Children and Families Bill

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

First, I thank the Minister for his kind words about my signing all the amendments in this group with the exception of Amendment 41, which I did not sign not because I disagreed with it—I think that it is absolutely excellent—but because other noble Lords put their names to it ahead of me and the list was full when I asked whether I could add mine.

I start with a general point, which I cannot resist making. I first went to see the Public Bill Office after Second Reading last July and asked its advice on whether there was any possibility of including a clause on standard packaging for tobacco products as a child protection measure in the Bill. I never dreamt that by Third Reading the Bill would contain such a range of powerful tobacco control measures, especially in view of the fact that there was no reference to a single one when the Bill came to us from another place.

I particularly thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay of Llandaff and Lady Tyler of Enfield, and the noble Lord, Lord McColl, for agreeing to sign our original cross-party amendments on standard packaging. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, for persisting with his campaign to ban smoking in cars when children are present, and my right honourable friend Andy Burnham and my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath for their support on all these issues. I particularly thank the Health Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, whose courtesy, willingness to listen and determination to get the policy right nobody in this House could possibly fault. I also mention in dispatches the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach. As the Minister said, he indicated on the second day of the Report stage of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill, as recently as 14 January, that he had an open mind on proxy purchasing, although he was not as forthcoming as the Minister has been with his amendment today.

When the Government come to implement the policy on proxy purchasing, I wonder if they would like to look at one element of the experience in Scotland. When Scotland introduced a law on proxy purchasing in October 2011, it brought in a retailer registration scheme at the same time. This is a low-cost licensing scheme that operates in conjunction with fixed penalty notices and gives the courts the ability to impose banning orders. It requires all tobacco retailers to be registered on one national register in order to sell tobacco. The costs to the industry of the scheme are minimal and are limited really to the one-off labour cost needed to fill out the form. Costs to the Government include the initial set-up costs of advertising and marketing to give retailers information about the need to comply with the scheme and the process to be undertaken, and the cost of a database to hold national-level information on retailers. Such a scheme would give local enforcement agencies a very valuable weapon in tackling illicit trade and in enforcing other tobacco control regulations—for example, the ban on sales to minors. It would also help to protect the great majority of honest retailers from unfair competition from the unscrupulous minority who are prepared to deal in illicit products.

Finally, I go back to the speech from the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, on the anti-social behaviour Bill and commend one sentence in it that I have not heard from any Minister before. He said:

“The Government are determined … to stamp out smoking as a habit, particularly among young people, so they are being proactive”.—[Official Report, 14/1/14; col. 141.]

Indeed they are and the amendments before us today are proof of that. They are an indication of just how far we have come and noble Lords in all parts of the House deserve great credit for the contribution that they have made to public health by adding these vital tobacco control amendments to this Bill.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, would like to say a few words about Amendment 41. I also was one of those disappointed to get there too late to add my name to it. I thank the Minister for listening and for everything that he has done to get us to the position we are now in. The amendment he has brought forward with other noble Lords is laudable, and it is right that we are working hard to make sure that it is legally workable. I pay tribute to him for that.

I have a couple of other comments. I, too, am so pleased that this is part of a comprehensive package of tobacco control measures—something to try to prevent young people picking up that nicotine addiction that too often leads to dependency early in life. This is a landmark set of measures, both for child protection and for the public health of young people. I thank everyone who has been involved in that. It also demonstrates what we can do in your Lordships’ House when we work in a non-partisan way. The discussions and the debates that we have had across the House and across Benches have brought home to me how good it can be that we can work in this way.

Finally, on enforcement and workability—I made this point on Report—I am very pleased that there will be opportunities for both Houses to discuss methods of implementation, provided we get to that stage. There are many people who have a lot of expertise to bring to bear. Only this morning, I was looking at a Canadian Cancer Society review from this year which listed the countries which already have bans of this type in place. It includes Canadian provinces, Australian states, six of the US states, Mauritius, South America, Bahrain and Puerto Rico. I say that to emphasise that it can be done. It is being done in other parts of the world. Of course, they all have their own ways of doing things. I suspect that none of them will be directly comparable, but it clearly can be done. The fact that there is so much experience elsewhere in the world is something that we should take account of when we have those follow-up discussions on implementation.

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I congratulate the Government and have great pleasure in supporting the amendment.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

I associate myself with the eloquent remarks of someone whom I consider to be very much my noble friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley.

Having been involved in the discussions as we have gone through the various stages of this Bill, I am extremely pleased with where we have come out, which is a far more consistent package of rights to assessment and support for parent carers. They will now be on a level playing field with young carers and carers of adults. The two Bills together, this Bill and the Care Bill, will make a huge difference to carers. In this amendment, we are thinking particularly of parent carers and the important role that they play.

We are hugely in the debt of carers as a whole in this country for their very hard and self-sacrificing work, and I am absolutely delighted that legislation is now almost on the statute book which recognises that. I pay tribute to the Minister and his officials for listening and responding, and for working so hard to get us to where we are.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, as one who has been part of the process of this Bill almost from day one and who has watched the amazing progress that has been made, I want to thank the Minister for two things. The first, which has already been discussed, is the ability to provide education facilities for young offenders within institutions, which is a major step forward; the other is this amendment.

Parent carers should of course have the same consideration as other carers. To see parent carers of disabled children and their general well-being now being considered on the same basis is a huge tribute to the Minister and his team, who we have seen so effectively listen and respond to so many of these amendments. Even though I happened to be the mover of one amendment which did not get quite as far as I wanted it to, I share every bit of the appreciation for the work that has gone on behind the scenes as well as on the Front Benches. I thank everybody involved.

Children and Families Bill

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

My Lords, as the clock reads midnight, I will say very little in support of my noble friend’s excellent moving of this, as she says, modest amendment, except to say that going without any time off for possibly years on end may push carers to breaking point. When their leave runs out or they feel that they cannot cope any more, many employees feel that they have no choice but to give up work altogether. As one parent carer wrote:

“My current manager is very supportive within the leave/time off rules, but I have still struggled in the last 12 months, my leave has been used on reactive odd days/half days due to medical appointments & supporting my daughter’s condition & I only have a few days left for the next few months of my leave year so I worry that I will not have enough time & will be forced to give up work”.

A statutory entitlement to care leave would help many carers juggle their caring responsibilities with work in a sustainable and manageable way, making them more productive and less stressed, and saving businesses and the economy money in the long run.

It is a source of personal disappointment to me that, as my noble friend said, we are falling behind in international comparisons, given that carers in the UK have always been at the forefront. We have always been leaders in the recognition of carers, and successive Governments can take credit for that. It would be a great pity if we fell behind in this and did not keep up with international colleagues such as Australia, Belgium, Germany and Japan, which are all putting carers’ leave in place. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to agree to this amendment.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, very briefly indeed, I lend my support to this amendment. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said when she moved it so eloquently, it is a modest amendment, asking for a review in this very important area.

I do not intend to detain the House any longer—other than to say that from 2017 the number of older and disabled people needing long-term care is predicted to outstrip the number of family members able to provide it. Given that, with an ageing population, we are expecting people to work for longer, they are also going to find themselves trying to care for longer, with more family members and loved ones with more, increasingly complex, long-term conditions. Against this backdrop, it is essential that we have the review that this amendment talks about and see what more we can do to help people who are trying to face the challenge of both working longer and caring longer.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, very briefly, I thought that both my noble friends made very coherent arguments in favour of this and raised some very important issues. We heard yesterday from the noble Lord, Lord Nash, that he was going to do some more work on parent carers, so obviously some of these issues around carers are already going to come back at Third Reading. There will be ongoing discussions around those issues and I therefore urge the Minister, perhaps in the context of those discussions, to widen it out a little more and consider the issues that have been raised in this amendment at the same time, so that we can bring all these issues back at Third Reading and have a full debate at that stage. I hope that he will consider that seriously.

Children and Families Bill

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I will briefly contribute to what I consider to be a very important debate. This is a subject on which I feel passionately. I spoke about it in my maiden speech. As other noble Lords have already acknowledged, we have the Ofsted report of 2013, Not Good Enough, which showed frankly that PSHE is just not good enough in too many schools and was leaving many young people vulnerable and open to abuse.

I attended the round table last week set up by my noble friend the Minister. It was a very good meeting and I have read carefully the letter that he has circulated since. Like other noble Lords, I very much welcome some of the new initiatives that have been taken, particularly the setting up of the expert group, but I have always felt passionately that all children should have access to good quality PSHE, including relationship and sex education. I do not believe in a parental opt-out at the age of 15. I think that all children are entitled to that education, but that is my personal view.

I was very taken by the part of my noble friend’s letter where he emphasised the evidence that we have both in this country and abroad of how important to social well-being, emotional intelligence, resilience—what are sometimes called character traits—a rounded education is to young people, not simply to prepare them for later life, which is very important, but because it underpins academic attainment. We often lose sight of that point in these debates.

I, too, will listen with much interest to my noble friend’s summing up, because to me, the key question for us today is: what is the most effective way to get where I—and, I believe, many in this House—want to be?

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Moved by

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

53B: Clause 76, page 52, line 25, at end insert—
“( ) The Secretary of State must, within four years of the coming into force of subsection (1), conduct a review of the impact of removal of section 11 of the Childcare Act 2006 on the sufficiency of childcare in England.
( ) The Secretary of State must—
(a) lay a copy of the report before Parliament, and(b) publish the report in such a manner as they think fit.”

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, this amendment relates to Clause 76, which seeks to remove the duty on local authorities to assess the sufficiency of childcare in their area—a requirement established under Section 11 of the Childcare Act 2006. In short, my amendment would introduce a review of the impact of repealing Section 11 on the sufficiency of childcare in England, to take place within four years and to be publicly reported.

In Grand Committee, considerable concern about Clause 76 was expressed by noble Lords across the Room. It was felt that removing the requirement for local authorities to assess the sufficiency of childcare in their area was a risky proposal. It has the potential to damage the capacity of local authorities to meet their duty to provide sufficient childcare for working parents, which, of course, is our end goal. We discussed at length the value of producing the sufficiency reports, and I do not wish to rehearse those arguments here. I shall simply say that, in a nutshell, the main argument was that producing these reports ensures that local authorities gather comprehensive data on the levels of childcare provision in their area, and that is vital for identifying gaps in the market and responding accordingly. It was also argued that local authorities are able to build a detailed picture of the availability of childcare for different age groups, taking account of changing demographics—in particular, for children with disabilities and special educational needs. Finally, it was argued that childcare sufficiency reports are an important mechanism for accountability.

Since then, there have been helpful discussions with Ministers and officials, and I am grateful for those. The Government have continued to argue in favour of repeal. We have been told that the current sufficiency reports are unduly time-consuming and resource-consuming, and that their removal will allow greater flexibility for local authorities in how they assess their childcare markets. In essence, we have been told that simplifying the reporting procedure would allow local authorities to get on with the real job of providing childcare. Of course, that sounds persuasive and no one, least of all me, wants to argue in favour of added and unnecessary bureaucracy. However, I feel that there is good reason to be sceptical here. The concern remains that, freed from their assessment duties, local authorities will give a lower priority to securing sufficient childcare and, indeed, allocate fewer resources to it exactly when we cannot afford for that to happen.

Your Lordships’ House does not need to be reminded by me that our childcare market is far from perfect. There are gaps in provision across the board—a point made abundantly clear when this House debated childcare on 9 January. Then, we heard, for example, about the Family and Childcare Trust’s Childcare Costs Survey 2013, which revealed that just 20% of local authorities believe that there is sufficient childcare in their area for children under two. Equally worrying is that only 9% of local authorities reported having sufficient childcare for parents working atypical hours, and that only 14% thought that they had enough for disabled children in their locality.

To allay those concerns, my amendment proposes a review within four years, and this seems to me a good way forward. I feel that the advantage of a review should be clear. First, it would allow the Government to establish concretely the impact of repealing Section 11, most pertinently how the ability of local authorities to understand long-term trends in childcare and secure sufficient childcare for working parents has been affected. The definition of “sufficient” is broad here: it refers not just to the quantity of childcare places but to the adequacy and availability of provision for older children, children with special needs or disabilities and those whose parents do not work conventional hours.

Moreover, in my book, “sufficiency” also includes quality, so any review should also seek to determine whether and how the quality of childcare provision has been affected. I am sure the Minister will agree that it will be important to have a detailed understanding of the childcare market at a time when the Government, very much to their credit, are increasing the number of free hours of entitlement for two year-olds. Finally, should any failings be uncovered by the review, we will be well placed to take timely action, whether this involves strengthening the statutory guidance or returning to legislation.

To conclude, naturally it is my hope that neither the quantity of childcare nor its quality will be affected if Section 11 is repealed. The measure we are proposing here is simply a safeguard—an opportunity to ensure that our legislative actions do not have unintended consequences. Finally, it would provide the desired reassurance that the Government’s commitment to childcare remains undimmed.

It is a modest amendment and I hope that the Minister feels able to accept it. I beg to move.

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[Baroness Northover]

That is incredibly kind of the noble Baroness. If inspiration does not come, I will be very happy to take her up on that and to write to her. I now hope that my noble friend is willing to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her reply, and also the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, for contributing to this short debate. I welcome many of the things my noble friend has said in response, particularly that the Government will explore how they can share some of the data in the clearest and most effective ways. It is very important that the Government keep a watching brief on assessing the impact of repealing this duty. I particularly welcome the commitment given to post-legislative scrutiny, which is important, and also the focus that was placed on irregular hours. I understand that I may hope to see that in the strengthened statutory guidance. That will be very helpful.

I admit to some disappointment that there will not be the formal review that I have called for; however I hope that the Government will continue to monitor the sufficiency of childcare. I hope that this House will also continue to monitor that sufficiency, through debates, through Questions and the other vehicles open to it. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 53B withdrawn.

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[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to support these amendments, to which I added my name. My noble friend mentioned that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has supported her amendment, and as a member of that committee I wanted to say a bit about what it said in its report on the Care Bill, which was published this week.

The committee expressed its dissatisfaction with the Government’s response to it on this issue, and recommended that the Government bring forward an amendment, either to this Bill or to the Care Bill, to give parent carers of disabled children an equivalent right to a needs assessment for support. The committee acknowledged the existing provisions, but stated that,

“they do not equate to a clear and single duty in law which requires a local authority to carry out a needs assessment of parent carers of disabled children and to meet the eligible needs of such parent carers”.

My noble friend gave an example of the effect this can have on parent carers, who do such a hard job already. Their job is made that much harder by the lack of clarity about the law and what they are entitled to.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights quoted from what the Minister said in Grand Committee:

“We are clear that any change to the Children Act 1989 to assess the needs of parent carers separately would change fundamentally the principles of the Act and risk the needs of the children becoming second to those of their parent. Recent serious case reviews for Daniel Pelka and Keanu Williams have shown starkly what can happen when the needs of parents are put ahead of those of the child. Our approach to legislation and statutory guidance is that the needs of the individual child are paramount”.—[Official Report, 20/11/13; col. GC 479.]

The committee said:

“While we are clear that the best interests of the child are a primary consideration in all actions concerning children, we do not consider the references to cases of child abuse and neglect to be appropriate in the context of discussing the rights of parent carers of disabled children to a needs assessment for support”.

I have to say that I was shocked when the Minister said that in Grand Committee. The JCHR went on to say:

“Children’s rights are not in conflict with parents’ rights in this regard. Indeed, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises that a child is not isolated from his or her family”.

Speaking about the UN convention, a UNICEF global study of independent human rights institutions for children spelled this out:

“An important aspect of the convention is that it does not consider the child as an isolated individual. Instead, it situates the child as a member of a family and community, recognizing his or her need for support to develop and thrive. Action to realize the rights of children can thus be envisaged as taking place within and through a triangular set of relations involving the state, parents (and/or guardians) and child”.

These amendments embody the spirit of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and I very much hope that the Minister will be able either to accept them or to bring forward alternative amendments on Third Reading.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, the hour is late, so I will speak briefly in support of these amendments. I pay tribute to the tireless work of the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley.

As has been said, through other parts of the Bill, the new right to assessment and support that have been introduced for young carers is wonderful. It was also my privilege to look at the detailed scrutiny of the Care Bill. Again, the new right to assessment and support for adult carers is a landmark piece of legislation of which we can all be proud. As has been set out, the one group that falls between the stools are parent carers—generally parents who look after disabled children.

I, too, had the privilege last week of attending the meeting with the Minister. It was a very poignant meeting at which we heard three parent carers explain what life was like for them. One, I particularly remember, was looking after not one but three disabled children. She explained how she simply never had a minute for herself. She said that she was grateful for the support that she got in respite care for her children, but that she would be lucky to have the time to pop into the supermarket on the way home before having to go and collect the children or do something for one of her other children.

My final point concerns why I think that well-being is so important. What is often forgotten is the impact on the personal and family relationships of parents who look after disabled children. I felt that this was underlined very well in an excellent report in 2011 from Contact a Family. This showed the mental health problems that parent carers were having, including anxiety, depression and breakdown. They had to see their GP because they felt that their well-being was so poor, and they often had medication or had to see a counsellor. There was also an impact on their marriage, often with a breakdown in the relationship.

For all those reasons—I would love to say more but there simply is not time—I strongly hope that the Minister will be able to say something sympathetic in response to these amendments.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, if I had got my timing right, my name would have been added to this amendment. I regret that something as important as this is being rushed at this late hour. This is a crucial bit of our social care that has become unscrambled because of the way that we have split adults’ and children’s social care.

Of course, in a Bill on children, when we are looking at children’s issues, the welfare of the child must almost always be paramount, but that is true throughout the legislation that we look at, and it would have been true if this issue had been looked at in the Care Bill. However, the Minister will remember that in the discussions on the Care Bill it was felt that this was a children’s issue and therefore better dealt with in the Children and Families Bill. Again, the split has meant that this matter has not been properly dealt with, and therefore I hope that the Minister can pick it up and deal with it properly now.

Anyone who has worked with families as a family social worker for many years will know that, unless you pay attention to the needs of parents, you can in no way help their children. It is the parent who is going to make the difference to the child by providing the care. If they have a life of their own and feel cared for themselves, they will give better care to the disabled child whom they have to manage day in and day out. Having met those families, the Minister will know the toll that that has on the humanity of these people, never mind everything else. It is very difficult to continue loving and caring for your children when the stress you experience is so high and the level of support you receive is so low.

I do not think that it is beyond the wit of the officials and the Minister to think this through, just as the issue of young carers has been thought through, to get a much better package that ensures that parent carers form part of a total assessment and that the assessment is not split down the middle because we just happen to split services down the middle. The whole issue needs to be looked at as a total package in a holistic way, and a proper plan should be made for the whole family and not just bits of it. In that way, we will have much more success both for the children and, most certainly, for the adults who give their lives day in and day out to caring for their children. If that does not happen, the children will end up either in respite care or in the care of the local authority, and that will cost the nation a great deal more.

Children and Families Bill

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of the Marriage Foundation. I express my admiration for the tenacity of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, in pursuing this difficult, worrying and extremely important issue. Parenting must be a matter of responsibility rather than rights; that point needs to be put forward again and again in every single place where it can possibly be put. The admirable proposals that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, put in Amendment 15 ought to be placed somewhere by the Government. Whether they should be in primary legislation, I am not convinced, but certainly they should be in guidance and, possibly, in part of the pack given to parents when they separate so that they can recognise their responsibilities after separation. I should like to see this sort of thing in libraries, as part of the school pack in the sixth form and in sixth form colleges, and in universities and colleges of further education. The duties of parents that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has set out here should be part of what all young and not so young people who are of an age to be parents should have in their minds.

We ought to stop talking about the rights of parents and start talking about the responsibilities referred to in the Children Act, and also about duties. It is interesting that the word “duty” is almost never used, but it is as important today as it was in the 19th century. It is time we started to use it again. I express again my admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and I hope that what he has said will be taken further.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

I declare an interest as a vice-president of the charity Relate. I have great sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, is trying to achieve through this amendment, although I feel that primary legislation is probably not quite the right place to put across this very important message. I agree with the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that it is important to emphasise at every opportunity that this is about parental responsibilities rather than rights. That must flow through all the messaging and communications that we talked about when we discussed the earlier amendment.

I, too, should like to see this guidance offered at many different opportunities. I should like to see this sort of guidance as an integral part of relationship education. We talked about the importance of relationship education in Committee, and I suspect that we shall return to it later. I should also like to see it included in the various pilots for birth registration in different venues. It would be good to see it included there, and in the various packs—Bounty packs and others—that are prepared for new parents. I should like to see it at the new-parent stage, at the education stage and especially in the various advice and guidance packs that are available for separating parents. It has a lot to offer. It is a very important set of messages. I just happen to think that primary legislation is not quite the right place for it.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, since the Minister may be looking at this matter more fully, I suggest as a footnote to this discussion that he might look at the Family Law (Scotland) Act—I think I have the correct name of the Act, although I cannot give the date. The introductory text to that Act makes exactly the point the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, is making. It talks about the responsibilities of the parent to the child. The following section I think uses the word “rights”, but it is talking about the child’s rights rather than those of the parents. It is the counterpart to responsibilities. It has been set out in primary legislation, I think on the recommendation of the Scottish Law Commission, that it is a useful checklist of the corresponding rights of the child, but particularly of the responsibilities that rest upon the parent throughout the child’s childhood. The Minister might find this piece of comparative law helpful.

Children and Families Bill

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I have a lot of sympathy with these amendments, particularly Amendments 7 and 8 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and especially the need for greater support for children returning home from care. As other noble Lords have said, the new proposals that the Government recently put out are very welcome and are certainly a good step in the right direction. I commend them for making these proposals. However, as we have already heard, almost half of children who return home re-enter care, and a third have gone in and out of care twice or more. It is a vicious circle and the impact on the child can be devastating.

Since we are now on Report, I restate an interest as chair of CAFCASS. We have already heard that much of the problem is that the very problems of the parents that have resulted in the children going into care in the first place generally remain unresolved. Unless there is more help and support available to the family, particularly to the parents, to help them deal with those problems—be they to do with substance misuse, domestic violence, mental health or alcohol abuse—the chance of the child coming home successfully to the parent and having the sort of loving and stable household and help that they need is slim indeed. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on what more can be done to address this issue.

[Lord Warner (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s Amendment 9, which puts contact between siblings in the Bill. I apologise to the House that I was unable to take part in this Bill’s proceedings in Committee because I was engaged on the Care Bill. However, I was on the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation and I echo the points made by the chairman of that committee, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss.

On the basis of my six years as a director of social services, I have a general point about why the Minister should concede on Amendment 9. While I was director, the Children Act 1989 was passed. That was a classic example of Parliament saying in a Bill that decisions about children should be taken on the basis of the best interests of the child. In the overwhelming majority of cases where siblings are separated, the best interests of the child are to maintain that contact. Sibling contact is often a private child’s world, which is not always well observed by adults, whether they are social workers or other adults involved in that child’s life. Maintaining that contact is overwhelmingly important to children. My noble friend has shown that the option of putting it in guidance and relying on best practice has had a good run for its money and it has not worked. We should return to some of the ideas in the Children Act 1989 and put in the Bill the obligation to help maintain contacts between siblings when they are separated. These contacts are in the best interests of the children and very important to them. It costs very little to put that in the Bill.

Children and Families Bill

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am speaking to Amendment 224, to which we have added our names, and to Amendments 225, 226, 227, 228, 229 and 230, as well as to government Amendment 241. I echo the comments already made—that this is a very welcome breakthrough in the Government’s approach to young carers. I am very pleased at this unusually effective twin-track approach, with the Department of Health and the Department for Education coming together to address these issues from both aspects. That is a welcome development.

Without rehearsing all the arguments, we can all identify with the overwhelming evidence that there are an increasing number of children and young people caring for a family member, parent or sibling and that that is affecting their education, their chance to socialise and their health. We have not had the processes in place to identify these young people and give them the help they need, but I am pleased to say that we are now moving forward.

The key to this new requirement is the duty on local authorities to identify young carers. As we know, they are often hidden from view. Our amendment places parallel duties on schools, social care and health providers to play their part in finding these young people, and in putting in place co-ordinated support packages for the children and for those for whom they care. Our amendments spell these out in some detail. Amendment 225 also specifies a duty to provide sufficient resources to improve the well-being of all young carers in the area.

We have now had an opportunity to consider the government amendment to the Bill, and I appreciated the chance to attend the meeting with the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and with representatives of young carers’ charities. As the Minister has said, there was a strong welcome for the steps that have been taken and for the Government’s recognition of the importance of this issue. We feel that the government amendments provide a useful outline framework to address the issue. We also accept that some of the detail will inevitably have to be spelled out in regulations. However, our amendments go one step further in stipulating the specific duties required of health, social care and FE institutions. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain how his amendments—which impose a much more general duty—relate to all those different aspects of the combined package that is meant to apply to young carers in future.

We have acknowledged previously that you can only go so far in driving change from the centre. There also has to be the political will at local level. Concern remains about the appetite of local government for embracing these extra duties. Their representatives were noticeably absent from the meeting we attended, though at the time we were assured that they were supportive of the changes. Would the Government look again at Amendment 225? This goes one step further than simply putting in place whole family assessments—it places a duty on local authorities to provide a range and level of service sufficient to improve the well-being of young carers. We are not just talking about the structure; we are talking about the resources as well. Without the sorts of amendments that we have put forward, there would be a concern about the level of resources made available locally. In other words, we would ensure that the resources were in place to make a real difference to these young people’s lives. Could the Minister clarify whether he agrees that there is merit in such a duty?

We also have residual concerns about the split between adult and children’s services in local government and their inability to work together in a co-ordinated fashion. These structural problems still need to be addressed going forward. How, if not in legislation, might we make some progress on these issues so that all sides of local government are talking and working together?

There is also a big training need. For example, schools and other education institutions, which often have no knowledge that their pupils are carers, need training to identify the symptoms of young carers and in the skills needed to champion their needs. As we have previously identified, teacher training has a big role to play here. Could the Minister address the issue of training, particularly at school level?

Finally, an issue came up in the Care Bill: that of parent carers. It was raised by my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley. On Report, in response to her concern the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said that it was the Government’s view that the main provision for assessing and supporting those caring for disabled children should be in the children’s legislation, so that the family’s need for support could be looked at holistically—in other words, it should be in this Bill. It feels as if we are addressing everybody’s needs in this wonderful new holistic arrangement apart from the parents of disabled children. How has that read-across from what happened in the Care Bill to this Bill been followed through?

Nevertheless, we feel that the Government are on the right track and support their amendment. We accept that this is a unique opportunity to improve the lives of young carers. Obviously, we should grasp that. I very much welcome the steps taken so far but would like answers on the points I have raised with the noble Lord this afternoon. That could help to make a lot of difference to young carers, in terms of the reality of their experience on the ground.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 224, to which my name is attached. I will also make some comments about government Amendment 241.

I agree with other noble Lords who think that today is a landmark moment in what has been a very long journey for young carers to get the support that they need. More than a year ago, the Government announced new rights for adult carers. Those were extremely welcome but no equivalent provisions were put forward at the time for young carers. I pay tribute to the Government today for the very hard work they have done over the summer, across government and working with the sector, to get to this situation.

Like many other commentators at the time, I was particularly surprised a year ago at that omission, given what we know about children and young people who care for someone. They are particularly vulnerable to poor outcomes and life chances. Obviously, the reasons for that are straightforward. It was clear that for far too long young carers had not been sufficiently protected by the law. Indeed, very few young carers had received statutory assessment and support. Where they did, they often continued to undertake inappropriate levels of caring, simply because the adult that they were looking after continued to have unmet needs. The law was so confusing for young carers that it often was not even clear who had responsibility for them.

These are critical points in what we are looking at today because young carers’ well-being was directly affected by how far the adult they looked after was supported. That is why the whole family approach to assessment, which we have heard about already from the Minister, is so important. If this is to make a difference in practice, it is absolutely critical that children’s and adult services are able to work together. That sounds obvious but any of us who have been involved in the sector know that in practice it is often quite the reverse.

As my noble friend Lord Storey said at the beginning, the two Bills are scheduled at the same time. Originally when I saw that, I thought “Oh my goodness, I do not know how I will cope running between the two”. Actually, I think the opportunity provided to link the Bills is rather important. It has felt quite a complex process at times but I think we are almost there.

I have a final couple of points to make. What it really comes down to now is regulations. In addition, the Government have made it absolutely clear in various briefing sessions that the Care Bill provides a whole family approach to assessment, and this will need to be set out in the regulations. I would very much welcome any further assurances the Minister can give today that all those loose ends will be tied up so that the jigsaw is absolutely complete. One of the reasons that I attached my name to Amendment 224, before the government amendment was tabled, was to make it clear that adults’ support needs should be met in order to protect children. I would particularly welcome assurances that the Government intend to look at how regulations relating to the Care Bill will make this crystal clear. I, too, commend all the collaborative work that has taken place. I pay particular tribute to the expert advice and real-life experience that the National Young Carers Coalition has fed in.

The only remaining point I would like to highlight concerns the respective roles and responsibilities of other agencies, particularly health and education agencies but social care as well, in identifying young carers and knowing how they can best be supported. That is also something I would like to see picked up in the guidance. These amendments, particularly the government amendment, together with the provision in the Care Bill, provide an excellent opportunity to set new standards for identifying young carers and approaches to supporting the whole family. Regulations and good practice guidance on these new standards would be a very good place in which to take the provision forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Bishop of Oxford]

My Lords, I also would like to speak briefly in support of Amendment 233, which was so ably and vividly introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I have a particular responsibility in the Church of England for education, so I am pleased to be able to bring that authority and support, as it were, on behalf of all the schools that I represent. This is a small but important and crucial piece of work.

As has been said, it is interesting to note that the Mothers’ Union, the Children’s Society and a further 70 different organisations which are involved in and have some knowledge of this area all support the proposal. It was a few years ago now, but the board of education that I represent worked with the Sex Education Forum to try to produce some new guidance, but unfortunately that work was not taken up. It is clear from all we have been saying that the purpose of education is not simply to present children who can pass exams, but to create an opportunity for young people to take control of their lives and values, and to realise their hopes through their approach to life. It is a much larger task, and for that social, emotional and spiritual intelligence is important, along with academic prowess. When the chips are down, nothing matters more to us than our relationships and how we form them. As we have just heard described so vividly, this is a new age for people as they form their relationships.

Building a network of friendships and exploring more intimate relationships with particular people are hard tasks for young people today because they have been made extremely complex by the rapid changes in technology. It is in fact some 13 years of revolution since the last guidelines were produced. This is a fascinating world, but it is a jungle, and our young people have to navigate it. A rare consensus seems to be building around the need to update the guidelines, so it is vital that we seize this opportunity. As part of its commitment to addressing these issues, the board of education that I represent has been compiling resources for use in church schools and any other schools to help combat homophobic bullying. That is an important piece of work, but the problems go much wider. Given that, I want to say briefly that we need to get on the case urgently.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, briefly, I lend my support to all three amendments. In their different ways they are designed to do something about which I feel absolutely passionate, which is to make sure that all children and young people, in whatever sort of school they are, have access to high-quality, age-appropriate and up-to-date sex and relationships education. Of course, I always put it the other way around and say “relationships and sex education”, for a reason I shall come to in a moment; that is absolutely critical. We must focus on the need for all young people to understand the importance of healthy relationships. It should serve them as part of their fundamental education going through life.

I have read through all the evidence of what people think at the moment. We have heard it and I do not want to repeat it. We know what the National Association of Head Teachers thinks. We saw the reports of the consultation on PSHE education in March this year and the Mumsnet survey. I will just quote from the Brook survey of 2011, where one in four young people said they did not get any sex and relationships education in schools at all and 26% of those that did said that their SRE teacher was not able to teach it well. I fundamentally believe that relationship education should be a compulsory part of the national curriculum and taught by specialist teachers and others who really understand these things. At the very beginning, I should have declared an interest as vice-president of the charity Relate.

Employment: Young People

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I, too, add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, on securing this vital debate. I pay tribute to her outstanding work in this area. I declare an interest as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility, which is relevant to my contribution today.

I am sure we can all agree that current levels of unemployment for young people are simply too high. From February to April this year, some 950,000 young people aged between 16 and 24 suffered unemployment. When young people fail to find work, their prospects can be bleak indeed. It is well documented that long periods of joblessness when young translate into lower lifetime earnings. In the worst cases, youth unemployment can inflict lifelong scars on the individual, as well as increasing costs to the Treasury. Indeed, the recent ACEVO commission on youth unemployment found that current levels of youth unemployment in 2012 would cost the Treasury approximately £28 billion in the next decade alone.

I warmly welcome the strong emphasis that the coalition Government have placed on social mobility as a central plank within their social and economic reforms. I strongly support the Deputy Prime Minister’s social mobility business compact to help to ensure that all young people have fair access to job opportunities, the Government’s commitment to deliver at least 250,000 more apprenticeships during the spending review period and the support that they have pledged for young people seeking work or further education and training through the youth contract. These are positive steps, of course, but today’s debate is an opportunity to think boldly about what more could and should be done.

When I speak to employers, they say that they are looking for several main things: a good grasp of the basics, particularly English and maths; the right attitude towards customer service; and what are sometimes called—although, as I will explain, I think this is misleading—the “soft skills”. I would like to say a little more about that, building on the wise words of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen.

The recent report from the all-party group entitled Seven Key Truths about Social Mobility set out the key issues that policy should focus on, looking at the unequal opportunities that start in the earliest years of life and all too often persist and widen in later life. These truths cover the importance of the early years in the home, as we have heard today; the critical importance of education, including both the quality of teaching and extracurricular activities; the pivotal role of access to university; and the need for other pathways to mobility such as apprenticeships, which we have rightly heard a lot about today.

The final key truth, which I want to focus on, is that of character and resilience, something that the all-party group saw as the missing link in the chain. Character and resilience may be viewed by some as a somewhat amorphous term, and some might choose to dismiss it as fluffy or cosmetic soft skills. In fact, the very term “soft skills” strikes me as something of a misnomer. Far from being fluffy, developing character and resilience is about developing the fundamental drive, tenacity and perseverance needed to make the most of opportunities and succeed in life, whatever obstacles stand in the way. It is about self-esteem, self-confidence, self-discipline, aspiration and expectation. In everyday language, it is about believing you can achieve, understanding the relationship between effort and reward, sticking with the task at hand and bouncing back from the knocks life inevitably involves.

A recent survey of evidence from the Prince’s Trust tells us that young people from affluent backgrounds are more likely to be told by their family that they can achieve anything and that more than one in four young people from poorer backgrounds felt that people like them do not succeed in life and that if they have failed an exam or been turned down for a job they are more likely to feel that they have already failed in life. There is a growing body of evidence showing the link between developing these social and emotional skills, and doing well, academically and in the workplace.

Research by the IPPR indicates that social and personal skills have become 33 times more important in determining life chances, while soft skills have become 10 times more important in determining future earnings in a single generation. Paul Tough’s recent book, How Children Succeed, which your Lordships may have seen, also illustrates the ways in which character skills contribute to cognitive ability. In addition, the American Nobel Prize winning economist, James Heckman, has found that character traits are just as predictive of academic or job success as more traditional cognitive skills.

In the light of all of this evidence the all-party group hosted the character and resilience summit earlier this year. We heard from Alan Milburn, chair of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, who said that it is not ability that is unevenly distributed, but opportunity. That phrase has stuck with me. We heard great things about work going on in schools—both in the state and the independent sector—with examples of volunteering in the local community, out-door activities that push pupils outside their comfort zone and a wide range of imaginative extra-curricular activities.

We heard schools saying that developing traits such as these is now part of their core business and that for employers, who are so relevant to today’s debate, these less tangible skills of sticking at it, not giving up, empathy and teamwork are precisely what they are looking for in potential recruits. Overall, the message we heard from academics, head teachers and employers is that whatever qualifications you might have, where you are on the character scale will have a big impact on what you achieve in life.

What does this mean in practice? A recent Prince’s Trust Feedback from the Frontline survey found that a third of young people apply for more than 100 jobs before getting hired. With odds like this, it is all too clear just how critical resilience is for young people entering the world of work. In addition, recent research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and York University found that when they sent off fictional CVs that appeared to be from disadvantaged people, they fared worse than those not from disadvantaged backgrounds. I find that scandalous, but it demonstrates clearly how the odds are stacked against too many of our young people. That is why I want to call on the Government to take more account of the growing evidence surrounding the role of character and resilience in improving social mobility and see how we can put some of these ideas into practice.

As other noble Lords have said today, international comparisons can be helpful. I was interested in recent research by the IPPR that suggests that countries with strong transition systems—to use the jargon—are associated with far lower levels of youth unemployment and disengagement. Key features of stronger systems include a wide range of high-quality pathways into skilled jobs, such as apprenticeships, and early exposure to the workplace through high-quality and regular work placements. It is instructive for us to reflect, as my noble friend Lord Roberts and other noble Lords have done, that countries such as Germany which tend to have these features in their education and training systems have been successful in lowering youth unemployment since the economic downturn began.

I have some more practical suggestions. The Prince’s Trust survey had some important suggestions for what the Government should do to help more young people, including the provision of face-to-face careers advice for 16 to 19 year-olds. That is vital and it is an area crying out for reform. Like my noble friend Lady Brinton, who spoke so eloquently on the subject, I would also like to ask my noble friend the Minister whether he can say what steps the Government are taking to improve careers advice for this age group.

In response to its survey findings about the sorts of things that young people want from programmes to help boost their self-esteem, confidence and resilience, the Prince’s Trust has created the Team programme. This is a 12-week personal development programme that focuses on building resilience and encourages young people to pull together as a group. When the programme ends, participants continue to support each other through job clubs, some of which are completely youth led. The Team programme has seen more than 115,000 participants since its launch in 1990. Impressively, it boasts a 70% employment success rate within three months of completion of the programme.

We should also look out into the community, beyond Government, to get thoughtful advice on what more can be done to help prepare young people for work. Last week I had the pleasure and the privilege of hearing about the Campaign for Youth Social Action, which is led by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. The campaign aims to provide a long-term vision to drive a real change in culture toward making youth social action, or volunteering, a universal norm. This is based on research demonstrating that meaningful social action improves empathy and that awareness of society around us leads to better engagement in education and, particularly relevant today, increased employability, confidence, problem-solving skills and resilience. I repeat the word “resilience”, but do not apologise for the focus that I am putting on it today.

The focus of today’s debate has been on getting young people prepared for the world of work and getting a job. But once this has happened, if young people are to achieve their aspirations, there must be opportunities for progression. Many employers understand this well and ensure that progression opportunities are available. But to ensure that progression is a reality for all young people, I strongly favour the establishment of a national lifetime careers service, in particular for young people, and for adults on low wages. They should be actively encouraged to engage with such a service and through this be assisted to develop a career or training progression plan.

In conclusion, we have taken time today to reflect on the efforts being made to prepare young people for the world of work. This debate has clearly shown that a number of things are vital. They include improving practical skills training and levels of English and maths attainment and supporting the development of strong character and resilience. These are key to ensuring that all young people are able to make the most of their talents and do well in the world of work. I urge the Government to build on the steps that they have already taken to make a reality of this collective aspiration.

Children and Families Bill

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I would like to add my strong support for the Bill. This legislation represents a real opportunity to improve the lives of millions of children and families in this country. I declare an interest as president of the National Children’s Bureau and as chair of CAFCASS.

There is much to welcome in the Bill and I should like briefly to draw attention to several of its key provisions before moving on to the main points on which I wish to focus. First, in terms of promoting family-friendly employment policies that reflect the needs of modern families, I warmly welcome Part 6, which introduces a system of shared parental leave, which will enable families to decide for themselves, given their own circumstances, how best to care for their child for the first year, thereby encouraging both parents to be involved in this critical phase in their child’s life.

Part 7 helpfully complements Part 6 by allowing prospective parents to take paid time off work to attend antenatal appointments. Extending the right to request flexible working to all employees is also part of a much-needed modernisation of working patterns that should lead to greater harmony in the workplace with everyone feeling they are being treated fairly in terms of their work/life balance.

This leads me to the importance of childcare and, in particular, measures to make it easier to offer wraparound care. I will return to this as the Bill proceeds, especially the need for childcare hubs to be able to offer a one-stop-shop facility for parents to access the additional hours needed for wraparound care through a network of linked and quality-assured childminders, However, I am concerned that the proposed removal of the duty on local authorities to publish a formal assessment of the sufficiency of childcare in their areas may result in some local authorities no longer actively working with providers to ensure there are sufficient quality childcare places available locally.

I turn now to four specific areas of the Bill: the family justice reforms, young carers, the local offer and independent advocacy for children in care. First, I give my strong backing to this Bill’s efforts to improve the family justice system and help deliver better outcomes for children and families who go to court after family separation or where children may be taken into care. By tackling delays and introducing a statutory time limit of 26 weeks for care and supervision proceedings and focusing timetabling decisions for care proceedings on the child’s welfare, the child’s interests and well-being are rightly placed at the centre of proceedings and decisions, rather than being left in limbo. Every day matters for a vulnerable child and every day in limbo can feel like a lifetime.

It is worth recalling that the proposed 26-week statutory limit initially attracted a degree of incredulity because the last time an average case took 26 weeks to complete was in 1995. However, over the past year, the average time a case takes to go through court has reduced by some 15 weeks, making this already one of the most radical reforms to care proceedings in a generation, and that was before the legislation commenced. I am also aware that 26 weeks is a maximum. Many new cases this year are being completed in 20 weeks or less. A culture of delay is being replaced by one of urgency. However, there will always be a small number of particularly complicated cases where this is not possible or, indeed, in the best interests of the child. Judges, through effective case management, must feel able and must be able to approve extensions where necessary.

In the run-up to this legislation, there was much heated debate as to what was then being called the presumption of shared parenting and what that would lead to. Following the consultation, it became clear that no one thought that strict 50:50 shared parenting—as some were choosing to interpret the presumption—was sensible, workable or desirable. I am very pleased as well that the language has now changed. The most important thing is that the child and their needs are put first. As other noble Lords have said today, the paramountcy principle is indeed paramount. This is clearly the intention in the child arrangement orders, which should assist in focusing parents on effective co-parenting and making parenting time arrangements in the interests of the child. The initial focus on parents’ rights in this area has moved, quite rightly, to one of joint parental involvement with a focus on the child’s rights and the parents’ responsibilities.

Secondly, at the Second Reading of the Care Bill, I drew attention to the treatment of young carers, which many noble Lords have spoken about today. We have already heard the statistics about the number of children and young people affected, so I will not repeat them. There can be little doubt about the heroic work performed by such children and young people and the importance of the contribution they make to their families. However, the existing legislation simply does not give young carers the protection and support they deserve. All too often, the demands of caring responsibilities at home interfere with a child or young person’s education, as well as shortening their childhood and all the experiences that should entail.

Like many noble Lords today, I was very encouraged by the recent comments made by the Children’s Minister, Edward Timpson, when he said that the time had now come to address this issue. I would therefore welcome an explanation from the Minister of exactly how this commitment is being taken forward and how and when it will be incorporated into the Bill. Young carers sit at the intersection of the Care Bill and this Bill and it is critical that these two pieces of legislation are properly joined up. I strongly believe that, with both Bills before the House, this is an unprecedented opportunity to clear away the current inconsistent and complex law surrounding young carers and to ensure that they are given the same rights and protection that the landmark Care Bill is introducing for adult carers.

Thirdly, I will talk very briefly about Part 3 of the Bill. As time is moving on, I will simply add my voice to that of other noble Lords who have mentioned their concerns about the local offer. It has many good points in making known the services available but I share the concerns about the lack of a duty on local authorities to make some vital services universally available or to deliver the services that families with disabled children need. This aspect of the Bill will need close scrutiny.

Finally, I want to mention briefly the importance of independent advocacy for children in the care system, which was highlighted by my noble friend Lady Hamwee. The Government should be congratulated on introducing legislation improving services and support for children who are looked after and adopted, and for placing young people at the centre of decision-making. However, the Bill can be further strengthened by ensuring that children and young people are given access to independent advocacy at key stages, such as care planning reviews and child protection conferences, to help them express their views, wishes and feelings. Is there scope in Part 1 of the Bill to amend the existing legislation to include a presumption that access to such independent advocacy will be provided?

Education: Early Years

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lady Walmsley on securing this vitally important debate and declare my interest as president of the National Children’s Bureau. I speak today particularly in my role as vice-chair of the All-Party Group on Social Mobility. Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that early years education has been an intrinsic part of the group’s focus nor by our finding that, during the earliest years, it is primarily parents and informal carers who shape their children’s outcomes. Like other noble Lords, I underline how investing in good quality and accessible early years education, alongside supporting the critical role of parents and other carers, is the best way to strengthen the still far too shaky ladder of social mobility in the UK. I was fascinated when the Tickell review of the early years foundation stage highlighted the impact that early experiences have on the quality and architecture of the brain. In the first few years of life, 700 new neural connections are formed every single second. I often feel I could do with a few more of those myself.

The importance of some of the softer stuff, such as emotional well-being and confidence, is often so underrated. If a child feels loved, confident and cared for, they will feel that they are able to take the world on. It is a fundamental tenet of social justice that everyone should have an equal chance to get on in life. Few would disagree with this. My key point today is that effective investment in early years education is one of the most cost-effective ways to make a reality of that aspiration. Every child should be able to know and believe that she or he can grow up to be anything they aspire to be, from doctor, teacher, entrepreneur, scientist or soldier to Prime Minister—in other words that they can realise their dreams. Unfortunately, reality in the UK today does not always bear that out.

We know from the Government’s social mobility strategy that the economic environment a child is born into, through no fault of his or her own, has a tangible impact on that child’s educational and life experiences. For instance, only around 30% of children from the lowest fifth of families in terms of income are deemed school-ready by the age of three. Conversely, of children born into families in the highest fifth of incomes, around 65% are deemed school-ready by that age. To put it more simply, the proportion more than doubles.

We have already heard from my noble friend Lady Walmsley that higher ability children from lower social backgrounds are overtaken by lower ability children from more privileged backgrounds between the ages of five to seven, unless something tangible happens to prevent it. This is not the natural order of things. Indeed, it is a national scandal, as well as an untold waste of human potential and talent. If unchecked, this disadvantage perpetuates as children move higher up the age range—indeed, the gap is often widened. My noble friend also set out the very positive changes in this area made by this Government. I was very proud when the then Minister, Sarah Teather, announced 15 hours of free early years provision per week for deprived two year-olds and the subsequent expansion of this provision so that it will cover the 40% most disadvantaged children.

As I mentioned earlier, the all-party group’s work on social mobility has highlighted two issues particularly relevant to this debate—indeed two of the seven key truths, as the report calls them. First, the greatest leverage point for social mobility is between the ages of nought and three. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough; early intervention in children will pay back dividends in later life. I had been intending to spell out some of the very compelling evidence from Graham Allen’s review of early intervention but my noble friend Lady Jenkin has done this very clearly, so there is no need for me to repeat it. Secondly, by building on the focus on early years, we can break the cycle of poverty through education. Children must be ready and able to access learning, and school-ready when they arrive at primary school, if they are to thrive. School readiness is a really important notion.

The all-party group found that countries with better levels of social mobility than the UK tend to have invested in the training and development of their early years staff. Moreover, early years education does not just open the occasional door for children. It can affect their financial well-being through their life, as the Perry pre-school project showed so compellingly for children in the United States. Nearer to home, the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education project found that high-quality education enhances children’s development and that disadvantaged children have the most to gain from it. The project’s 2010 report demonstrated that children who had attended high quality pre-school education continued to demonstrate higher achievement at the age of 11.

Because every child is a rounded human being with the full range of needs and talents to nurture, it is important to acknowledge that, well beyond academic achievement or economic success, early years education can also improve children’s later overall well-being. Indeed, the 2009 Marmot review of health inequalities found a strong positive correlation between early childhood development and longer-term health outcomes. These benefits not only help the individual but are good for our nation as a whole. For instance, the New Economics Foundation produced a report in 2009 highlighting the economic and social benefits of early investment and found that for every £1 invested in a Sure Start children’s centre, £4.60 of social value is generated.

To conclude, investing early matters. An old adage cautions that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. I extend that to say that if we as a country fail to invest in the early years education of our children, we will have only ourselves to blame if they continue to face low levels of social mobility and find that doors are shut in their faces. We must not and cannot allow that to happen.

Schools: Well-being and Personal and Social Needs

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, on securing this vital debate on a subject that is very close to my heart. It is in the nature of coming towards the end of a debate like this that so many things that I wanted to say have already been said, and said extremely eloquently, so I shall improvise a little and add one or two things that have not yet come up in the debate.

There is an increasing body of evidence that good emotional well-being is strongly associated with good educational attainment and improved employment prospects. More recently, a link has been shown between well-being and increased earnings potential. Of course, the reverse is also true. Drawing on my previous experience as chief executive of the charity Relate, I know very well from the work that we did in many schools across the country that when children and young people experience problems with relationships at home in the wake of a high-conflict family breakdown, it adds great difficulties to their ability to learn at school. That is one reason why high-quality relationship education for all is so critical.

There is so much that I would like to say, probably on another occasion, about sex and relationships education, or relationships and sex education, as I have always liked to call it, but I shall wait for another debate to discuss that in more detail.

On the whole issue of the importance of emotional well-being, it is little surprise that, as we know from James Wetz’s work and his visits to schools in the United States, the United States has explicitly devoted its efforts to turning out children with emotional well-being as well as academic achievement. We know from his work how those two have been so clearly linked, and how critical this has been for children in disadvantaged areas.

Closer to home, there are schools in the independent sector—we have already heard about this from the noble Baroness, Lady Massey—such as Wellington College, which has been a trailblazer for the principle of well-being and emotional resilience. It has done this by involving every aspect in their school of their ethos, design and teaching across the whole curriculum. It is not just a question of having a lesson called “emotional well-being” but about it running through absolutely everything that the school does—not least, as the principal would tell us, because it has helped to boost their academic results. If that is good enough for the independent sector, should such an approach not be good enough for the state sector? I very much believe that it should.

To try to bring in one slightly new angle to this debate, I wanted to mention the work that I have been involved in. I have been very privileged over the last year to be a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility. On 1 May we published our interim report, Seven Key Truths About Social Mobility. Truth number seven was that personal resilience and emotional well-being are quite often the missing link in the chain for social mobility. I shall try to explain what we meant there. We already know, from all the work that we did, that young people’s expectations, aspirations, feelings about their own abilities and whether they have the power to control what will happen in their lives and their sense of agency affects behaviour and decisions.

There is an emerging body of fascinating research in this field that points to the importance of young people developing the social and emotional skills that in turn give them the confidence, self-esteem, resilience, persistence and motivation to deal with the stresses, strains and set-backs of everyday life and still come through. This capability, sometimes called a character trait, is increasingly being linked in the academic literature with the ability to do well at school, move up the social ladder and take advantage of second and third chances. These social and emotional capabilities range from the softer end of the spectrum, if I can use that term—skills around empathy and the ability to make and maintain relationships—to the harder end of the spectrum, which is discipline, application, mental toughness, for which people sometimes use the term “grit”, delayed gratification and self-control.

In policy terms—and this is relevant to this debate—it is really interesting that these skills can be taught not just in early years at school but into adulthood, and that effective interventions in this area, where schools have a vital role to play, can make a real difference to educational attainment, employability and job success.

The American Nobel prize-winning economist James Heckman has also shown that there is a good economic case with good economic returns for investing early in this area, particularly for disadvantaged children. He concludes that identifying and scaling up these sorts of interventions in school and elsewhere is fertile territory for tackling disadvantage and improving social mobility. In case this should all sound too academic, or indeed from the other side of the pond, it is interesting to observe that developing psychological or emotional resilience and mental toughness is seen as a very important life skill by many educationalists here. Indeed, as one director of children’s services has put it recently:

“Not only can we, in many cases, enhance a young person’s performance, these particular skills are useful for just about everything that a person is going to have to do in life”.

We have already heard many facts and figures on mental health and the UNICEF report. We also heard some interesting things about the Office for National Statistic’s recent report, Measuring Children’s and Young People’s Well-being, which was published in 2011, not least that it assessed the impact of a child’s well-being on a parent’s well-being, and said that,

“a parent is only as happy as their saddest child”.

We have also heard about The Good Childhood Report published by the Children’s Society, which emphasised the value of asking children how they feel about their lives to help to understand the key ingredients of a good childhood. Many factors came out of that and we have heard about many of them in this debate, so I will not repeat them. However, what I think was most relevant to this debate was the consultation with children, which found that they saw school as vital to their well-being, both at present and in the future.

What does all this add up to and what can schools do in this regard? I understand the argument that there is only so much that a school can do. At the very least it is absolutely vital that schools ensure that their staff understand signs of emotional and behavioural problems, and that there is someone in each school responsible for knowing what support is available from local services, be they in the statutory or voluntary sectors. It might be things such as increasing access to psychological therapy—I very much welcome its recent extension to children and young people—and ensuring that children can get linked in as quickly as possible. It is interesting to note that in both Wales and Northern Ireland but not in England there is a requirement for counselling services to be available in all secondary schools.

There is much that schools can do with universal approaches and targeted services. The experience in the USA and in private schools is particularly important. I very much look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on these issues.