Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 18 in this group, which adds wording about protecting safety and providing stability in home lives, relationships and education or work. It is very similar to the wording in proposed new subsection (1)(f) in Amendment 1, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe.

Coincidentally, I also submitted the same amendments as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, to remove “have regard to the need” and the other amendments he referred to that follow from that—so of course I have added my name to those.

I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bichard—who would have been able to speak for himself if we had met on Monday as originally planned—that the whole point of setting out the corporate parenting principles explicitly is to make the responsibility explicit. That is most likely to be achieved if the drafting is as clear as possible. The inclusion of “have regard to” detracts from that clarity. It also changes the nature of the duty: it is no longer to encourage people to do something but to “have regard to” encouraging people to do something. How pathetically weak and feeble. I could have regard to something but decide to do nothing as a consequence of my regard. That will not do.

We need a set of corporate parenting principles that protect all those things that contribute to the health, well-being and future opportunity of children in care and those leaving care. That is why my Amendment 18 adds the principle of protecting their safety and providing stability in their home lives, relationships and education or work.

Children in care who are abused will be damaged for ever if we are not very careful. That is why we need to keep them safe. Children who are moved around from one foster placement to another and have no stability feel insecure and cannot keep up those relationships that help them to know who they are and their place in the world. The people they value and who value them are so important to their sense of self-worth and their attainment in life.

The Education Select Committee found that health services are turning away children in care who do not meet diagnostic thresholds. Access to services is prohibited when children do not have a permanent address. They experience moves in care, moves from one foster parent to another—or, even worse, moves out of their area. Problems include registering with a GP and poor communication between local authorities and clinical commissioning groups.

Designated health professionals report that they have not been asked to contribute to the strategic planning of services for these children, and some others felt that there were no robust routes for contributing to commissioning processes and decision-making.

Stability at home, school and in relationships is vital for these children and should be included in the principles. It is very important that the legislation is clear, so that those affected are in no doubt what their responsibilities are. The only people who benefit from confused or over-elaborate drafting are the lawyers. As drafted, Clause 1 is confused, and we must try to clarify it during the course of our deliberations.

Many noble Lords are seeking to add important additional principles, including my noble friends Lady Tyler of Enfield and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. Their amendments on mental health and poverty alleviation will come later, and I support them wholeheartedly. But the point I am making is that these amendments, and others, would be to no avail if the principles just had to be regarded and not strictly adhered to. So I say to the Government: if you really believe in these principles as drafted—and, I hope, as amended by several important additions from me and others—please accept that the words “have regard to the need” must go.

[Lord Warner (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am probably one of only three people in this room who has actually been a corporate parent. Having worked in a local authority, I know that if you put wording in a Bill that says “have regard to”, the chief officer, who may want to do the right and proper thing by these children, will be put in a spot of bother. If a local authority and its lawyers see “have regard to”, they will have a conversation with the chief officer which will start: “Do you really have to do this, if the financial situation is tough and bad?”.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that I have been able to provide enough reassurance to the noble Baronesses, Lady Howe and Lady Walmsley, and the noble Lords, Lord Bichard, Lord Watson, Lord Hunt and Lord Ramsbotham, on the corporate parenting principles and that they will feel able to withdraw and not move their amendments.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, just before the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, replies, the Minister mentioned on several occasions the 1989 Act, which has a very strong and clear set of principles and duties in it. The Minister has heard from many noble Lords that we feel that the way in which Clause 1 is worded is nowhere near as strong. Does the Minister agree that it is not as strong as in the 1989 Act? Which set of duties has supremacy? To have the duty on Clause 1 worded in a much weaker way than in the 1989 Act can benefit only lawyers; it introduces confusion.

[Lord Nash]

With respect to the lawyers present—including myself from many years ago—I will not comment on the last point. We are trying to set out principles and not put local authorities under any more duties than necessary or into any kind of straitjacket. But the noble Baroness makes a point about a number of duties and we will go back and look at this in more detail.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

I shall speak to Amendments 23 and 25, and I support the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey.

The noble Earl has raised the issue of siblings. For children separated from their parents, siblings may form their next-closest relationships and therefore, wherever possible, we must also seek to avoid the separation of siblings. This can have devastating effects on those who have already undergone the suffering of being removed from their homes and filtered through the social care system. Many describe knowing they have a sibling that they are separated from as having a piece of themselves missing.

Your Family, Your Voice, which briefed me, states that currently 50% of sibling groups in care are split up. I find that an astonishing statistic. We sometimes read stories in the papers about siblings who were adopted and find their brother or sister later in life. Do we really think it is acceptable to be creating situations like that in this day and age? I accept that from time to time there may be a case for splitting up siblings, where one is very disruptive or has a detrimental effect on other siblings. However, the normal situation should be that priority is given to keeping siblings together—and, if it is considered desirable to split them up, the local authority needs to explain the reason why it is doing so.

It is important that we listen to what children want, and facilitate it. With regard to Amendment 25, where it is clearly unsuitable for a child to remain with their parents, relatives or close friends may be able to step in to prevent them having to be taken into care. For a child, being taken away from their home, whatever their circumstances, must be highly traumatic. However, where they are going to live with a friend or relative who is already known to them, this will lessen the strain and upset, and in many cases will mean that the child is raised within their family.

There are an estimated 200,000 children being raised by kinship carers, 95% of whom are not classified as looked after. The briefing that I received from the Kinship Care Alliance, which I understand is serviced by the charity Family Rights Group, stated that,

“children in kinship care are doing significantly better than children in unrelated care, despite having suffered similar early adverse experiences—in particular they feel more secure and have fewer emotional and behavioural problems and are doing better academically”.

So this approach also has the economic benefit of savings for the state if the child is not taken into care, although I understand that at present kinship carers are not being given any financial help. This aspect needs to be looked at. Having an extra child or children in the house may create financial hardship in terms of both needing bigger accommodation and having more mouths to feed. I understand that a large percentage of kinship carers have to give up work to take on the extra children. It would therefore be helpful to give them some support. I understand that local authorities often seek close relatives and friends to look after the child, but I would like to see in the Bill that this has to be done and considered, because it seems to be a much preferable outcome for the child.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I am afraid that my Amendment 24 in this group would add further corporate parenting principles to Clause 1. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger, I want to add the principle that siblings should be kept together as far as possible. If they cannot be fostered or even adopted together, at least they should be located as close as possible to each other and arrangements made for them to have contact if they want it. That last point, made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, is absolutely right: we have to take account of what the child wants in relation to his or her siblings.

Many children who suffer the trauma of the break-up of their family and being taken into care rely very much for their emotional well-being on the support of their siblings. I know that most local authorities do their very best to ensure that they can be together as much as possible, but it is not easy to find foster parents who will take more than one child, or a group of two or three. If we are laying down corporate parenting principles, it is vital that sibling issues are in there. Emotional well-being is important for educational attainment and success in life, and we let children down if we ignore it. Although it is mentioned in Clause 1(1)(a) of the Bill, we need to be more specific about how that well-being should be achieved on a matter as important as siblings.