this to happen. Family and friends who are carers are quite often treated this way. Because they are prepared to care for one of their own family or somebody close to them, it does not become the requirement of the local authority to give them any support. I battled for this friend of mine to have some support and they gave her a small amount as a sort of honorarium. It really was very small indeed. It happens that some quite young grandparents or other carers, having achieved a good position in a job and a comfortable lifestyle, suddenly find themselves, after a daughter or daughter-in-law dies, taking over the care of a child or children at short notice. Their standard of living drops dramatically, often because they can no longer keep their job. They are therefore losing their comfortable lifestyle. Not only do they have an extremely exhausting time caring for their grandchildren, who of course they love dearly. It is also very trying because they find themselves short of money in a way that they had not been when they were ordinary grandparents and out at work.

It is a real need that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, has set out with such care and the Government really should be looking at it, because in the majority of cases local authorities will not pay if they do not have to. Many grandparents in the association with which I am connected are in the very position that I have just described.

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[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I thank the Minister for her response. The case has been made by all the speakers, and I thank those who have given of their expertise today for that.

I shall make a few comments. I am hearing about a great deal of guidance and information packs coming out but not about what local authorities must do rather than what they should do. I want to hear what they must do. I return to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, under which the welfare of the child is paramount. Clearly in some of the cases we have heard today, the welfare of the child is not paramount. Local authorities do not need information packs; they need the will to support these vulnerable families and children.

I will look at the Ofsted report if the noble Baroness can point me to it. It sounds like an interesting breakthrough. I was involved in the legislation that the noble Baroness mentioned earlier. We managed to get one or two little chinks, but we did not get far enough. I hope that we might get further with these amendments. It is quite clear that there is a lack of local authority support to family and friends carers. They should have teams or individuals specifically to support such carers, particularly when they are providing stability for children, often in an emergency, as we have heard. The emotional and educational outcomes are better for children in family and friends care.

I am happy that the noble Baroness will meet those of us who are interested and the family and friends care network so that we can look at this issue again and try to put some steel into it. It is not only children who will suffer; family and friends carers will also suffer because they do not have the money or the support for the magnificent job they are doing. I beg to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 44 withdrawn.

Sport: Women and Girls

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they will take to encourage women and girls to take part in sport, and how they will seek to improve the profile of women’s sport in the media to that end.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, the Government are committed to encouraging more girls and women to play sport regularly as part of the sporting legacy. Sport England’s £1 billion community and youth sports strategy includes programmes designed to appeal specifically to women and girls. In addition, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has been working closely with the broadcast and print media to encourage them to cover more women’s sport.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I thank the noble Baroness for that encouraging Answer, but can she expand on the consultation that is taking place not only with the media but with sports advisers in schools to encourage girls? In particular, what kind of sports are being identified as problematic for women and girls, and how will the media be asked to deal with that?

[Baroness Northover]

The picture here is encouraging but there is a tremendous amount more to do. I was struck by the fact that the latest figures, from December 2012, show that 1 million more women are taking part in sport than was the case when we won the Olympic bid in 2005. On coverage, in 2005 the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation estimated that only about 5% of media coverage was of women’s sport. The BBC has just told us that women’s sport now amounts to 25% of its sports coverage. Clearly, a lot more needs to be done and one of the things that is being taken forward by Sport England is to look at how best to encourage further development of this and encourage more women and girls to take part in sport.

Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for introducing this debate. I, too, remember the Olympics with pride and remember the eloquence of the sportsmen and sportswomen when they talked about hard work and graft. I cannot remember how many times that word “graft” came up but what a good message for our young people the word is. I shall remember the technical efficiency, the expertise, enthusiasm and knowledge of the presenters, the splendid opening and closing ceremonies—apart from one that I prefer to forget—and the cheerfulness and the support of the volunteers. However, when it comes to concrete legacies, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, said, it was “us”—we did it, and I want to reflect on what we actually did.

Legacy, for me, is not just about initiatives—I think the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said something very eloquent about this—good though they might be. A true legacy for sport would be for every city and region of the country to have a strategy to help its population be active, and here I admire the initiative of my noble friend Lord Howarth. People’s needs change. Older people are not going to take part in competitive sport—some do, but not many, although they can be active. People with disabilities can be, and are, active. Legacy is a continuum of participation activity, linking industry, schools, clubs, gyms, communities and families, and is continuing and sustained. Such a strategy would include volunteers, and I want to know whether there has been, or will be, any follow-up about volunteers: what made them or inspired them to participate? What did they get out of it? What was useful? What have we learnt from it? How will we fund volunteering?

I want to consider girls and women in sport. It was hoped that the Games would encourage participation in sport—not just in competitive sport but in physical activity. I wish the Government, in their documents, would give greater emphasis to physical activity rather than to competitive sport. I am all for competitive sport—I love it—but sport does not have to be competitive to be enjoyable. I also wish the Government would make firm commitments to developing sport and the arts in schools and encouraging collaboration between both state and private schools. Can the Minister comment on that?

There are initiatives to encourage women and girls to participate in sport, but some of the facts are depressing. A Sport and Recreation Alliance survey in October notes the view of clubs that,

“the Government hasn’t done enough to help community sport create a legacy of participation”.

Many clubs are struggling to increase membership: about 42% of them do not expect additional funding and 78% have seen no increase in volunteering. Only 1% of clubs say that a new school link has resulted from the Games. All this will impact on girls and young people in sport.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a meeting of the new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Women’s Sport and Fitness. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson on taking the initiative in this, as well as of course on her commitment to encouraging people with disabilities to take up sport and on her superb commentaries during the Games. The meeting that she organised was inspiring, with Kath Grainger talking movingly about her pride and dedication to her sport and Clare Balding and Harriet Harman calling for a 10-point charter for women’s sport. Legacies need vigilance and I suggest we need a great deal of vigilance about women and young people in sport.

We know from a Co-op survey, conducted as part of the partnership with StreetGames, that three out of four young people were inspired by the summer of sport but that costs—and some games do not come cheap—poor accessibility and, sometimes, waiting lists to join clubs are affecting enthusiasm. It found that 63% of young women and 50% of young men who have finished full-time education do no organised physical activity—none. This rises among the unemployed.

The Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation conducted a survey with Ipsos MORI the week after the closing ceremony, which found that 41% of young women said the Games had inspired them to be more active. Will that last? Researchers found that women and girls are put off PE classes because of the “jolly hockey sticks” mentality and because they do not offer a range of activities. Parents thought that schools should provide better opportunities for women’s sport, and the vast majority of people agreed that an increase in media coverage of women’s sport was important to the long-term impact of the Olympic Games and that increased funding for women’s sport was important.

Women’s sport currently receives only 0.5% of the total sponsorship income, and less than 5% of the total sports media coverage in non-Olympic years. We need only to look at a daily newspaper to see how neglected women’s sport is despite having achieved enormous success, not only in the Olympics but in other competitions such as women’s cricket and football, where there are star teams. At last, we have great sports presenters who are women, and not just on women’s sport but on cricket, football, billiards, horse racing and so on.

I know Sport England is working to address barriers but there needs to be a government strategy, starting with primary schools and extending through to adult sport, which encourages women, girls and young people of all abilities. I have seen a school sport strategy that has a strong emphasis on competitive sport, but seemingly cuts out initiatives such as the school sport partnership. We cannot separate out school sport from communities. We need a holistic strategy for this and also need to recognise that sporting activity is not only valuable in its own right but that it increases confidence, empathy and academic achievement. I see vision from sporting bodies but little co-ordination or leadership from the Government. Will this change?

HIV and AIDS in the UK

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for securing this debate and I thank the Select Committee for producing such a timely and thorough report. I was not a member of that committee, but I want to make some general comments about prevention campaigns, then focus on prisons and schools and ask the Minister about the Department of Health’s new sexual health policy framework. It is an honour to follow so many well-informed, even poetic, speeches. I know that all those noble Lords who have spoken today have a long-standing commitment to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. In thanking Lord Fowler, I have to say that he is one of my public health heroes.

At a time when HIV/AIDS was emerging as a health threat, when the public response was one of fear, confusion and prejudice which sought to stigmatise certain groups, the noble Lord remained calm and reminded us that this was a health issue that needed to be tackled firmly. I know this because I was working in public health at the time, and how glad we were that he was in post. Yes, there were, I believe, icebergs and tombstones—sometimes misinterpreted by the general public—and maybe we would do some things differently now. However, the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, certainly had a great impact on those campaigns of public awareness.

The rampant and unthinking prejudice which emerged then still has echoes in the ignorance and dangerous attitudes of some people who oppose sex education and sexual health promotion today. It is interesting that other public health issues, such as vaccination, smoking, wearing seat belts and so on, are not connected to sex, or are perhaps only marginally, and so are not fraught with the connotations attributed to HIV and AIDS. In the government response, the high cost of treatment is described as a compelling investment. In 2010, prevention could have saved over £32 million annually. I was pleased that the committee recommends both targeted, intensive campaigns and, very importantly, that awareness should be incorporated into wider national sexual health campaigns, with evaluation commissioned by the Department of Health.

There should certainly be a new national HIV prevention campaign targeted at the general public. Let me say briefly why this is important. There has not been such a campaign for a long time. The high profile of HIV/AIDS has decreased and the problem of HIV infection and other sexually transmitted infections is increasing. We are in a new era of communications. We now have the internet, social networking of many kinds and highly sophisticated mobile phone applications. All are wonderful but they can also be misused, as we have seen in grooming and internet and mobile phone bullying. I have sympathy with the support of the noble Lord, Lord May, for NGO involvement in such campaigns.

Apart from HIV and AIDS, there are other dangers, some rather curious. I was in Nottingham last week, discussing substance misuse and public health. I must declare an interest as chair of the National Treatment Agency. As I learnt in Nottingham, there is concern about the injection of steroids in relation not just to bodybuilding but to the desire for the body beautiful. There is also concern about the injection of a substance that will give a body tan that also enhances libido. In Nottingham, people were found who have contracted HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B through these practices. It is very worrying and a call to renew our look at how we campaign.

Prevention campaigns have to be part of general health campaigns, using ever more sophisticated and subtle means of communication with adults and young people. I am also glad that the committee has shown concern for future structures in public health. Such concerns were highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, and many others. As the report points out, sexual health has often been the poor relation of the health service. The voluntary sector has done an enormous and valuable amount to tackle HIV and AIDS. We all wait to see how drug, alcohol and sexual health services will fare in future public health services with a ring-fenced budget. They must not be lost among other demands. I know how ring-fencing has in the past enabled drug treatment to improve the numbers in treatment and waiting times. Health and well-being boards and other local monitoring groups must be vigilant about keeping HIV on the agenda.

The public health White Paper, Healthy Lives, Healthy People, spoke of working,

“towards an integrated model of service delivery to allow easy access to confidential, non-judgemental sexual health services”.

It points out that testing should be a priority of any prevention policy. Prevention has been spoken about a great deal today. The testing of pregnant women has been a success. Other testing, such as by GPs and home testing, could be effective, as many others have pointed out.

I now want to talk about schools, which were referred to by others, including my noble friend Lady Healy. Schools should be considered part of the community and, therefore, connected to community services. There have been good examples of older pupils in schools visiting Brook Advisory Centres as part of the PSHE programme. This encouraged them to seek advice, perhaps after leaving school. Schools should also teach about public health issues. The danger of HIV infection should be taught as a specific issue, not just in sex education—if it exists. I should like to see secondary schools teaching compulsory modules on public health. This would go alongside teaching about respect for oneself and others, decision-making, self-esteem and communication skills. All these skills can reinforce the ability to behave responsibly in relation to sex and substance misuse. I am not talking here about explicit sex education for five year-olds and I do not believe that schools are either. Those who rant about sex and five year-olds should visit some schools and inform themselves about the responsibility of school governors, some of whom are parents, for the curriculum.

We have suffered recently from a barrage of misinformation and prejudice about teaching sex education. Such misinformation is an insult to teachers, parents and school governors and it should have a health warning on it. Primary schools, including five year-olds, can discuss relationships with family, friends and the community. Children have rights and responsibilities. They can learn about keeping themselves and others safe. Later, this foundation of rights and responsibilities can be used to teach about drugs, alcohol and sex. Lack of information and misinformation are highly dangerous.

I turn briefly to offender health. People in prisons are a high-risk group in many ways. Among them there are significant levels of illiteracy and mental health problems. We know that some prisoners use drugs and have sex. But, significantly, prisoners leave prison and may spread infections. The recent report on prisons and drugs chaired by my noble friend Lord Patel of Bradford recommended: a cross-government strategy; a streamlined commissioning system; a framework for service delivery; user and carer involvement—that is very important; and links to the wider criminal justice and health and social care systems. For HIV we need all those things. We need guidance to prison governors and clarity on best practice in managing HIV in prisons, to include provision for prevention, testing and treatment and data collection. I hope that clinical commissioning groups will address, monitor and evaluate the outcomes of interventions in prisons. There must be continuity of care. The programmes to identify substance misuse and provide individual key workers to help with employment, housing and other social issues have proved highly successful.

The report on prisons highlights many significant issues for HIV and AIDS prevention and management of services. I very much look forward to following what happens in the new structures for public health. I hope that the Minister can give us a preview of the sexual health policy framework. I also hope that, perhaps in two years’ time, the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, will reconvene a committee to look at the outcomes of these new structures and the impact of the sexual health policy framework. As usual he has done a great favour to those concerned for public health. I again congratulate him and the committee on this debate.

Health and Social Care Bill

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I was hoping to speak in support of my noble friend Lord Northbourne, who introduced a whole cluster of amendments which had at their heart not just parenting but the development of our children. I do not want to bore the House but my interest in this subject goes back to an occasion when I visited a young offender institution in Scotland. When I was walking round with the governor of the prison he said to me that if he had to get rid of all his staff, the last one out of the gate would be his speech and language therapist. I asked why and he said, “Because none of the children can communicate, either with each other or with us, and unless they can communicate there is absolutely nothing that we can do with them, or for them, and that includes their education, their discipline, their healthcare and indeed their general well-being”. Therefore this group of amendments—Amendments 72A, 81A, 200A, 201ZA, 327B, 327C, 329A, 331C, 333B and 91A—is all to do with getting speech and language communication needs for our children, which is the most common disability shared by children and adults in this country, put properly into the context of the Bill.

I think it is recognised that communication skills are the key life skill and the single most important factor in determining a child’s life chances. They are the means by which people form relationships and make choices and by which people access education, employment and society in general. Over the past few years—ever since I first became aware of this problem—I have been worried that nobody seems to be grasping the fact that every child’s communication ability must be assessed properly and as early as possible in life so that they can be given the best possible chance.

Following that experience in the young offender institution I was responsible for a two-year pilot with speech and language therapists in two young offender institutions. This pilot proved conclusively that if an assessment had been carried out much earlier those offenders may well have not ended up in the institution and that a very large number of them would not have been excluded or evicted from education because they would have been able to engage with their teachers. I have therefore been trying to interject in various education and justice Bills over the past six years the need for such an assessment to be built in to the education of this country. It is interesting that Northern Ireland has listened—now every child there is assessed for their communication skills at the age of two. That might be very early but, on the other hand, it also identifies potential problems. The amelioration of those problems can then begin early enough for the children to be able to engage in education.

Unfortunately, although that need has been accepted in education and justice Bills, nothing has happened because neither the education nor the justice department is responsible for funding those who have to make the assessment. Indeed, in 2005, when this pilot scheme came to an end, the Minister—Mr Paul Goggins—was invited to examine the funding of the possible provision of assessment. He could not work it out because neither the Ministry of Justice nor the Department for Education was willing to fund. When it came down to it, we found that individual speech and language assessors were the responsibility of individual primary care trusts around the country. Some of them decided that the assessors were essential and some of them did not and, therefore, it became a postcode lottery.

If we accept that communication difficulties severely limit an individual’s participation in education, in the world of work and in their family and community life then it stands to reason that unidentified speech and language problems can pose a secondary challenge, as they lead to diminished social skills, poor educational outcomes, anti-social behaviour, unemployment and mental health problems. In other words, all the factors that arise from a failure to assess communication skills and to enable people to communicate as well as possible can become a public health issue. I believe that it should be regarded as such, which is why these amendments mention the need for those who are responsible to have an integrated approach in order to ensure that all the relevant healthcare professionals liaise with each other and make certain that every child is given the proper start in life to enable them to engage with all the things that follow. This will require liaison with education and other authorities. I am not going to list all the various things that speech and language therapists can do, but one of the problems at the moment is that the assessment in many places is left, for example, to district nurses who have been trained by speech and language therapists. That is fine, except that we are told that the funding for speech and language therapists is to be cut and therefore it may be that their ability to train those who carry out these assessments will be inhibited.

I ask the Minister to ensure that this issue is examined properly and that the various authorities should be instructed to make these assessments in order to make certain that all our children can access that vital education and the other factors that will make their lives either possible or a failure. I beg to move.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 97. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about the need for communication skills, but this set of amendments is really all about improving services for children. It is interesting to note that so much has been said during our debates on the Bill about the importance of the co-ordination of services of all sorts, but I would suggest that nowhere should services be better co-ordinated than those for children. That is absolutely crucial to success. I was interested to read the letter sent by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, after our previous sittings. He kindly circulated a series of paragraphs which stated on children’s issues that:

“We are determined to build in children’s health explicitly and clearly throughout the new system, including through the mandate … We want the NHS to play its full part in safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and we expect the NHS to continue to improve processes for protecting children”.

I welcome those words, but I will seek further reassurances from him on their validity.

In amending Clause 20, I want to ensure that the Secretary of State will publish an annual mandate specifying the objectives that the NHS Commissioning Board must seek to achieve. This amendment would require that the mandate includes objectives related to improving services for children.

Children and young people are significant players in NHS services. Children account for around 40 per cent of the workload of GPs while making up 19 per cent of the population. Around 26 per cent of those attending A&E departments are children. Every year, about one in 11 children receives specialist out-patient care in hospital, while one in 10 to 15 is admitted for in-patient care. All these are key statistics. However, I suspect that while children and young people make significant use of NHS services, they and their families are often let down by a health system that is incoherent and affords only a low priority to child health services. I want to see this improved. Noble Lords may remember that Sir Ian Kennedy, when reviewing child health services, concluded that there was a,

“varying quality of services … with a large number in need of significant improvement”.

He also said that children were given a low priority when compared with adults, that they often received inappropriate or poor quality treatment or had to travel long distances. He identified a lack of co-ordination between the NHS and other services such as education provision. The question of co-ordination between services is something which comes up all the time. He also pointed out the low investment in services for the early years and a failure to provide safe environments within NHS settings.

I realise that there are particular challenges for children and young people with complex needs. Often little attention is given to how the system delivers for disabled children and young people, but I shall leave it to my noble friend Lady Wilkins to address that. The support group, Every Disabled Child Matters, highlights the range of challenges faced by disabled children and their families in securing good healthcare, but again I shall leave the detail to my noble friend.

The NHS mandate must include priorities for child health. This would ensure that tacking these issues is made a priority within the health service. It is appropriate to include objectives for children's health, because child health services operate on a separate system to those of adults, with separate structures and relevant partners. For example, children receive support from a wide range of child-specific professionals, such as health visitors, community paediatricians, children's nursing services and specialist treatment centres. So again the issue of co-ordinating according to age comes up strongly.

The difference between child and adult health structures is very much demonstrated when disabled young people make the transition from child to adult services, as indeed when other children make the transition to adult services. Without specific objectives for the issues in the system for children's health, there is a concern that the mandate will be ineffective in achieving change for children and young people. So I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to this. I suggest that the Government should amend Clause 20 to ensure that the NHS mandate sets out priorities for improving services for children and young people. They should also publish a policy statement setting out how it envisages the revised reforms will deliver improvements for children’s health in general.

[Baroness Wilkins]

My Lords, I speak to the amendments to which I have added my name, and urge the Minister to ensure that speech, language and communications needs are treated as a core public health issue in this Bill.

As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, communication is a basic life skill which underpins everything we do, particularly in this House. Good communication means that we connect with other people; we share ideas, thoughts and emotions and forge the relationships which all people require. Indeed, UNESCO believes that effective communication is one of the 10 core life skills that all human beings should have if they are to thrive.

Speech, language and communication needs are the most common disability experienced by children or adults, with over 20 per cent of the UK population experiencing problems at some point in their lives. These difficulties often start from birth. It is sobering to note that in some parts of the UK, particularly areas of social deprivation, upwards of 50 per cent of children are starting school with poor language skills, and poor language is linked to poor behaviour in young children. Two in every three language-delayed three year-olds have behaviour problems. Problems in later life follow with poorer employment prospects.

The earlier that any communication difficulties can be identified, the earlier solutions can be found, and the earlier help can be delivered. The centrality of communication is why this group of amendments focuses on establishing effective joint working and integrated commissioning for speech, language and communication needs. It requires the NHS to work in close partnership with education providers and local authority children's services. This is by far the most effective way of working. It also emphasises how important it is to deliver help early.

Amendment 81A to Clause 12 requires the NHS Commissioning Board to conduct an assessment of pre-school age children's communication skills. The impact of communication problems and their significance underlines why we believe that their assessment should be directed centrally by the board and not left to the local discretion of clinical commissioning groups. Last year's review of children's services within the NHS conducted Sir Ian Kennedy found that GPs, who will be the lead commissioners for clinical commissioning groups, have little or no experience of paediatrics as part of their professional training. Indeed, GPs often have a limited understanding of children with speech, language and communication needs. Central direction and support from the NHS Commissioning Board is vital in this. Further amendments within the group underline this point by requiring clinical commissioning groups to exercise their functions with a view to improving communication skills in children and young people. They must do so in close partnership with education or children's services. Currently people with speech, language and communication needs all too often miss out due to the divide in commissioning between health and education services.

This divide can mean that resources in terms of skills and equipment are not used effectively. Integration is vital to maintain and improve outcomes. The final two amendments within the grouping also address the necessity for integrated working by the new health and well-being boards when seeking to advance the health and well-being of the local population of the area they serve. If we are to move forward and ensure that all children and young people with communication problems are given the support they need to address them, then I would urge acceptance of these amendments.

Children: Parenting for Success in School

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, it is an unexpected pleasure to be welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, to your Lordships’ House and I congratulate him on his wonderful, confident and thoughtful maiden speech. He said it was his maiden speech, so we must believe him—but I had to check on it.

The noble Lord is a man who says he has no secrets, but he has had one of the most varied careers that I have ever known—including headmaster, publisher, manager, volunteer, and pro-chancellor of Brunel University. We share an interest in cricket, and he is a knight to boot. I know that with all this experience, he will be a great asset to your Lordships’ House and I look forward to getting to know him better.

Parenting is the most important issue we can discuss, so I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for giving us the opportunity to do so. It is a timely debate, given the recent publication of several reports which directly or indirectly refer to the role of parenting in child development. According to Family Lives, most parents and grandparents feel that the task of parenting is more challenging than it was a generation ago. Yet we know that without security, love, support and positive stimulation, children’s brains will not develop as they should, and their physical, emotional and intellectual development will be impaired. Children need early opportunities to play, explore their environment, look at books, be talked to and sung to. They also need structure, boundaries and early bonding. There are important values to be transmitted to children. They need to make sense of the world and to develop self-esteem. They need unconditional commitment and nurturing, as the Frank Field report points out.

Success in school is a spin-off from good early parenting, which encourages aspiration. However, I am highly suspicious of parenting which might be designed to prepare for success. I do not for a minute think that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, is simply focusing on academic success. One of the saddest stories I remember from when I was teaching was that of a father saying to me over and over again, “My daughter will be a doctor”. The girl was a talented artist, with no inclination towards science and no aptitude for it. She would not have achieved the necessary grades, however much cramming took place. Noble Lords may have read about the “dragon mother” who forced her daughters to be proficient in playing the piano. I have not read the book but I believe that one girl ended up hating the mother and the other chewing the piano. I said “chewing” not “tuning”. We all may have come across parents who attempt to live out their own ambitions through their children. The father I just mentioned may well have wanted to be a doctor.

Graham Allen’s report on early intervention speaks of enabling children to become excellent parents and of the expense of not fostering social and emotional capability. Children, even very young children, if they are lucky, have a network to support their development: grandparents—how important they can be—other relatives, pre-school education and adults with whom children come into contact. Parents need support, too. Midwives, professionals, Sure Start and family intervention programmes can all help. They may need review, but I hope that they survive the proposed cuts in spending. As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, said, we must spend early to save later. I hope that the Government understand that. We know that young people who end up in the criminal justice system have often suffered abuse and neglect and that this is likely to be passed on to their own children.

The UK features low down on UNICEF’s report card 9—I should declare an interest as a trustee of UNICEF. That is due not just to poverty. It is important that children do well at school and go on to succeed, and many children educate themselves out of poverty. However, they should succeed in a broad sense so that they can develop friendships, learn positive values and be happy. Yes, early intervention is important, but that must be carried through into constant intervention—not interference, but thoughtful and unselfish commitment to helping children and young people develop their full potential, whatever that potential might be.

“Parent” is a broad term. More than 200,000 grandparents bring up their grandchildren. Care placements with families are more successful than those outside the family. I find that very interesting and a testimony to the importance of security. As we have argued in this House previously, kinship carers need financial and other support.

The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has raised a very complex issue, but one that we must grasp for the sake of ourselves, our children and grandchildren, and of future generations.

Violence Against Women

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Gould for introducing this debate. She also deserves thanks for all her work on behalf of women, in particular vulnerable and disadvantaged women. It is also good to see the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, responding. She, too, has long supported the principles of justice for women, whoever they are and whichever culture they belong to. My noble and learned friend Lady Scotland, especially in her previous role as Attorney-General, was also much concerned about issues relating to women.

It has been pointed out that women are physically weaker and often more economically disadvantaged. They often lack power, so others exert power over them. As has been said, violence against women takes many forms, be it rape, female genital mutilation, torture, forced marriage, beatings or other physical and psychological harm. On FGM, my noble friend Lady Rendell, who has involved herself with this outrage for many years, unfortunately cannot be here, but continues her efforts. I shall make a few introductory comments and then focus on women who are trafficked.

Some statistics have been given but they may be worth emphasising. Over 1 million women are victims of domestic abuse each year; over 300,000 women are sexually assaulted each year; and 60,000 women are raped each year. According to Women’s Aid, 70 per cent of teenage mothers are in a violent relationship. All this has economic fallout. Violence against women costs the NHS about £1.2 billion a year for physical injuries, with an added £176 million for mental health care. Among women aged between 15 and 33, acts of violence cause more death and disabilities than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or wars combined.

It is therefore gratifying that Theresa May has launched a plan to focus on violence against women. Like many others, I look forward to seeing the action plan. I understand that the Government’s ambition is to have increased awareness of violence against women and girls. I am not sure how that will be measured but, like my noble friend Lady Gould, I would like to see education programmes in schools for girls and boys to counteract violence against women. There are financial implications in tackling violence against women, of course, but I hope that the Government will take into account the costs involved in not tackling it as well. I do not mean just the financial costs.

The trafficking of girls and women, in the UK but also elsewhere, is surely one of the most horrible of crimes against women. Again, the statistics are shocking. At any time, over 140,000 people are victims of trafficking. Of these, 84 per cent are trafficked for sexual exploitation and the majority of those are women. I want to ask the Minister again about the EU directive on human trafficking, an issue that has been raised before with the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley. This directive was voted in by the European Parliament by 643 votes to 10, with 14 abstentions, in December last year. I am aware that many British MEPs supported the directive. Just before Christmas, the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, told a group of interested Peers that the Government would review their position once the directive was agreed. What is the current situation with regard to this directive and can those interested Peers be informed?

I go back to the impact of the trafficking of women and girls in Europe. A devastating report, Stolen Smiles, was published in 2006 by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. I cannot go into all its details but they are chilling. Women were trafficked to 24 different countries, including 53 per cent to EU member states. Forty-two per cent of this group were between 21 and 25, the youngest being 15 and the oldest 45. Sixty per cent had been subject to some sort of violence before they were trafficked and 90 per cent had experienced sexual violence. Forty-four per cent had been tested for sexually transmitted infections, 17 per cent had had an induced abortion and 38 per cent reported having suicidal thoughts because of what happened to them.

Yet some victims of trafficking are prosecuted for crimes that they have been forced into doing. ECPAT UK, the umbrella organisation on trafficking, reports the case of three young Romanian women who had been trafficked for sexual exploitation. The trafficking was suspected by relevant agencies in Manchester but the women were prosecuted and spent time in prison on a charge of prostitution. This surely needs to be looked at. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, could employ his many talents in looking at that as well.

In 2008, the Association of Chief Police Officers, led by North Yorkshire Police’s Chief Constable Grahame Maxwell, set up Project Acumen to try to better understand the nature and extent of the trafficking of foreign nationals for sexual exploitation. It concluded that the nature of trafficking makes it difficult to measure or estimate—it is a kind of covert issue. About 6,000 trafficking businesses and 30,000 women were involved in prostitution. There are large profits to be made and unreasonable control over victims is exercised, such as threats to families, debt, fear, shame and religious or cultural mechanisms. Trafficking is not smuggling; it is exploitation, and many of the victims are women. The exploitation is, of course, not just about sex. It may also be to do with employment practices.

A 2009 report by Eaves Housing for Women on trafficking and contemporary slavery in the UK points out that Governments of destination countries are often hesitant to address trafficking as a crime that violates vulnerable people because they see migration into those countries as always being desirable. It is not. The report also points out that the sexual abuse and rape of migrant domestic workers is common but underreported. The disclosure of such abuse is used as a threat by employers who know what impact this would have on the workers. Many would be unable to return to their families because of social and familial shame and stigma. What work is going on between the UK and countries from which people are trafficked to combat some of these problems?

A number of campaigns are under way in relation to violence against women. A number of dedicated individuals are involved in combating such violence. The UN Trust Fund is supporting programmes to support country-level efforts. I know that we shall all follow the progress of UN Women, which became operational this month. It has been referred to already and my noble friend Lady Prosser recently asked an Oral Question on the issue.

It is clear that violence against women is entrenched and that many women are locked out of economic and political engagement. This is not just about discrimination; it is about power and exploitation. I hope that this debate and all the issues that have been raised in it will be taken note of and that violence against women will return again and again to the agenda of this House.

Women: Economic Policies

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on women of their economic policies.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, all departments will assess the impact on gender, race and disability of our economic policies as required by the equality duty laid down in legislation. This is the first time that has been done. The Treasury published an overview of the impact of the spending review on equalities alongside the main spending review announcement.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I thank the noble Baroness for that response. It is all well and good, but has she read the Women’s Budget Group report on the impact of the CSR on women? Will she accept that there are different kinds of fairness and that women often lose out due to their caring responsibilities, among other things? Will she also accept that this impacts on their employment opportunities, and say whether an assessment has been made of that?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I have read the report. I am very keen to support the fact that this Government are making fairness a key priority. I do not accept that the report sets out exactly what the Government are doing. Therefore, it is only right that noble Lords are informed that we have taken out of income tax 880,000 of the lowest paid workers, who are predominantly women. We are also protecting the lowest paid public sector workers from the pay freeze. Added to that, we are including and increasing flexible working for all people, rather than for just mothers and carers, so that we can enable women to enter a workplace that suits their needs rather than the needs always of employers.

Pakistan: Child Welfare

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how their development policies support child welfare in Pakistan.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for all the hard work she does in ensuring that the welfare of children across the world is raised continuously. The UK Government’s development programme promotes child welfare in Pakistan in several ways. Our support in education will help 5 million more children to attend primary school by 2013. Our support to the national health facility has helped to save 200,000 children’s lives, stopped 800,000 children from becoming malnourished and prevented 15,000 mothers from dying. Our humanitarian support after the recent flooding has provided more than half a million malnourished children with food supplements.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I thank the noble Baroness for her kind words and for her response. In doing so, I declare an interest as a trustee of UNICEF UK. How are those efforts by so many organisations in Pakistan being co-ordinated with respect to children’s welfare?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the UN is responsible for co-ordinating the international humanitarian response. All of DfID’s humanitarian aid is directed through UN agencies or established NGOs, in line with standard humanitarian practice. Each key area—health, water, sanitation, shelter and food—has a separate cluster, with members including the Government of Pakistan, various UN agencies, NGOs, DfID and other donors. Members, including officials from the Department for International Development, meet regularly to share information within and across clusters to ensure a co-ordinated and efficient response. The Secretary of State said in his ministerial Statement on 12 October that the “scale and shifting patterns” of the crisis make it a challenging situation.

Women in Society

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I should like first to congratulate my new noble friend, Lady Drake, on her wonderful maiden speech. Its wisdom and humour showed what an asset she will be to your Lordships’ House. She has worked solidly in the trade union movement and was president of the TUC from 2004 to 2005. She was deputy general secretary in the Communication Workers Union from 1996 to 2008. She has served on many councils and public bodies, including the employment tribunal, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and has worked with distinction on many pensions bodies. I could go on but noble Lords will by now have a flavour of her many abilities.

Now for something of the secret life of my noble friend Lady Drake, but do not get overexcited. She is a collector of first edition children’s books. Inspired by her art teacher at school she bought her first book with the proceeds of her Saturday job, which shows initiative. She also collects suffragette posters and has fine examples of both collections. She says that she has got used to being teased about her short stature. Let me remind noble Lords of the comment made about Hermia in “A Midsummer Night's Dream”:

“though she be but little, she is fierce."

Opposition Benches beware. I am sure that we will hear much more from my noble friend Lady Drake in your Lordships’ House, and I for one look forward to that enormously.

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, for introducing this debate on women so passionately and for securing such a wealth of talented speakers. I shall refer first to women as a force for change and then focus on the imperative to help women who find it difficult to fight for change due to being overwhelmed by circumstances which undermine the very structure of their lives. This theme has already been referred to and will no doubt recur during the debate. I shall speak in particular of the need to help trafficked girls and women.

Many women over the years have fought to improve women's potential. Women were not given the vote in this country, they fought for it, and fight is what women have often had to do. Women, and of course many men, have worked for change in politics, the law, social justice, the arts, health, industry, sport and so on. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, made many other suggestions. Women have often, although not always, worked collaboratively to achieve their aims and supported each other during difficulty. That supportive nature seems to be one of the strengths of women’s activity. In working for change, women are frequently optimistic, thoughtful, empathetic, considerate and brave. The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, has also mentioned other qualities.

Two women poets seem to reflect this spirit. Edith Sodergran, in a poem called “Hope”, speaks of rolling up her sleeves and, before she dies, baking a cathedral. Anise Koltz says:

“Break my branches ...

The birds will still sing

In my roots”.

Those are wonderful ways of expressing both determination and optimism.

I remember, years ago, going to Greenham Common with our daughter, then aged about eight. She was quite excited at the thought of being arrested. Something from the wool around the Greenham Common barrier obviously wore off on her. At the age of 12 she was arrested when leading a protest of schoolgirls against the closure of the South London Hospital for Women.

I tell this story because many girls aged 12 around the world are faced with horrendous treatment and abuse which disables them. Two weeks ago, I met a young woman of 18 who, at the age of 12, had been trafficked for sexual purposes from Africa to London. She had not had the possibility of protest. She had not had support from anyone in her life until she escaped and found help. There are many such girls and women, and many boys too, who need to be identified and helped. Organisations which support trafficked children do amazing work but they are calling for government support. I very much hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, will be able to meet with them to identify some of the problems. I know that she has great sympathy for those affected by this issue. Human trafficking is thought to be the third most profitable organised criminal activity in the world, behind weapons and narcotics. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the average age at which sexual exploitation starts is 12 and that it is mainly girls who suffer. Most children are trafficked from east Asia or Africa. The UK has been identified as a significant transit and destination point for trafficked children.

Earlier this year the Anti-trafficking Monitoring Group published its report Wrong Kind of Victim?, and its findings are chilling. The UK Human Trafficking Centre reported that of 527 potential victims of trafficking, 74 per cent were women or girls being trafficked for sexual exploitation. Of course, thousands of trafficked children are never identified or helped. Barnardo’s alone worked with more than 2,000 children in 2004-05.

In December 2008, the UK ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. This convention is the first international treaty obliging states to adopt minimum standards to assist trafficked persons and protect their rights. The monitoring group states that the UK is not yet meeting its obligations under this convention.

With regard to child victims of trafficking, we need to look again at how trafficking might be prevented, who might best identify these children, who might best represent their interests, and the need for safe accommodation and a key worker for support. Similar conclusions have been drawn by UNICEF—I declare an interest as a board member of UNICEF UK—and the trafficking and sexual exploitation unit at the University of Bedfordshire, of which I am a patron. ECPAT, an organisation working with trafficked and sexually exploited young people, recommends a system of guardianship for child victims of trafficking to give support on legal, health, education and accommodation issues.

The young woman I spoke of earlier had escaped from the family in London who were exploiting her. She was a slave and being abused sexually and otherwise. Now aged 18, she has been living on her own in a room on the outskirts of London. She said that at Christmas that the only person she saw was her key worker who brought her some food. She has been desperately lonely, but she has survived and is now receiving education and support.

Much work needs to be done for victims of trafficking and the Government need to take a lead. The victims cannot be movers for change, at least not initially; they are too depressed and confused. There are many people in your Lordships’ House who have the best interests of children at heart, and many organisations are dedicated to serving the needs of these victims. I hope that we can follow up this debate with more discussions with the Minister to address this important issue.