Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Shephard of Northwold Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Shephard of Northwold (Con)]

My Lords, before I make my brief remarks in this debate, I would like to share with noble Lords the truly inspirational experience I had this morning, in connection with my non-pecuniary interest as a visiting professor at King’s College London, in its widening participation unit. Noble Lords will be aware of the truly shocking fact that only 8% of care leavers progress to a university place and that—even more shocking—only 1% progress to a place in a Russell group university. Wonderful work is being done at King’s to transform care leavers’ life chances, including bespoke introductory days for care leavers, individual e-mentoring and an option of 52 week-a-year accommodation with bursary assistance. I left that meeting elated by what I had learned and by the fact that the dedicated people there were looking to us, in this House, to use our opportunity, through this Bill, to make more improvements possible in the lives of these very disadvantaged young people.

I was expecting my elation to be a bit dashed by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, because I felt that his amendment put a negative spin on a Bill that has otherwise been made very welcome in this House and elsewhere. In the event, his speech was balanced in welcoming parts of the Bill and drawing the attention of the House to constitutional concerns, on which the Minister today has sought to give us every assurance. Of course, I understand and share concerns about the drafting of Bills that come to this House—everybody feels that concern from time to time, perhaps especially people who were active in the other place decades ago, although that is possibly an unfair comment—but we are also concerned about inappropriate shifts of power from Parliament to the Executive. The Minister made it absolutely clear today that the Bill proposes only two new delegated powers, and one extension of an existing power, and that the Government have intended always to publish indicative draft regulations before those clauses are debated in Committee, which they should and will do. However, this House is so full of experts ready to bring their experience and knowledge to bear on a vital policy area. I was at the briefing and there was a lot of welcome for the new provisions. Ministers have demonstrated—they are arranging another briefing tomorrow—that they are ready to listen carefully to points made and take on board constructive improvements. It would be disappointing, but I do not think that it will happen, for us to spend a lot of time today focusing on constitutional matters when we could be getting the benefit of the expertise in this House in embracing, supporting and improving the Bill’s proposals.

I intend to address some of the policy issues in this Bill, and I declare my non-pecuniary interest as deputy chair of the social mobility commission. I shall address in particular the issues in the first part of the Bill, on looked-after children and care leavers. These young people are of especial interest to the commission, because their life chances are self-evidently hugely challenged in ways which we do not need to spell out here, because we all know. There were some 69,500 looked-after children in March last year, and 26,339 former care leavers aged 19, 20 or 21. Some 39% of those young people were not in education, employment or training. The Bill seeks to introduce a number of measures which, if put into force, could make a difference to their life chances.

The proposals in the Bill on corporate parenting, although their implementation at local level will be the actual measure of whether they work, should at the very least concentrate the collective minds of local authority departments and others to keep sight of the progress or otherwise of looked-after children and care leavers. Their needs are complex and by definition cross departmental responsibilities. If there is to be a more collaborative approach between agencies and other partners, there will be even more of a need to know who is responsible for each young person and accountable for their welfare. I understand that there is a successful approach to collective working in Trafford, and I hope very much we will hear more about this during the passage of the Bill.

The corporate parenting principles laid out in Clause 1 contain some ambitious proposals—in particular the fourth principle, which makes it clear that the authority will need to work closely with its partners to enable young people to,

“gain access to, and make the best use of, services provided by the local authority and its relevant partners”.

In other words, the successful co-operation of the various partners is implicit. This will be a real challenge for some local authorities and I hope that, as the Bill is debated here, we will hear more about the ways in which the new structures and arrangements will be monitored and measured. The fifth principle requires the local authority,

“to promote high aspirations, and seek to secure the best outcomes, for those … young people”.

These disadvantaged children are not always placed in the best local schools. Indeed, in my experience they can often be excluded and passed from school to school, like pass the parcel. That is precisely the opposite of what they most need, which is structure and the experience of sustained relationships provided by a good school. The new requirement in Clauses 5, 6 and 7 for the appointment of designated teachers with a responsibility for relevant pupils and for the strengthening of governing bodies’ role, provided it can be monitored—and that monitoring is key here as elsewhere—could make a real difference.

I very much welcome the requirement in Clause 2 obliging local authorities to publish information about the services they offer to care leavers relating to health and well-being, education and training, employment and accommodation and participation in society, which again makes collaboration between agencies explicit. Just as welcome is the notion that such services could be provided by employers and third-sector organisations. In this respect, I draw the attention of noble Lords to a project in Norwich, spearheaded by Chloe Smith, MP for Norwich North. The project is called Norwich for Jobs. It brought together local firms, the chamber of commerce, FE colleges and the jobcentre to get young people into local jobs and apprenticeships. Last week, Chloe Smith presented the project to the APPG on Social Mobility, of which the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, is deputy chair, where it aroused great interest. She outlined plans to extend it to get the 60 or so neediest children—NEETs—into appropriate work or education, this time involving the inspirational work of ThinkForward Tomorrow’s People, about which I think we shall hear more from my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott, who is in her place. Such projects could be facilitated by the new provisions in this part of the Bill, opening the way for properly supervised collaborative projects based locally, with local accountability, and involving a range of partners to focus help on these particularly needy young people.

Looked-after children, care leavers and care-experienced young people need clear structure, sustained and reliable help and, above all, the knowledge that there are people to turn to. We must not waste their potential, nor dash their hopes. This is quite a modest Bill, but it will help support their aspirations. The Bill should benefit from the expertise in this House in its passage through this House and, in turn, it deserves support today.