Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for something he said in his speech that helped me understand why I am more half-hearted in my support than others. I hope he will forgive me if I misquote him, but he implied that there had been no thought about areas that could be badly affected, including faith schools, until later. Actually, the Secretary of State and the Minister have been incredibly helpful and supportive in discussions with us about some of the later clauses. The department recognised that there are growing issues connected with voluntary-aided and voluntary-controlled schools and the move to MATs, which need to be dealt with and must be dealt with by legislation. Our experience has been of working behind the scenes with Ministers and officials in a very positive and helpful manner. That perhaps explains why we approach it more positively. Therefore, I say thank you and completely support the noble Lord’s Amendment 27A on the same basis—that these schools should have the protections.

However, picking up the concerns I expressed earlier about the overreach of the Secretary of State’s powers proposed here, I support the thrust and purpose of Amendment 2. The period is possibly too long but that is debatable. It is a proposal that helps to protect. It enables others from the sector to engage with us and for us all to express our opinions about proposed regulations, so that those regulations can be properly debated, the report can come back and the regulations can be amended. Amendment 2 is a really helpful proposal in principle, to assist with the restriction of the Secretary of State’s power.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I support the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, to oppose the question that Clause 1 stand part of the Bill. I declare an interest as a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which has produced a highly critical report on the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, alluded to this in many ways and I will try to avoid replicating what he said. However, I need to say that this report was exceptionally critical and that the committee sees the Bill very much as an outlier, and one we hope and expect that the Government will revisit.

I draw to the attention of the Committee and of the Minister an important 30-year review of delegated powers undertaken by the Delegated Powers Committee, which reported on 24 November last year. It was the first time such a review had ever been done and that report showed a steady diminution of democracy and of the powers of Parliament, and an ever-greater accretion of power to Ministers. Quite interestingly, the report is called Democracy Denied? This is an important issue and not a minor matter. We are talking about our democracy and we are losing it: that is the reality set out in that 30-year review. I hope the Minister and the Bill team read that, if they have not already.

The report points out the urgency of the need to redress this balance and shift power back towards Parliament and away from Ministers. Yet here we are, six months after its publication, with Clause 1(1)—an extreme and deeply concerning example of the skeleton Bill approach. One of the main criticisms in that 30-year review is the growing use of all sorts of delegated powers, but skeleton Bills in particular. Clause 1 provides no indication of what academy standards will look like or the principles upon which they will be based. In my view, and other noble Lords have said this clearly, Clause 1 should not stand part of the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred to the department’s memorandum attempting to explain why these delegations of powers are necessary. I want to spell out in more detail one of the two points the memorandum makes: there is a need for haste and to adjust as changes in educational needs evolve. Its real point is that you need principles and key standards in the Bill, then regulations are used to amend those standards—but not the principles; I hope the principles remain. It would be a big step forward from this, if we had a set of principles within which amendments might be laid. The speed issue, which is the department’s excuse for this level of delegation, is entirely unacceptable. The Delegated Powers Committee was clear on that point.

I think we have said enough about that, so I will move on to my Amendment 32 in this group. Again, I support the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in his opposition to Clause 3 standing part. Amendment 32 is very important because it focuses on the Henry VIII powers in the Bill. The 30-year review focused strongly on the unacceptable nature of Henry VIII powers. Basically, the Secretary of State is saying that the Government do not want Parliament involved in wholesale reform, such as changes to Acts of Parliament over the years, but to get on and do that sort of stuff themselves. That is unacceptable, as noble Lords know and as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, alluded to.

Statutory instruments have very little scrutiny; we are not allowed to amend them, but we can reject them, as my amendment on tax credits did. We rejected the statutory instrument. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, suggested, we were threatened with abolition; we had the Strathclyde review and were going to lose all our powers. The whole earth seemed to have been turned upside down, simply because we had deferred acceptance of those regulations. We know the scope for reviewing statutory instruments is incredibly limited compared with the detailed scrutiny that we can give to Bills. The idea of these Henry VIII powers within the context of a skeleton Bill is really quite shocking.

The Delegated Powers Committee is not the first committee to have drawn attention to the appalling nature of Henry VIII powers and the unacceptability of them, and here we have rafts of Henry VIII powers. The Donoughmore committee said that a Minister had to justify a Henry VIII power “up to the hilt” and that such powers should not be used “unless demonstrably essential”—not useful, but essential. As already alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, the department’s memorandum utterly and completely failed to argue successfully that these Henry VIII powers are essential, as they simply are not. That is why we cannot accept what is going on here. The department argues the need to act swiftly, but I have already made the point that this can be done perfectly well by including the basic material in the Bill. There is an absence of policy development and the deferral of its creation, with it being left to Ministers. Clause 3 has to be completely rewritten and cannot be left as it stands. I therefore support the plan of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for it not to stand part of the Bill.

Exceptionally, the Delegated Powers Committee forwarded its report to the Secretary of State for Education personally. To my knowledge, we have never done that before. We do not do it, actually, but we felt that this case was extraordinary, in the skeletal nature of the central part of the Bill, combined with its Henry VIII clauses.

The Secretary of State replied to the committee’s report and said that he is taking note of our concerns. I find that helpful and I warmly welcome the approach of our Minister and of the Secretary of State. I, for one, as I am sure do all noble Lords, want to work with Ministers to ensure the yawning and total gaps in Clause 1(1) can be filled before Report. Deferring Report to the autumn is an interesting idea as, by this time, I hope there would be substance in the Bill that we could all debate as we should—by holding Ministers to account.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

May I now formally move that Clause 1 should not stand part of the Bill? If I cannot do that yet, I will speak to it anyway. First, you cannot just abolish Clause 1 or Clause 3 by themselves. You need to go the whole hog and get rid of them all, as they are interdependent. I like what was done by the committee of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, but it was not quite strong enough. I am going to quote from the report and say how good it is, but it could be better.

Clause 1 is important because it creates the framework for the Bill. As I am sure colleagues will know, every school, maintained or academy, has to have an agreement with the Department for Education, which it signs. They will all be voided; that is what Clause 2 says. The schools will then have to accept a new agreement that has been drawn up entirely by the Secretary of State, as far as I can see without any widespread consultation at all. He has powers to vary the agreement at will under Clause 4. It is really quite extraordinary.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

2nd reading & Lords Hansard - Part one
Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak principally to Parts 3 and 4 of the Bill and applaud the Government’s proposals to fill the gaps in the law that have inhibited action until now to close illegal schools. We know that the education provided in many unregistered religious schools is narrow in scope, predominantly scriptural in content and deeply conservative, intolerant and extreme in outlook. Because these schools have been able to evade inspections, bad practices of all kinds appear to have developed. Former pupils of such illegal settings told an all-party parliamentary group in December of the physical, emotional and sexual abuse they had suffered. They also talked of the narrow religious curriculum, with no English, maths or science in their school experience. I therefore welcome the compulsory registration of children not in school. This will help close a loophole exploited by proprietors of illegal schools who claim that they are merely providing supplementary religious instruction to children otherwise educated at home. The problem has been that such children can be entirely invisible to the authorities.

I also very much welcome the Part 4 increase in Ofsted’s power to inspect “independent educational establishments”. However, I hope we can have meaningful discussions with Ministers about the definition of an independent educational institution, restricted as it seems to be in the Bill at the moment to those that provide “a majority” of education for more than five children. This definition risks those establishments wishing to remain below the radar simply dividing their service in two—a morning school and an afternoon school—thus avoiding inspection. Can the Minister explain the thinking behind the limitation of Part 4 to institutions providing the majority of education? Do the Government have a solution to deal with these illegal schools seeking to evade inspection?

No doubt we have all had a briefing from Taunton Home Education asking us to oppose Parts 3 and 4. I have to say that I do not believe that these parts have anything really to do with Taunton Home Education, or indeed any other upstanding educational organisation. However, it may be helpful if the Minister can give some assurance to those sorts of educational establishments that this is not what Parts 3 and 4 are about.

Turning to religious education in schools, I hope this House can ensure that the content of religious education and worship in all schools reflects the full ambit of freedom of religion and belief and that a pluralistic and critical approach is adopted. I hope that comment chimes with the very important comments of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, whom I respect so much, I certainly do not wish in any way to say something contrary to what he said.

Finally, a huge issue not dealt with in the Bill, it seems, is child mental health. There is no doubt that mental health services for children are frighteningly underfunded and inadequate. The pandemic has greatly increased the number of children with challenging mental health problems, so we now have an issue of crisis proportions. I understand that the Government have agreed to roll out mental health support teams to just one-third of the country. Surely this cannot be acceptable. The Schools Bill provides the opportunity for us to roll out these mental health support teams throughout the country as a matter of urgency. I hope the Minister will agree that this is something we need to think about.

We have heard from a number of organisations representing children with different conditions and disabilities. There are clearly concerns that children with special educational needs will be compelled to attend a school from which they cannot benefit. I hope these fears are misplaced. It seems that families of autistic pupils, for example, fear they will be punished with fines for poor attendance when their child simply could not benefit from going to school. These concerns are surely genuine and I hope the Minister, in her reply to this debate, can make absolutely clear that the families of any child with a special educational need or disability will not be punished under the provisions of Part 3 for non-attendance at a school from which they cannot benefit.

On a positive note, I hope the Bill will ensure a much needed improvement in educational opportunities and support for young people with ME, the terrible disease that affects so many children as well as adults. I look forward to this House coming together with Ministers to prioritise amendments on these important issues.

Schools: Extremism and Intolerance

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My understanding is that the independent review of Prevent is ongoing, and we will consider its findings in due course.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, at least 6,000 children are being educated in unregistered illegal schools where they are exposed to extremist, intolerant, homophobic and sexist literature. As the Government indicated, can the Minister confirm that legislation will be included in the May Queen’s Speech to increase powers for Ofsted to bring illegal schools into registration, and to introduce a register of home-educated children, so many of whom attend illegal schools? If not in May, then when?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness will understand that I cannot anticipate the Queen’s Speech, but I absolutely share her deep concern about the risks faced by children who are in unregistered schools. The Government have said that at the next legislative opportunity, we will seek to address some of those weaknesses. I can confirm that the Government are committed to a register for home-educated children.

Children in Care

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

On the noble Baroness’s issue about funding, we have made the tremendous commitment of an extra £1 billion a year to adult and children’s social care for every year of this Parliament. We have also invested a further £84 million in targeted and evidence-based interventions to improve the support provided to vulnerable children. The decision on when to take a child from his or her birth parents and put them into the care system is enormously difficult and complex, but it often has to be the case because of disintegrating family circumstances. I assure the House that the decision is never taken lightly.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, what action are the Government taking to assess the mental health consequences of placing a child in care outside their home local authority area?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the mental health of these children is extremely important. One recent initiative we have introduced is the role of virtual school heads, who become the overseeing official for a child who is looked after in his or her school setting. We are seeing that that is starting to work. They have control over the enhanced pupil premium, which allows funds to be spent on such things as additional tutoring and mentoring, summer and weekend schools and additional support to schools for these vulnerable children.

Schools: Excluded Children

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Meacher]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to improve support for children excluded from mainstream schools.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)]

My Lords, every child in this country should have the opportunity to receive a decent education. This includes children in alternative provision, many of whom are vulnerable or disadvantaged. To help achieve this, we will expand alternative provision schools and improve their quality so that their pupils receive an education on a par with their mainstream peers. Special and alternative provision will continue to be an integral part of the free schools programme.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. However, exclusions from mainstream education have increased dramatically over recent years. County lines gangs and drug gangs generally target these vulnerable children as they emerge from their pupil referral units. They are sitting ducks for those criminals. Will the Minister initiate a review within government of the urgent need to provide professional mental health care and help with communication problems for children identified as at risk of exclusion? The important point is to keep children in mainstream education while addressing their often severe mental health and other problems. This will cost money, but it will be a fraction of the hundreds of millions which would otherwise be spent on police, courts and, most particularly, prisons, as these children pursue a lifetime of drug-related crime.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, to put things in perspective, the level of exclusion has remained broadly stable over the last 15 years at 0.1%. However, I take on board the noble Baroness’s comments. More needs to be done in mainstream education, which is why we are announcing and rolling out our behaviour hubs to try to stop children being excluded. The quality of alternative provision also needs to be improved continuously to deal with some of the issues that she raised.

Child Sexual Abuse: Safeguarding Failures

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I can assure noble Lords that there is no religious prejudice of any kind. I am happy to take this matter up with the independent inquiry and write to the noble Lord.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, we know that many faith schools, and the great majority of non-faith schools, provide an excellent service. Will the Minister institute a full-scale investigation into the potential risks in some of our faith schools, not only of child sexual abuse but of homophobic attitudes and behaviour and, in some schools—often different ones—the promotion and encouragement of the cruel practice of female genital mutilation? These practices are utterly unacceptable in our country and reform should surely begin in our schools.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, where independent schools are charities they are regulated by the Charity Commission. We regulate all of them in terms of their right to run a school. The noble Baroness mentioned female genital mutilation; that is one of the few areas where there is a mandatory requirement to report any suspicions or evidence of it to the police. We take that very seriously and awareness of it is growing in schools.

Children: Mental Health Assessments

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the pilots will be looking very much for the potential to join up with other government programmes that support the mental health and well-being of looked-after children. This will include the scope to link with the Green Paper proposals, which I have mentioned, and other related work such as NHS England’s testing of personal mental health budgets for looked-after children. There will be an up-front commitment to try to meet any needs that are identified during this assessment process.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that although the Health and Social Care Act gave equal priority to mental and physical ill health, even today a very vulnerable mentally ill child suffering deep pain may wait 18 weeks or longer for any medical intervention while a vulnerable child with comparable physical pain can expect treatment within a day? Does the Minister find that acceptable?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I do not find that acceptable. As part of this process, we are looking at ways of ensuring that treatment for mental health issues identified in these vulnerable children is accelerated. We expect to have the invitation to tender for the pilot programme available in April next year, but, as I say, this is one of the issues that we are looking into.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, my Amendment 106A is in this group. It was Amendment 108 but for some reason has been retabled. The arrangements for the national review panel appear to omit its opportunity to review cases of serious mistreatment and/or physical injury caused by restraint in youth custody institutions or other kinds of institutions. This amendment makes it clear that these cases should be looked at by the panel because they raise serious issues of national policy and practice. I do not think that it should be restricted to just deaths in custody, as suggested by my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham, although I fully support what he said about that.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, referred to the BBC “Panorama” programme about the Medway Secure Training Centre. Reports obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests reveal that children in custody suffered serious physical injuries following restraint on three separate occasions in 2013-14 and on four separate occasions in 2014-15. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, mentioned, Ministers will often refer to the National Offender Management Service. But that is not a safeguarding panel. One of 10 recommendations made by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons, following its review of the new system of restraint in child custody, urged more effective independent oversight of restraint by local safeguarding children boards and local authorities.

The Government have tabled an amendment to abolish LSCBs, which makes it even more important that this new arrangement of a national panel includes harms to children in custody and other institutions, not just deaths. This matter is of a very serious nature and is not really suitable for review at local level. The children in these institutions are often not located in their home authority, so it is essential that the new national panel looks at these cases—unless, of course, these clauses do not eventually stand part of the Bill, which will be debated later.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I must first apologise that I was unable to be present when my opposition to Clause 11 was debated. Unfortunately, I have a serious family health problem which has prevented me from being present or even doing any work on this Bill until today, I have to confess. I will speak briefly to oppose the proposition that Clauses 12 and 13 should stand part of the Bill. I assure the Minister that the aim here is not to have the clauses struck out but to provide an opportunity to explore the implications of the two clauses as they are worded and to enable noble Lords to raise any general concerns ahead of Report.

I recognise the need to establish a stronger statutory framework that will introduce greater accountability for the three key agencies involved in safeguarding children—local authorities, the local police and the local health service, as proposed by Alan Wood—though I understand that there are concerns that other services should also be incorporated. However, the single purpose of a new framework, as made clear in new Section 16B(2), is absolutely rightly specified as,

“to ascertain what (if any) lessons can be learned from the case about the way in which local authorities or others should work to safeguard children”.

I hope we can explore how, in drawing out and disseminating the lessons from tragic events, we as a society can avoid increasing the blame culture, which has affected social workers and other public servants so severely in recent years. If we do increase the blame culture, the risk is that good social workers and other public servants will walk away from their jobs, as many public servants have done in recent years; others will simply not take up these professions; and the net result will be that the risks to children will increase rather than diminish. I know that that is absolutely not what the Government want to achieve—but there is a very serious point here, which I hope the Government will take on board.

If a social worker working with a family where a child unfortunately dies or is severely injured does fall short in some way, it is surely a matter for that social worker’s managers. It should not be a matter for national politicians and a national panel—whose role, as the Bill makes clear, must be solely to ensure that lessons are learned and disseminated. At a national level, the worst of all this is what happens when the media get involved—and they will get involved: they just do. That can wreck the lives of front-line workers to the point from which, to some degree, they never recover. I really do believe that it is that bad.

The review will of course need to establish whether any failings were a reflection of procedural issues, system failures or a lack of adequate resources. All of that is right and proper, but somehow we need to protect the individuals, not from proper disciplinary action or whatever is appropriate but from this national glare and utter devastation of their lives. If they have made an error, they probably did not intend to. So we have to get this right. It is terribly important that we do and I do not believe that the wording in the Bill achieves that at the moment.

Subsection (4) of new Section 16B inserted into the Children Act 2004 by Clause 12 requires the panel to publish the report on supervised child safeguarding in practice reviews. Alternatively, subsection (5) states:

“If the Panel consider it inappropriate to publish the report, they must publish any information relating to the lessons to be learned from the case”.

Is it really ever necessary or appropriate to publish a whole report on a specific case, which would inevitably involve publishing material about an individual front-line worker? The only national interest is in the lessons to be learned—the material that would be published under subsection (5). So I would welcome the Minister’s view as to whether subsection (4) could be deleted from the Bill. This would focus the minds of members of the panel on their sole role. It would also go some way to reassuring front-line staff that the Government are not aiming to focus national media and political attention on blaming an individual front-line worker. That is the key point that I hope we can think about in relation to these clauses.

My other point is a concern of the Local Government Association that the national panel, as outlined in the Bill, is too closely controlled by the Secretary of State. Again, this risks politicising the serious case review process, and the concern is again for the protection of front-line staff. But it is also very important to ensure that all the lessons are learned from these reviews, so it is absolutely vital that these reviews are seriously and really independent of government control. A review may need to comment on the impact of national policies on safeguarding failures and make recommendations for policy reform as well as procedural changes that are needed.

The Government have tabled Amendment 114, which risks placing too great an emphasis on the actions of individual practitioners in determining the cause of failures. We need to maintain the systems approach that we have had when undertaking these reviews. A focus on an individual’s failure in a particular area will have no relevance to the authorities in other parts of the country. Will the Minister look at the wording of Amendment 114 with this concern in mind?

The NSPCC has questioned whether it is right to limit the role of the national review panel to those cases that involve a death or serious injury, as raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. With the focus clearly on lessons to be learned, it may be important to include cases involving near misses or areas where a lot of children have suffered some harm. It may help to clarify that in the Bill.

Finally, it seems important to clarify further the dissemination activities that will be required of the panel. Somehow this business of learning the lessons seems to be somewhat skated over. The Bill needs to make absolutely clear how this country will learn from these serious cases. That is what the panel needs to do.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, we are content to support the amendments in this group that were ably moved and explained by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Meacher. I wish to comment on Amendments 105 and 107. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, when discussing the rights of the child in this Committee recently urged the Government to ensure the automatic review of child deaths in institutions. The two amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, would ensure that that continued to happen.

I am sure all noble Lords will have received a six-page letter from the Minister this morning, looking at what we have done on the Bill so far. The last page of the letter refers to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, on which he seeks to give reassuring commitments that the Government are indeed moving forward in a number of fields with regard to the rights of children.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, in this group Amendments 105, 107, 108, 109, 109A and 110 concern places of detention, serious child safeguarding cases and serious harm. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Baroness Walmsley, for these amendments. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for his very encouraging opening remarks—but I understand that the new Prime Minister will not be in No. 10 until Wednesday evening, so noble Lords will probably have to put up with us at least until then.

Before I turn to these amendments, I confirm that I would be delighted to convene a meeting to give noble Lords more detail on the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel. A meeting was specifically requested at our last Committee session by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, but the invitation obviously extends to all noble Lords.

I will begin with Amendments 105, 107 and 110 concerning places of detention. I had hoped that I had reassured noble Lords about the independence of the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel at the end of the last Committee sitting—particularly the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, who raised these concerns. As I said then, the establishment of a strong, independently operating national panel is essential. Because of its independence, the panel will have the autonomy to use its judgment about the circumstances in which it deems it necessary to carry out a national review, although we intend to provide guidance that will aid its decision-making in this regard. I assure the noble Lord that we will take particular care to reflect on the importance of children held in detention, and to consider carefully the ways in which the guidance for the panel reflects not just the deaths of children, but children who have been abused or neglected.

The existing 2015 statutory guidance, Working Together to Safeguard Children, sets out that a serious case review should always be carried out when a child dies in custody, in police custody, on remand or following sentencing in a young offender institution, a secure training centre or a secure children’s home. The same applies where a child dies who was detained under the Mental Health Act. We will want to consider carefully how any new guidance produced for the panel takes this into account, bearing in mind the panel’s basic functions of the panel.

On Amendment 109A, I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that anyone may notify the panel of serious events in institutional settings, or indeed of such events in any place. Clause 13, as drafted, deals with requirements on local authorities but does not prevent others making direct notifications. In respect of the proposal to add a specific reference to guidance, I assure the noble Lord that Clause 12 already provides for the panel to have regard to any guidance issued by the Secretary of State in respect of its functions, and Clause 13 provides the same in respect of local authorities’ duty to notify. We will make it clear that others may notify the panel of events directly.

I now turn to Amendments 108 and 109. Amendment 108 seeks to add to the definition of serious child safeguarding cases by including specific reference to cases where physical injuries or harm are caused by unlawful or abusive restraint in any institutional setting. Amendment 109 seeks to broaden the scope of the definition of serious harm to include both ill treatment and the impairment of physical health. I agree entirely with the premise behind the amendments. However, inevitably, any such definitions cannot be exhaustive and include all circumstances, or cover all settings within which children might suffer injury or harm.

The definition in Clause 12 of serious child safeguarding cases includes reference to children who have been seriously harmed. This is based on the definition set out in the current safeguarding statutory guidance, Working Together to Safeguard Children, which was drawn up following consultation last year. The definition of serious harm includes the factors stated in subsection (9). The wording proposed is not intended to cover all scenarios. Great consideration was given to the factors to be included in the definition of both serious child safeguarding cases and serious harm for the purposes of the clause. It will be for the panel to consider each case in line with these definitions to identify serious child safeguarding cases and determine what form of review is required. We expect that to include cases where factors such as those outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, are a feature.

Clause 12 sets out the functions of the new panel. The panel will identify serious child safeguarding cases in England that raise issues that are complex or of national importance. The purpose of any such review will be to ascertain how practice by local authorities or others to safeguard children can be improved as a result of learning from the cases. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, that this is about improvements in practice that can be disseminated nationally, not about the blame or public censure of individuals. Any disciplining of individuals will be done through the usual employment processes where they are working, or with reference to professional bodies, if needed. Reports on serious cases should not name individuals, whether they are professionals, children or family members. Writing reports in a way that ensures individuals are not named has been a long-standing convention in serious case reviews, and this should continue under the new arrangements. I assure the noble Baroness that the guidance will make this point absolutely clear.

As for her point about Amendment 114, we will come to it in detail in two groups’ time.

[Baroness Meacher]

I am aware that this practice has gone on—you have anonymity, and so on—yet somehow the media or national politicians get the names of the front-line people and their lives are wrecked. Therefore, there needs to be very clear separation of those matters that remain local and do not find their way up to the national panel, national politicians and the rest of it, most particularly the media. I hope that the Minister would be able at least to reflect on that or perhaps give us some reassurance. As for keeping anonymity, the media know jolly well how to find out people’s names—they crawl around, as the Minister well knows. We need procedures and practices that make very clear the single objective of the national panel—to learn lessons and disseminate—and that it does not need all the information about an individual. Somehow, a wall needs to be created to safeguard those people, otherwise we will not have front-line staff.

[Lord Nash]

I will reflect and look into that in more detail. Once it is in the public domain that a particular instance is being investigated, knowing the media, however much you try to protect an individual’s identity, I cannot see quite how one can do it—but I will certainly look at it. The noble Baroness raises a very important point which we are aware of.

I should add that the Government have now responded to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, in answer to some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson. The response confirmed the Government’s intention to bring forward an amendment at a later stage to modify the provisions to ensure that the arrangements to which the clause refers be subject to affirmative parliamentary scrutiny.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome some aspects of the Bill, in particular the proposed corporate parenting principles towards looked-after children and the focus upon improved support for care leavers. The neglect of these young people has indeed been an utter tragedy for far too long. However, I have serious concerns about other aspects of the Bill. I am grateful for the briefing from the Ministers, from the National Children’s Bureau and others on a number of these issues.

I am deeply worried about the possible implications of the proposals in Clauses 11 to 13 for the establishment of a national Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel to review child safeguarding cases. My understanding from the Minister is that the panel will require cases to be referred to it in the event of a child’s death or serious injury. In the same meeting, the Minister emphasised that social workers should not work in a risk-averse environment. I completely agree with that sentiment. I ask him to consider the position of a highly competent social worker who has the terrible misfortune to have in their case load a devious and dangerous parent who kills or injures a child. Can the Minister imagine the utter misery that that social worker will experience as the national panel chews through that case over months and months? Any social worker—any of us in our lives—will occasionally neglect a little aspect or fail to do something. That is inevitable, however good and professional we are at our work. If any little aspect has been missed, that social worker will have sleepless nights for months. That is what we are talking about here.

In the event of a tragedy, the management will of course need to ensure that the social worker acted reasonably and professionally. However, the only interest of a national panel, in my view, should be the adequacy of staffing levels, resources and national training programmes, the appropriateness of national guidelines and so forth—in other words, lessons that can be learned across the country, not an individual person’s activity, which is of course a serious matter for the management and that authority. We need to find a way of excluding any national panel involvement from the consideration of the individual social worker’s competence. If we fail to do that, I cannot imagine anyone taking on the job of family social worker. I have been a social worker and I know what it is like on that front line. Okay, that was decades ago, but, believe me, it is tough.

Like other Peers, I am also very concerned that the Government appear to be turning their back on prevention. As has already been mentioned, the closure of some 800 Sure Start centres in the past few years has removed one of the best ways of identifying families in a non-threatening environment, supporting parents who need help and rectifying problems. The Bill does nothing to reverse this very dangerous trend. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out the Government’s strategy for preventing the need for children to be taken into care in the first place. It is wonderful to look after care leavers, but if we have twice as many children coming into care because of the destruction of prevention, what are we really achieving here? Why are the Sure Start centres closing, and what will take their place?

I fear that Clause 15 may also be a cost-cutting measure, thus risking even more children being taken into care in the long run. It would enable the Secretary of State to exempt a local authority from a requirement under the children’s social care legislation or to modify the way in which such legislation is imposed on that authority. The carrot which the Government are providing is the prospect for the local authority to explore new ways of working. I hope the Government will ensure that the local authority will have to show that the new ways of working provide at least as good a service to families as the requirements being lifted. If not, hard-pressed local authorities can be expected to reduce the quality of services under the provisions of Clause 15.

I would be grateful if the Minister, in summing up the debate, could explain to the House why there is a need to weaken the entitlements of children and families in order to facilitate service innovation. Will the Government also publish the results of their consultations under Clause 15 and any objections raised? Finally, will the Government produce an assessment of the impact of any changes on children and families affected by an exemption? It will be very important to include service users among those who local authorities must consult under Clause 17 before making an application for an exemption for requirements under the children’s social care legislation. I would also hope to see stronger powers for Parliament to monitor the regulations made under Clause 15.

Although I welcome the principles set out in Clause 1, can the Minister explain why these principles are limited to local authorities? Is it not important for them to apply also to health commissioners? As other noble Lords have said, we know that looked-after children are more likely than their peers to have poor physical, mental and emotional health. For example, looked-after children in England are four times more likely than the average child to have an emotional or mental health problem. There is already evidence that targeted support for looked-after children is being decommissioned due to financial pressures. Can the Minister comment on this very real concern, raised in particular by the National Children’s Bureau?

A major issue for care leavers is financial insecurity. We have had many debates in this House about the cuts to benefits, and I know I am one of many Peers who have been very concerned about the impact on vulnerable people of the depth and speed of those cuts. I understand perfectly that there is a need to review the levels of benefits, but vulnerable people have been badly hit. Tragically, care leavers are among the vulnerable people affected. They are three times more likely to have had a benefit sanction compared with the general working population, and in many cases the sanctions have been unjustified. I understand that care leavers are more likely to have a sanction lifted if the sanction is challenged, but they are less likely to challenge a sanction, because they have less support. Can we ensure that the corporate parenting principles translate into, among other things, support for care leavers who reasonably challenge a benefits sanction?

The impact of debt on care leavers is likely to be so serious that I believe we will want to discuss the reasonableness of exempting care leavers from financial sanctions up to the age of 25 across the country. It may be that direct deductions of rent from care leavers’ benefits could be an alternative to the imposition of a sanction, which is something many of us in this House have argued for with respect to benefit claimants anyway. I welcome the cross-departmental care leavers’ strategy, bringing together the DCLG, the Home Office and the DWP, but full advantage has not yet been taken of this cross-departmental structure to avoid a direct clash between the aspirations of the Bill and the DWP benefit cuts.

Many more concerns have been expressed by various expert organisations in the field. I am sure other noble Lords will cover those, so I will not. I look forward very much to our debates in Committee and very strongly endorse the points made by my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham about deferring the Committee stage so we can do the job properly.

Children: Drugs

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Baroness Meacher]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to help local authorities fulfil their statutory obligation to safeguard children with respect to preventing the use of controlled drugs.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and at her request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.