European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Massey of Darwen and Baroness Tyler of Enfield

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 5th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 29 and will speak briefly to Amendment 336, to which my name is attached. I remind the House of my declared interest as chair of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. I wish to dwell on that experience in my remarks today, by thinking in this debate about the impact on the child and whether or not they feel that their voice is heard.

It is for this reason that I feel it is vital that the Government take all possible steps to achieve an outcome which retains full reciprocal arrangements between the UK and member states in the field of family law. It is so vital that families needing to go to court must know that whatever court they end up in, and in whatever country, its decision will be respected by other courts. We have heard a lot from distinguished lawyers about the current reciprocal arrangements, which have been built up and evolved over decades. They have provided real benefits to families across the UK. These harmonised rules across the EU for establishing jurisdictions to hear cases, to recognise and enforce each other’s orders, and to co-operate across borders have made a real difference to families caught up in these difficult situations.

Replicating provisions in our own domestic law without full reciprocity would leave our citizens in a position of real vulnerability and confusion. It would lead to very unfair outcomes for British citizens, a point which has already been made. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, said so persuasively, the EU instruments which affect UK family law deal primarily with procedural, not substantive, family law. Sovereignty is not the issue here and I really hope that in this debate, as we look at what happens to family law in the context of Brexit, we will not get caught up on the high altar of sovereignty. This is about what happens to very vulnerable and distressed children and families.

I turn briefly to Amendment 336, to which my name is attached. The reason I wanted to attach my name is that the first regulation cited in this amendment—I will not go into the technical detail—is one that we at CAFCASS use a lot in both private and public law, since the fundamental principle is to ensure the reciprocal recognition of court orders between the EU states. It saves re-litigating and protects children who move between states, whether they are living there temporarily or permanently. It also requires states to co-operate with each other in providing information in public and private law, and to assist in placing children in public law cases in other member states; this is practical but really critical. The absolutely key point is that these arrangements help to alleviate the inevitable distress and disruption for the children and families involved.

Our key role at CAFCASS is to ensure that the voice of the child is heard in family courts, whether in public law, which is usually where local authorities are making an application for a child to be removed from a parent and taken into care, or in private law, which is usually where parents are separating with such high levels of conflict that the court is involved in deciding child arrangements such as residence and contact. At the moment, my strong sense is that the critical voice of the child is absent from discussions about what happens to family law post Brexit. This will be much to the detriment of children and young people involved in family proceedings, who are often extremely vulnerable and going through a very difficult period in their lives. This can lead in turn to real emotional distress and trauma, and have an adverse effect on mental health and well-being.

Many of these children will have had what is called in the research “adverse childhood experiences” first-hand, including abuse, domestic violence and bereavement. That is why what we do to our family law as we look at the Bill is so important. We need to make sure that it is as child-friendly as possible, rather than something that is done to children and over which they feel they have no control.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lady Sherlock in this group of amendments. I appreciate the wisdom of noble Lords who have spoken.

I will add a few comments, mainly on children’s rights and child protection, which have been spoken about by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler. I should declare an interest as the chair of the sub-committee on children in the Council of Europe. The EU does not have legal power to change domestic family law, but in procedural rules it ensures that family-related decisions made in the UK can be recognised and enforced in other countries in the EU. Most children live in families, and therefore family law will often have an impact on children. The current rules ensure a level of certainty for families, and therefore children, who move about the countries of the EU. The rules prevent parents avoiding their obligations by moving around. This is because EU law has uniform rules across member states for family law proceedings, including those involving children. EU law ensures that public law decisions to protect children can be enforced in countries of which the child is a non-national. Such law emphasises the best interests of children, as enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child—which I am sure will come up over and over again in the discussion on children—where the welfare of the child is deemed paramount and a child who has the capacity must be given the opportunity to be heard, including in family disputes. The EU maintenance regulation provides for child maintenance to be automatically applicable in any other member state to which either of the parents and/or the child move.

My noble friend and others mentioned the Hague conventions. Other options to ensure family welfare, such as creating bilateral agreements, would take more time to implement and children and families would suffer. The six-week deadline for the resolution of child abduction cases should be retained. Membership of the EU judicial network to facilitate information sharing between courts dealing with family issues should continue. One example of the protection of children is related to the EU directive of the European Council establishing minimum standards for legislative and practical measures to support victims of crime. This includes the specific needs of children and the need to pay attention to services and support in, for example, gender-based or domestic violence. The directive includes special reference to the need to ensure that children’s best interests are the primary consideration and to ensure a child-friendly approach.

I am impressed by and grateful for the report by the EU Committee chaired by my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, Brexit: Justice for Families, Individuals and Businesses. It addresses the 1996 Hague convention in respect of parental responsibility and measures for the protection of children. The maintenance regulation is designed to ensure that rules on jurisdiction and the enforcement of decisions relating to maintenance obligations are continued and provides that obligations should be determined in accordance with the Hague protocol. The report comments on the Brussels IIa regulation in relation to divorce, legal separation and the annulment of marriage. It carries specific rules on child abduction and access rights. I will not go into this in detail but will just say that witnesses to the inquiry on which the report is based commented favourably on Brussels IIa. Sir Mathew Thorpe stated that it is a,

“laudable ambition to achieve better justice for European citizens where issues cross the border of member states”,

and viewed the regulation as “broadly successful”. David Williams QC stated that Brussels IIa had spread into every area of our domestic law.

Childcare Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Massey of Darwen and Baroness Tyler of Enfield

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 11, which is part of this important group of amendments relating to the quality of childcare.

In Committee, I tabled an amendment which proposed that in all dealings with children, the welfare of the child should be paramount, in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Minister mentioned “paramount” earlier today. I do not recall the term coming up in any previous government document or discussions, but I stand to be corrected.

The amendment I am discussing is based on ensuring quality childcare, which means having good staff-to-child ratios, staff who are trained in childcare at level 3 or above, or who are in training for that, and a member of staff qualified to care for children with SEN or a disability. Funding, of course, affects all this and I share my noble friends’ concerns about funding expressed earlier.

I know that some of my dear friends round the Chamber are concerned about the qualifications issue. I am not knocking their comment that you do not necessarily need to have high-level qualifications to undertake childcare. However, I am not talking about having a PhD in physics; I am talking about people aspiring to better their childcare qualifications, thereby improving their ability to deal with child development. That is all I am saying.

The third point of the terms of reference for the Department for Education’s review of the cost of providing childcare in England does indeed speak of sufficient quality of childcare. The fifth point refers to,

“the need to secure value for money for the taxpayer, and for the entitlement to be affordable to the public purse”.

In my view, the quality of care for children far outweighs value for money for the taxpayer. I understand accountability but I maintain that the first duty of childcare is quality for the child. Without that quality, all efforts to provide childcare are useless. Quality also impinges on parents going to work. Quality impinges on social mobility. No parent is going to place a child into poor-quality early years care or education. Indeed, surveys show that the top two requirements for parents are, first, location and, second, quality.

I note that many organisations share my concern. The National Association of Head Teachers states that the failure to address funding—the important issue raised earlier today—will compromise quality and that early years education, not just childcare, is essential in order to have an impact on child development. The Local Government Association talks of the danger of an underfunded system. The National Day Nurseries Association in its excellent analysis of this Bill is concerned about the threat of low pay and about recruitment and retention of staff. It suggests looking over the long term in a cross-departmental way at childcare funding and the development of a workforce strategy to improve quality. I agree.

The Special Educational Consortium has pointed out that 60% of parents with disabled children do not believe that childcare providers can cater for their child’s disability. It proposes that the Childcare Bill be amended to require the largest childcare centres to have an early years special educational needs co-ordinator. The Association for Professional Development in Early Years states that in relation to sufficient provision, quality of staff and the development of the health care and education plan is vital.

The importance of staffing could not be clearer. Skill and confidence in caring for and educating children with special needs are vital for the confidence of parents and the well-being of the child. In small settings, area special educational needs co-ordinators could be in place to advise parents and plan for health and education needs.

I hope that the Government will respond sympathetically to this group of amendments and ensure that quality of childcare is reflected in all their deliberations.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

I speak to Amendment 23 standing in my name. In so doing I give my broad support to Amendment 11 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, that covers similar ground. The policy statement on this Bill that we recently received stated that the workforce is the key driver of high-quality childcare. I agree—we probably all agree with that. I welcome the Government’s commitment to exploring career progression routes in 2016 and look forward to hearing more about these plans from the Minister. However, more needs to be done to support new entrants to the sector. This is the primary purpose of my amendment on minimum workforce qualifications.

The Affordable Childcare Committee felt that it was crucial to increase the proportion of staff qualified at a higher level in the private, voluntary and independent sector in order to drive up overall quality and improve outcomes for children. Setting a minimum qualification level for working with young children at level 3 was suggested by Professor Nutbrown during her review of early education and childcare. This would help to level the playing field and to ensure that where children grow up and live has much less of an impact on the quality of care and education that they receive than, sadly, is sometimes the case at the moment. It is telling that new evidence from Ofsted has identified that settings that have at least 75% of their practitioners qualified to level 3 achieve better inspection results. Indeed, the Nuffield Foundation recently reported on a strong relationship between the level of staff qualifications, the quality of provision, as judged by Ofsted and, most importantly of all, outcomes for young children.

The second part of my amendment is around disabled children. There is overwhelming evidence that parents of those children are struggling to access their current entitlement to childcare. Indeed, in 2014, the Department for Education found that only 40% of parent carers believe that the childcare providers in their area can cater for their child’s disability. Last year, the parliamentary inquiry into childcare for disabled children concluded that lack of staff skill and confidence was often the reason for parents,

“being subtly discouraged or simply turned away by a provider”.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Massey of Darwen and Baroness Tyler of Enfield

Monday 18th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 242 and 244 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, but ask the Committee’s permission to sit down while I speak. I also support my noble friend Lady Hughes in her forceful speech about early intervention.

During our consideration of the Bill, many concerns have been raised about services working together for the benefit of children. Indeed, an earlier amendment—we discussed it some days ago, or possibly some weeks ago—was specifically about promoting integration, with lead professionals taking a role in ensuring that integration happens. I remember—again, it was some time ago—the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, in one of her many excellent and wise contributions, saying that without data, strategy is not possible; the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, also hinted at that. I agree with that and I think that the amendment could support the development of a strategy for children and families at a local level.

The amendments tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, are an extension of that concept of integration and improving data sharing in children’s centres. The noble Earl has described the need for NHS trusts to share with authorities records of live births to parents resident in their area in order to facilitate the identification of and contact with new families through children’s centres and other early outreach services. To this end, as he said, this should include the format of arrangements, the safeguarding of information, the regularity of data transfer, timescales and safeguards against inappropriate sharing.

All this reminds me of a report that some noble Lords may remember, Every Child Matters, which came out in about 2004—I can see lots of nods. This was a consultation on what matters for children, followed by a government document, in the wake of the horrendous death of Victoria Climbié and the report by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, which concluded that the poor co-ordination of services, including health, police, education and social services, had contributed to that child and other children falling through the net. It was a seminal document. It had influence in involving children and young people in setting priorities and in getting services for children to work together, to look at their functions in working together and to talk to one another. This group of amendments shows that we need to look at all that again; we need to look at the integration of services.

As others have said, poor data sharing can prevent organisations, including children’s centres, from helping vulnerable children and their families. If they had birth data, they could address the needs of such families early. I remember one children’s centre that I visited in the north of England having courses for young mothers. These courses became a group support initiative to talk about breastfeeding, about bringing up babies and toddlers and about which services people could access—for example, classes on a variety of issues. Crèches had been set up at the centre. Sometimes the centre was able to offer intensive support for parents who had difficulties with finances, for example.

The organisation Action for Children has set out reasons for effective data-sharing systems and has listed some difficulties, which I hope the Minister will be able to address. Those difficulties include the fact that children’s centres may be split across district and health services; there may be no data-sharing protocols; and there may be a feeling that such systems are too resource-intensive. However, there are serious impacts in not sharing data. The noble Earl has listed some such impacts of delaying the identification of vulnerable children and their families and delaying help for such families.

When data sharing is effective—according to Action for Children, it is effective in 32% of children’s centres—local arrangements have been set up between health and the local authority. There have been meetings and good relationships between, for example, health visitors and midwives, and there has been early identification of vulnerable families and of children who are likely to have difficulties, such as those with disabilities. As others have said, this help should be offered early in order to be most effective.

One of the key issues is that data sharing forms a basis for people from various disciplines who support families to meet and to talk about the concerns, not just swap bits of paper. It has always seemed to me that people talking about issues to one another, either formally or informally, is a very good way of ensuring integrated support for families. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I support Amendment 242, to which my name is attached. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has already set out very clearly the arguments in favour of piloting the registration of births at children’s centres, but I will just confirm my personal support for this amendment.

Children’s centres do many good things, but one of their absolutely core values lies in their ability to reach out to some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups: people who, for all sorts of reasons, are unlikely to enter into sustained contact with public services without help in doing so, but who are also the most likely to benefit from them. We have already heard the statistics from the recent children’s centre census from 4Children. That is encouraging in showing us that the widening reach is really happening and that more children’s centres are being successful in reaching out to some of the most disadvantaged. The location of birth registration services within children’s centres will really help with early intervention in the lives of disadvantaged children.

I am sure that all noble Lords in this Committee are well aware of the evidence of the huge importance of early intervention and how incredibly important what happens in the first three years of a child’s life is. Indeed, as I know from my work on the All-Party Group on Social Mobility, in some ways those first three years can almost determine life chances for a lifetime. They are absolutely critical. That is why I think that getting parents through the doors of children’s centres, ideally within six weeks of their child’s birth, and exposing them to the range of services, help and support available is critical. It is also vital to help nurture those early relationships between parents and professionals, which, again, can make such a difference. That is why I am absolutely delighted that encouraging parents to register children’s births at a local children and family centre is now part of Liberal Democrat party policy.

My final point is that the proposed birth registration pilot scheme should be seen as part of a wider strategy to provide more integrated and cohesive public services. Children’s centres not only provide childcare, as we talked about earlier, but a range of valuable help, including parenting sessions, health and well-being advice, information on jobs and employability, et cetera. For example, things such as co-locating health visitors within children’s centres enable parents to have the opportunity to speak to a health visitor about any concerns they may have, for example in relation to their child’s sleeping patterns, breastfeeding and their own health and well-being. Co-locating important services in this one-stop-shop way has a whole range of very powerful benefits. It should increase take-up and should also be value for money. It makes terribly good sense and is a real win-win. Can we try it out rather than just talk about it?

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I apologise for addressing my noble friend Lady Jones as my noble friend Lady Hughes throughout my speech. They are not the same person.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, my name is attached to Amendments 263 and 264. I want briefly to say why I feel so strongly that they are extremely important.

Like other noble Lords, I see smoking in cars primarily as a child protection issue. As we have heard, children’s lungs are smaller and they have faster breathing rates. That makes them particularly vulnerable to second-hand smoke, especially within the confines of a car. As we have heard, very often children are not able to stop adults smoking in their presence. Adult members of the public are protected by smoke-free legislation on public transport and in the workplace, but large numbers of children remain exposed to high concentrations of second-hand smoke when confined in family cars. I just do not think that is right.

My second point is that we simply cannot afford to wait any longer. We know that roughly one in five children reports being regularly exposed to second-hand smoke in cars. It has catastrophic health consequences. Finally, we know that there is very strong public support for this. In a recent survey, 80% of the public and 86% of children supported a ban, as do many health organisations.

Turning very briefly to standardised packaging, there is a very clear reason why people in the tobacco industry are always so opposed to amendments such as this. It is very straightforward. They know that the designer cigarette packet is a very effective advertising tool. Most worryingly, it is particularly effective on young people. I had many examples I was going to give; I shall reserve them for Report.

The other argument I would like to address is the one about the nanny state poking its nose into the lives of individuals. We are told that people know the risk and make an informed choice regarding whether or not to smoke. Of course, the problem is that the choices made by young people are not always informed. I am sure that we know from our personal experience how impressionable young people can be. I certainly do.

I remember going into a sweet shop aged about 14 or 15. There was a pack of cigarettes there. I will not give the name because I do not want to advertise it. I thought it was terribly elegant and glamorous and that if I bought that pack—which I did—I would be very elegant and glamorous. I do not think either of those held up, but really strong messages are coming across in that packaging. I have looked at the most up-to-date evidence. It is absolutely clear that standardised packs are less attractive to young people and improve the effectiveness of health warnings.

We have a duty to the children of this country to move on this issue once and for all. The time for talking is over and the time for action has arrived.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, my name is on Amendment 263 and I shall be very brief indeed. We have just been discussing the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. We have just been talking about child protection. This also is a case of children’s rights. Children have the right to not be sitting in a smoke-filled car.

I was part of a debate on the Private Member’s Bill of the distinguished former surgeon, the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, who is here and will speak later on. He made a significant point. He said that awareness and behaviour change need to be coupled with legislation, and that smoking law at the moment does not cover cars.

The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said that there are four questions to be asked. Is it dangerous? Yes. Are the dangers material and significant? Yes. Is it something that that affects other people? Yes. What are the downsides? They are modest. They are about having the freedom to smoke in a car when your children are present. It should not be allowed.