Queen’s Speech

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, let me start on a positive note. I was delighted that the gracious Speech, for the first time ever, I believe, contained a specific commitment to improving the plight of people with mental health problems. This demonstrates how much attitudes to mental health are changing. It is hardly a niche issue if you consider that one in four people in the UK is affected by mental health conditions, so pretty much every family in the land is touched by the problem. The commitments in the Conservative Party manifesto and the gracious Speech build on the ground-breaking work undertaken by Liberal Democrat Ministers in the coalition Government. I particularly pay tribute to the great work instigated by Paul Burstow and driven forward with such passion and commitment by my right honourable friend Norman Lamb.

Real strides were taken in the last Parliament by enshrining parity of esteem for physical and mental health services in legislation, and then starting to make a reality of it by the introduction of new waiting time and access standards for mental health services, crucially backed up by an injection of much-needed cash. We finally saw a real recognition of the links between physical and mental health issues.

Much more must be done to ensure that the historic underfunding of both adult and children’s mental health services is properly addressed. The Conservative manifesto commits to increasing spending on the NHS by at least £8 billion by 2020, although as other noble Lords have already said, it is far from clear where that money is coming from. The Government have also committed to take mental health as seriously as physical health and to increase funding for mental health care, which is very welcome. The big question for me is how much of this £8 billion will be spent on mental health services. In our manifesto, the Liberal Democrats pledged a total of £3.5 billion additional funding over the Parliament, covering both children’s and adult mental health services.

Can the Minister say what figures the Government will be committing to mental health over the lifetime of this Parliament? What proportions of that money will be spent on the commitments in the Conservative manifesto to ensuring that there are therapists in every part of the country, that new access and waiting times standards are enforced, and that women have access to mental health support during and after pregnancy? Of course, once the money is secured, we need to ensure that there is strong political and managerial will to make these things happen. Can the Minister confirm that in the next version of the NHS mandate, there will be a clear commitment from NHS England to publishing a comprehensive timetable for the introduction of new access standards and maximum waiting times across all mental health services?

It is noticeable that there was no mention of the pressing needs of people from black and minority ethnic communities, who have for too long been poorly served by mental health services, being both more likely to be diagnosed with mental health conditions and less likely to be able to access appropriate services and therapies. Will the Minister say what plans the Government have to address this wholly unacceptable state of affairs?

As a country, we must do better to support the one in 10 children and young people who have a mental health problem. Half of those people who go on to have lifetime mental health problems first experience symptoms by the age of 14, and 75% of children and young people experiencing a mental health problem do not access treatment. The consequences of failing to support these children and young people are profound.

Schools have a golden opportunity to protect and promote children’s mental health and at the same time help children attain good educational outcomes. So it is vital that the Department of Health works hand in glove with the Department for Education to promote good mental and emotional health and, in particular, to ensure that all schools offer good resilience and well-being education.

It is widely acknowledged that children’s mental health services have been seriously neglected and starved of cash in recent times. The Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Taskforce Report, Future in Mind, published in March by the Department of Health and NHS England, was an excellent piece of work with strong cross-party and sector support. It would be a travesty if it ended up gathering dust on shelves. It contains important recommendations on access and waiting time standards, on lead commissioning arrangements and on expanding IAPT services for children and young people, among many others. Will the Minister restate the commitment made in the March 2015 Budget to increase investment in mental health services for children and young mothers by £1.25 billion over the lifetime of the Parliament and make a firm commitment to respond to the task force recommendations?

It is totally unacceptable that hundreds of children experiencing a mental health crisis are held in police stations, and I therefore welcome the announcement in the gracious Speech that police cells will be eliminated as places of safety for children. This is long overdue. However, a change in the law alone is not enough. The current excessive use of police cells as places of safety is mainly the result of operational and commissioning failures, which lead to crisis care services for children being poorly developed in comparison to those for adults. It is vital that clinical commissioning groups prioritise investment in this area.

Finally, I strongly welcome measures outlined in the gracious Speech to expand access to early education and childcare, as they have the potential to improve child development and promote social mobility. I say “potential”, because it is vital that childcare and early years provision is of a high standard and that quality is maintained and improved, particularly to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds. That policy objective is as important as making it easier for parents to work. Both are critical, but sometimes those two objectives pull in opposite directions. The proposed extension of provision for 30 hours’ free childcare, while very welcome, raises many questions. I have no doubt that other noble Lords will raise those questions in their contributions, but I want particularly to ask whether additional help will be offered to disadvantaged parents, as recommended by the Lords Select Committee on Affordable Childcare, of which I had the privilege to be a member, or whether it will be a flat-rate scheme which, in effect, favours the better off. I look forward to hearing the answers to these and the other questions I have posed.

Early Years Intervention

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey.

As many other noble Lords have said, action to promote social mobility must start early. The gap between disadvantaged and more advantaged children emerges by the age of three and, as the work of the Nobel prize-winning economist James Heckman demonstrates, the earlier the intervention, the greater the effect will be in the long term. Indeed, I was pleased to hear the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans quote the Seven Key Truths report of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility, which I have the honour to chair. It clearly indicated:

“The point of greatest leverage for social mobility is what happens between ages 0 and 3, primarily in the home”.

The link between early intervention and social mobility is well established. We have the evidence by the bucketload. Many noble Lords will be familiar with the effective preschool, primary and secondary education study, which stated that children who attended preschool education performed better in their GCSEs and were more likely to be on track for a university degree—with all the attendant benefits in terms of lifetime earnings. These effects are even stronger for children of parents with low qualifications, indicating that early education provision is a key intervention to help disadvantaged children get a much-needed leg up.

The October 2014 State of the Nation report from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission recently re-emphasised the link, stating:

“The early years matter profoundly to child poverty and social mobility. It is here that children learn basic skills such as language and communication, which are the foundations of their future learning”.

That report noted that poor children are nine months behind those from more advantaged backgrounds at age three, have smaller vocabularies and are slower to learn new words. That, of course, is why various language development programmes aimed at under-threes—such as the Born to Learn programme, which works with parents and toddlers identified by health visitors as being at risk—are so valuable.

I, too, have the privilege to be a member of the Select Committee on Affordable Childcare. From the mass of evidence we have received, one particular lesson stands out. Yes, early education can be a powerful tool in enhancing social mobility, but only if we deliver it effectively. In short, early education can have the most positive benefits only if it is of high quality. It is ironic that disadvantaged children, who have the most to gain from access to quality early education, currently often have the worst access to such provision. This is where we should be focusing a lot of our attention, and I hope that it is an area where the Select Committee can have powerful things to say when we report shortly.

Having highlighted some of the pressing concerns, I want to make clear how much has been done in this Parliament to enable more children to benefit from high-quality early years education. I applaud the policies of this Government to expand the free early education entitlement to three and four year-olds and to extend it to 40% of the most disadvantaged two year-olds. Like others, I consider the recent introduction of an early years premium to be very much welcomed.

However, what more could and should be done? First, it is clear that affordable and high-quality childcare and early education will feature predominantly in all parties’ manifestos. One could say that there may be a bidding war. I do not mind; it is a good thing that it is there. Secondly, I should like to see manifesto commitments to other things, such as the introduction of children and family hubs—the sort being developed by the charity for children which we have already heard about this morning. These are building on and extending existing children’s centres, and I, too, pay real tribute to the previous Government for introducing them. They bring together a broad range of local services, including health, childcare and social care, into a single place in a non-stigmatising way, and they provide a really excellent model of cost-effective joint working.

Finally, we need to see action to raise the quality of the early education workforce. As Cathy Nutbrown wrote in her review, not much matters more for the quality of early years education than the quality of the staff who provide it. I should like to see more action taken in that area.

Having made those points, I want to go back to where I started. Promoting good child development has to start at home. Research shows that parenting is the single strongest factor in shaping children’s development. We also know that good parenting has a particularly large impact on character and resilience. Good parenting practices can be taught and promoted through relatively simple interventions. That is one reason why the all-party groups on both social mobility and parents and families are about to embark on a short joint inquiry into some of the most effective non-stigmatising approaches to parenting support. The inquiry will report in March and I look forward to reporting its conclusions to your Lordships’ House.

Social Justice Strategy

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

That this House takes note of Her Majesty’s Government’s Social Justice strategy.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to open today’s debate on social justice for the most disadvantaged of our fellow citizens. I very much look forward to hearing from other noble Lords who have between them such huge expertise and, I know, personal commitment on the subject. I am particularly delighted that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely has chosen to make his maiden speech in this debate.

At this point in the parliamentary cycle, it is very timely that we have an opportunity to consider the Government’s social justice strategy, explore the progress that has been made and consider what more needs to be done. I declare an interest as chair of the Making Every Adult Matter coalition of charities working collaboratively to find more effective ways of tackling multiple disadvantage.

To set the context, over the last 20 years, Governments of all colours have sought to improve approaches to social justice, using different approaches. To their credit, the previous Labour Administration put tackling social exclusion at the heart of their early political programme and maintained a strong focus on the issue through their term. Indeed, I should declare a past interest here as a former head of the then Social Exclusion Unit.

In 2010, just prior to the election, Iain Duncan Smith set out his vision for a new Government. He called for a joined-up approach, buy-in from Secretaries of State, a co-ordinating body, and a cross-departmental approach at local level—familiar calls to those steeped in the area. Over the last four years some of that ambition has come into being. The social justice Cabinet committee was set up and the Government published their social justice strategy in March 2012, followed by an outcomes framework, a one-year-on progress report and regular updates on each key indicator. For a balanced assessment of the strength and weakness of both approaches I commend the recent LankellyChase report, The Politics of Disadvantage, which reflects very skilfully on this and on the political difficulty of publicly articulating the case for more support for the most socially disadvantaged in the face of an often sceptical and sometimes antagonistic public and press.

However, before we debate the specific issues, let us briefly consider why social justice is so important, and what it means. In preparing for this debate I looked up various definitions used by political thinkers, commentators and interested organisations, and they were pretty wide-ranging. That said, where most people agree is that social justice is about the distribution of income, wealth, opportunities and privileges within a society so that everyone can reach their full potential, be active contributors to their own community and have an equal chance to succeed in life. For many—and I would count myself among their number—the term “social justice” also implies fairness and mutual obligation, that we have a responsibility to each other and most particularly towards those who are least able to fend for themselves. It is an issue that cuts across the life course and across generations. It is important for children, families and individual adults, and it certainly demonstrates the interconnections between many government policies and public services: welfare, education, health, housing, the labour market, and so on.

One of the biggest challenges for social justice in our country is presented by individuals—whether children, family units or single adults—who face multiple and complex needs. They are routinely failed by our public services and fall through the cracks to lead chaotic lives at the extreme margins of our communities, lives that are often characterised by some combination of homelessness, worklessness, substance abuse, mental ill health, stigma, debt, repeat contact with the criminal justice system, family breakdown and domestic violence—a depressingly long list. I contend that that group is the embodiment of social injustice in our society, and it is for this group that a more co-ordinated approach, both across government policy and local services, is so vital.

I will just try to bring this to life at a human level. I recently heard from the charities I work with about a young woman whom we shall call Lucy. At just 24 years old, Lucy carries the mental and physical scars of a troubled life. Sexually abused as a young child, she was placed in local authority care. As a teenager she started using drugs and drinking heavily to blank out her bad memories, and by age 17 she was using heroin and crack cocaine. She is well known to the police and magistrates. She needs mental health support but falls through the thresholds for secondary care, and is constantly ricocheting between rough sleeping, hostels and prison. Luckily she was able to access effective and joined-up help.

The social justice strategy has not been shy about its ambitions. It makes a clear commitment to co-ordinated local services, saying,

“We recognise that more can be done to support those who are least well served by current approaches. Through this strategy and the work that follows, we want to encourage local areas to design and commission interventions that are better coordinated and that deliver multiple outcomes”.

Therefore the key questions for today’s debate will include: how far have we progressed against those ambitions, and what more needs to be done?

The Government should be congratulated on their early bold ambition, because we know that better co-ordinated local services can have a significant impact on the most vulnerable. I am particularly aware of that through my involvement with the Making Every Adult Matter coalition of charities, which work throughout the country to support local areas as they design and deliver better co-ordinated interventions to help transform the lives of the estimated 60,000 adults with the most severe problems. An independent evaluation of local pilots recently found that that more co-ordinated approach from local agencies had led to statistically significant increases both in welfare for client and a reduction in wider service-use costs of up to 26% over two years. In areas such as Blackburn and Sunderland we are now seeing fantastic cross-agency work being championed at the highest levels by local partners.

There is no substitute for seeing these things with your own eyes. When I visited the St Mungo’s women’s hostel in north London I was struck by what can be done to provide joined-up help and support under one roof. Homeless women there had easy access to resources such as counsellors and social workers who have been trained to help them to address their myriad problems, and who are crucially able to provide emotional support to women, many of whose children have been taken into care, as well as complex care case workers who could understand the intricacies of the benefit system.

The social justice strategy also called for national-level ambition, calling for,

“national leadership and a change in the way policy is created and evaluated in central Government”.

That gives us a chance to reflect on the wide-ranging systemic reforms that are needed if we are truly to transform the life chances of the most disadvantaged and provide answers to the growing number of critics who argue that we now have a commissioning system locally which encourages silo-based working, risk management at the expense of action, and excessive gatekeeping and prohibitive access thresholds to reduce short-term costs. Too often that sort of approach excludes those who most need help, mitigating against longer-term savings, and making co-ordinated action in local areas more difficult than it should be.

In March the Fabian Society, with CentreForum and the Centre for Social Justice, produced a report called Within Reach: the New Politics of Multiple Needs and Exclusions. The report highlighted that helping people with multiple needs will require both more collaborative working across government departments and more devolution of powers to local level. The key point here is that it is both/and, not either/or. What, therefore, needs to be done to translate those ideas into action? Three issues stand out. First, we need to listen to the voice of people with multiple needs, secondly, we need to give more support to local areas in taking this agenda forward, and finally, we need to understand the impact of wider government policies.

First, it is crystal clear that we will not move forward in social justice without getting better at listening to the voices of those who are most affected. We must accept that their expertise is sorely lacking from Westminster debate and commit to changing this. The new Voices from the Frontline research programme is working to bring the voices of people with multiple needs into the very heart of the policy debate. It will soon be challenging every Member of Parliament, every Member of your Lordships’ House and every prospective parliamentary candidate to commit to listening to voices of people with multiple needs, and offering practical ways of doing that. I urge the Government and noble Lords here today to attend the launch of this in November and to support the campaign.

On local areas, the social justice strategy is quite rightly clear that solutions must be driven at the local level and that commissioners and local leaders have a vital role to play. However, there is a strong argument that the Government also need to do more to support local areas. That is certainly not to say that the Government should be prescriptive—far from it. However, it is critical that the national policy environment encourages action on multiple needs and sets the right framework.

The Government can do two things. First, they can close the accountability gap which exists around individuals with multiple needs. To do that they should ensure that a named senior official and elected Member in each local area are accountable for effective co-ordinated services, and should require them and their partners to set out a strategy for how that should be effected. This strategic focus on the most vulnerable is most needed. To try to demonstrate that, only last week, Homeless Link and St Mungo’s published research which showed that two-thirds of health and well-being boards failed to mentioned single homeless people in their joint strategic needs assessment—which are supposed to be the process by which local areas address health inequalities.

Secondly, government could help to change the national finance and outcomes structure that so often pulls apart rather than pushing together. The Troubled Families programme, with which many noble Lords will be familiar, has shown how incorporating new approaches to finance, outcomes and accountability in one national programme has made a real difference. However, not all of the most disadvantaged live in family units—far from it. By taking the best bits of the Troubled Families programme and combining it with a really strong input from the voluntary sector, a new troubled families for individuals programme could make significant cost savings over the course of the next Parliament. That is an idea backed by several leading think tanks. Accepting that budgets are tight, I believe that funding should be pulled from existing departmental budgets according to the projected savings that could be made. I strongly urge the Government to consider such a troubled families for individuals programme, developed in tandem with local commissioners and the voluntary sector for rollout in the next Parliament. I ask my noble friend the Minister to commit to considering this further in his closing remarks.

Finally, we must accept that wider government policies have an impact on social justice, sometimes for the good and sometimes less so. Recent research has shown that front-line services are hopeful about the impact of new structures, such as health and well-being boards, as indeed I am. The £25 million commitment to liaison and diversion schemes, as championed by the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, should certainly have a positive impact on people with multiple problems who are in contact with the criminal justice system. The recent very strong focus on mental health—in particular the Deputy Prime Minister’s announcement on waiting times and access standards to mental health services, backed up by new money, is to be strongly welcomed. However, we need to listen to what front-line agencies are telling us about the impact of some government policies—in particular, recent welfare reform —on social justice outcomes, even if they make for uncomfortable reading.

I understand the need for welfare reform and the need to contain the benefits bill during a period of austerity—and, of course, the critical importance of work as a key route out of poverty. However, it must feel fair to everyone and, above all, we must not be seen to be asking the most vulnerable, some of whom are a very long way off being able to get and hold down a job, to take a disproportionate share of the pain. A recent survey of front-line providers found that 88% of services believe that welfare changes are having a negative effect on the overall well-being of people with severe multiple needs and 86% on their mental health. Only 2% of those services believe that reforms are having a positive effect on the ability of people with multiple needs to engage with the jobs market, while 55% said that they have a negative effect. We know that the new sanctions regime is also biting hard and official research from the DWP has shown how sanctions on employment and support allowance claimants and jobseeker’s allowance claimants suggest that these changes disproportionately affect vulnerable people. Changes to crisis loans and community care grants are also a matter for serious concern.

Mitigating the impact of wider policies must be one part of better co-ordination on social justice across government. As I understand it, the Cabinet Committee on Social Justice currently holds that role. What work does the committee undertake to consider the impact of wider government policies on those with multiple needs, how regularly does it meet and does it have any plans to refresh and strengthen its vision for helping the most needy and vulnerable? Finally, if that committee does not have that brief, who does?

I hope that I have demonstrated that it is time for government to take further action on these issues so that together we can move a step closer to social justice for everyone in our communities. I thank noble Lords for their attendance today and look forward to hearing their contributions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in today’s debate. Despite falling in what was described earlier as the graveyard slot, it has been an excellent debate. It has been wide-ranging, as befits the subject matter. We have covered many items and areas, but those that particularly stand out are: the imperative of ensuring that every child and young person in this country, irrespective of background, receives the best start in life; the importance of prevention and early intervention; breaking the cycle of disadvantage; and the fact that social justice benefits everyone in society.

Another very interesting thrust of the discussion was—at a time when there is such deep disaffection with political institutions—the importance of this House and other parts of the political infrastructure having these sorts of debate and recognising that really courageous political leadership will be needed across the political spectrum if we are to address some of these issues. Some people talked about demonising; others talked about the “undeserving poor”. It is going to be ever more important that we are prepared to discuss these issues in the run-up to the election. This House has a very important contribution to make to that debate.

Finally, I thank the Minister for agreeing to consider further the three main policy ideas and proposals that I put forward. I fully accept that the title “troubled families for individuals” is not the right one for the programme. I was trying to get the concept across, but I am sure that there are many people who can suggest better ideas than that. I look forward to working up those ideas further with the Government and other noble Lords. Thank you very much indeed, and I would particularly like to thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely for his excellent maiden speech.

Motion agreed.

Adoption and Children Act Register (Search and Inspection) (Pilot) Regulations 2014

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I rise briefly just to make a couple of comments on the regulations, and register my interest as chair of CAFCASS. In principle I am very supportive of this pilot. There are a number of good reasons for adopting this sort of approach, and I am aware from my work that a number of innovative programmes such as adoption activity days, which have been instigated to increase the number of adoptions and get a better matching process, have proved successful.

My first point is that it is of course of great importance to us all in this House to ensure that vulnerable children are properly protected and safeguarded. I listened with a lot of attention to what my noble friend said about the stringent safeguards that have been put in place to ensure that those data are protected. It is good to hear that but we are all aware of some things that have happened in recent times, however stringent the safeguards around data protection and IT systems have been. Can my noble friend reassure me just once more that he feels that every possible safeguard has been put in place?

As to my second point, I know that the evidence from the adopter-led matchings that we have seen so far has led more adopters to take a greater sense of ownership for what they are doing and to consider a wider range of children. I know that there are early signs that adopter-led matching enables adopters to think perhaps in terms of a broader group of children, rather than the just the nought to two year-olds who adopters so often feel they still want. Has the Minister any more information about the number of adopters involved in this and similar processes who have shown that they are happy to adopt slightly older children, or perhaps sibling groups? This, again, was one of the issues that came up when we were considering the then Children and Families Bill.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford (Lab)]

My Lords, I too welcome in principle the regulations, which will enable access to the register by prospective adopters. As the Minister has said, we debated the principle of this extensively in the course of the Bill, when it was a Bill, and I do not intend to spend time on that. It is worth experimenting further to see if this will improve the timescales within which children can be successfully matched, provided that there are sufficient safeguards, as the noble Baroness has just said.

The safeguards as regards access by prospective adopters, and the identities of the children outlined in the arrangements, are satisfactory and robust. The issue is the one identified by the noble Baroness opposite: data security. I agree with her that we want to be as clear as possible about this.

I know the register will be separated into Part 1 and Part 2, the latter for those children who could be placed in a fostering-for-adoption placement, which is sensible and important. I simply want to make two points. One is about the consultation. Although the Minister said it was a full public consultation, there were only 41 responses to this. Given the importance of this measure, that is a very low level of response. I wonder if that is because, as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has pointed out, there were only six weeks for this consultation over a very busy bank and public holiday period from the end of February through to April, taking in Easter and so on. That is important, and I would be grateful if the Minister could comment as to why it was only six weeks, when the normal period of 12 weeks might have got more responses and more helpful pointers from respondents.

My second set of points concerns the pilots. This is extremely important, as the Minister said, not only to ensure that the systems work, but to see if we can garner any further information about the outcomes for children from this approach. Nine months is not a terribly long period to see what happens to children as a result of adopter-led access to the register. I do not know, but there may be unintended consequences of adopter-led adoption. Surely we would want to know, for instance, if—relatively—more of these matches instigated by adopters either failed or were more successful. I have looked carefully at the explanatory notes that set out the scope of the pilot, which I think should be made a little wider, looking not just at the actual matches but at what happens to the inquiries by adopters in relation to particular children. How many of them actually lead to a match, and how many are stopped in process by social workers for whatever reason? Can we extend the remit of the pilot, so we get under the skin of what is happening before the whole facility for access goes live nationwide?

Thirdly, I have a thought. I have great respect for both the Department for Education and for the BAAF, but I wonder if there was merit in this pilot being evaluated independently, and not by either the department or the BAAF, which are obviously responsible for its administration. But I broadly very much welcome the measure, and look forward to seeing the results of the pilot.

Education: Social Mobility

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a huge pleasure and privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Graham, whose powerful personal testimony brings vividly to life the rather dry term “social mobility”. I thank my noble friend Lord Nash for calling this debate. Certainly there can be no overstating the importance of this subject for both the long-term prosperity of the UK and a fairer society, by which I mean equal chances for all irrespective of background.

I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that if we want to give everyone an equal chance to succeed in life, our education system needs to function as an instrument of social mobility. However, as other noble Lords said, I fully accept that education has a wider purpose. Alan Milburn, the chair of the Child Poverty and Social Mobility Commission, said recently that when it comes to school, an “energetic focus on reform” is needed to narrow the educational attainment gap and “drive social mobility”. As we have already heard in this debate, some of that important work is going on.

A contribution to the thinking to which I would like to draw the attention of noble Lords is set out in the recent report of the All-Party Group on Social Mobility—here I declare an interest as vice-chair—called the Character and Resilience Manifesto. The report was drawn up in collaboration with CentreForum and the Character Counts! programme. It highlights the increasingly convincing case for how important attributes such as character and resilience are in terms of improving social mobility. The fundamental argument of the report is that in order for all children to have a fair chance of succeeding in life, character and resilience need to be given a stronger priority within the education system and should become the core business of all schools, as they are already becoming in some. It is this crucial piece of the social mobility puzzle, which has already been alluded to by other noble Lords, that I will focus my remarks on.

What do we mean by character and resilience? I think that language can sometimes get in the way in this area. It is really a shorthand phrase for a set of traits that are sometimes called the soft or non-cognitive skills. In my view, both terms are somewhat misleading as some of this is definitely tough stuff which involves a lot of cognition. Character and resilience traits are closely aligned with social and emotional skills—emotional intelligence, empathy, self-awareness and the ability to forge relationships with others. All of these are important. It also encompasses traits such as self-esteem, self-worth, confidence, a sense of well-being and the belief that one has a degree of control over one’s life, as well as things like mental toughness, application, delayed gratification and self-control.

All the evidence shows that character and resilience involve having the drive, tenacity and perseverance to stick with it when the going gets tough, to make the most of opportunities, to bounce back from life’s inevitable setbacks, not to accept second best and to be able to deal with failure. I have laboured that point slightly because I hope to get across the message that we are not talking about pink and fluffy things here; this stuff really matters. The other key thing the evidence tells us is that these character traits are not innate or genetic—a common misconception—but can be taught, and that, significantly, you can learn and develop them throughout your life.

While the core academic skills are of course an indispensable component of education, character skills have been empirically shown to be an equally important predictor of future success across all socioeconomic groups. The work of Nobel prize-winning economist James Heckman builds a strong case for the correlation between character traits and life chances. This is true not only because children with good character skills tend to do well at school—which they do—but because many of the skills that are valued in the jobs market such as self-reliance, teamwork, customer empathy, enthusiasm and being able to communicate well, are ultimately more about character traits than any particular academic skill set.

John Cridland, the director-general of the CBI, said recently:

“There is a danger that schools become exam factories, churning out people who are not sufficiently prepared for life outside the school gates … alongside academic rigour, we also need schools to produce rounded and grounded young people who have the skills that businesses want”.

That point has already been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey. In light of this evidence, the question must be asked: how do we ensure that all students, regardless of their background, have access to an education that prioritises both academic development and character development? I want to stress that both are important. It is not a case of either/or; they are mutually reinforcing.

I am not someone who buys into the simplistic argument that if only state schools were more like private schools, the world would be a better place. Many state schools are doing a fantastic job in very difficult circumstances and facing various challenges. They have hugely talented and dedicated teachers who often work with significantly fewer resources than are available in private schools, but I do believe that both sectors could and should learn from each other and collaborate. As others have said recently, the so-called “Berlin Wall” between the two sectors should come down. That is true when you look at some of the differences between private and state schools. The former tend to put more emphasis on character and resilience, which is reflected in the wide range of extracurricular activities that are offered, as well as providing the resources to do so.

That leads me to the first major policy recommendation made in the all-party group report that I should like to highlight. We need to ensure that the Ofsted inspection framework, which we all know is a key driver of behaviour in schools, takes more account of the efforts made and activities offered in a school to develop these key non-cognitive skills. That means evaluating the extent to which a school provides opportunities for participation in character-building activities as part of its ethos. I agree with other noble Lords that competitive sports and links with the uniformed organisations can be highly beneficial. It might also include engaging with local charities or taking part in social action projects. It may indeed be part of the way the curriculum is taught, perhaps by providing leadership and debating classes alongside more traditional subjects, as well as ensuring that students are helped to deal with both success and failure, and attending to their own emotional well-being. I would contend that the way we evaluate our schools is the strongest policy lever we have for effecting change in education.

A model I want to mention briefly is that of the Bedford Academy, a charitably funded academy school in a deprived area that is modelled on the Knowledge is Power programme that was first implemented in the United States. Students at the academy receive marks not only for their academic performance, but in seven key areas: grit, zest, optimism, social intelligence, gratitude, curiosity and self-control. Although it will be many years before we can measure the full effects of these methods, students are already reporting feeling more aspirational and having a sense of possibility for the future.

As other noble Lords said, the greatest resource we have at our disposal for building character in all students is the teachers who are currently working in primary and secondary schools around the country. Our nation’s teachers are incredible people with wide-ranging interests and talents. If a maths teacher is an excellent chess player, if an art teacher has some previous training in fashion design, or if a science teacher plays football at the weekend, we ought to encourage them all to share these skills with their students.

In light of that, the second policy recommendation I want to highlight is that of incorporating extracurricular activities into teachers’ employment contracts. Just to be clear: this is not about asking teachers to take on extra work for no reward. It is primarily about rebalancing the school curriculum and allowing more time for these activities in the school day. Alongside this, we also call for an understanding of character and resilience to be incorporated into both initial teacher training and continuing professional development.

I should say at this point that I recognise that private schools have resources that state schools do not have. For example, in terms of extracurricular programmes, a state school is not likely to be able to do very much if it does not have adequate playing fields, drama rehearsal spaces, musical instruments and the like. That is why I would like to see private schools being encouraged to share their facilities for extracurricular activities. Many private schools have first-rate facilities in these areas, and, given their charitable status, it surely makes sense and serves the public interest to share facilities that are often underutilised with students in the state sector. This would be a significant step forward in terms of equalising life chances.

My final point concerns the geographical disparities in the quality of primary and secondary education. As the all-party group’s report, Capital Mobility, stresses, London has gone from having some of the worst state schools in the country to outperforming other areas in almost every category relevant to social mobility. One reason cited in the report for this imbalance is the visibility of potential opportunities. Students in London, regardless of their background, see opportunities for success all around them. Translating that positive thinking into all geographic contexts will require radical and innovative thinking, but it is essential in order to achieve the goals we are aiming for.

There is much more that I could say, but I think I have used all my time. I look forward very much to hearing the Minister’s response to some of the recommendations I have highlighted today.

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.