Independent Schools

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord is a great credit to Rugby, no doubt. He will know from his history that these schools were often set up—if you look at Shakespeare—for poor boys, not girls, in the past, and they evolved over time, as he indicated. The church indeed became involved. In terms of our lead in the Industrial Revolution, it would have been astonishing had other countries not joined us in that, but clearly those countries that joined us had a stress on science that was critical to what then happened. We need to make sure that all our schools, and our state schools in particular, emphasise a science education.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister mentioned the large number of independent schools that have links with schools in the maintained sector, but could she say how those links are assessed for the purposes of gaining charitable status? Could she say, too, how many independent schools take part in teacher training—because, of course, they all benefit from state-trained teachers?

[Baroness Northover]

The report indicates that 80% of ISC schools are engaged in some sort of partnership with state schools. I suggest that the noble Baroness looks at that point: indeed, she probably already has. The Charity Commission looks at the contribution those schools are making to the local community, and this issue is part of that. The report mentions a number of instances of independent schools assisting in teacher training and teacher support, but it is not quantified.

Children: Affordable Childcare

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Massey—who I would also call my noble friend—on introducing this debate. At a time when the country needs all those who wish to work and are capable of working to be enabled to do so, there is a very hard-headed argument for providing families with high-quality childcare when and where they need it. Working parents juggle the demands of work and family life precisely because they know that poverty will hold their children back and will not contribute to their welfare and happiness. Although enabling both parents to work if they wish is a good thing, the main issue for me is the development, physical and mental health, and happiness of the children. This comes first. As the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said, there is a good child-development argument for enabling children to come together under the guidance of properly trained people to learn to socialise, to make decisions, to speak and listen, and to concentrate, as well as to develop their physical skills and enhance their emotional and cultural development. This is usually done by childminders or in groups in early years settings run by other professionals, but let us not forget that it can also be done informally in community playgroups and parent-led co-operative childcare groups, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin of Kennington.

Research has shown that children benefit from high-quality settings where the staff are well trained but can be harmed by spending long periods in poor-quality settings. Sadly, the poorest-quality settings are to be found in the most deprived areas, where the children desperately need the stimulus and care that is found in a good setting to compensate for their poverty of experience at home. However, research also shows emphatically that infants with secure attachment histories become better adjusted and more skilled at solving problems, seeking assistance, dealing with difficulties and tolerating frustration in later life. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, would agree with that. I also agree with her that a happy mother means a happy baby—we need to achieve both. We need to balance the child’s need to spend enough time with its principal carer, with the opportunity for loving, touching and interaction, with the child’s need to socialise with other children and receive the stimulation he needs to develop, as well as with the family’s need for sufficient income to keep them out of poverty. This is quite a difficult balancing act.

One has to accept the statistics which that show that, despite the large amounts of public subsidy that are, rightly, put into providing early years education, the cost of childcare to some parents in this country is relatively high. I say “some parents” because many of them solve the problem by using loving grandparents and other family members, who generously give up their freedom in later life in order to look after their grandchildren for nothing. Of course, most of them love doing it and provide love as well as care to the children.

I also use the word “some” because there are—we have to accept this—thousands of families in this country who benefit from the 15 hours of free entitlement and also receive a subsidy of 70% or more on any additional hours purchased or receive a tax refund on what they spend. I welcome all that. When you look at those facts you have to realise that this Government, and the previous one, have done an awful lot to help families to enable both parents to go out to work. So how is it that costs are so high? Some believe that it is because the mandatory ratios of adults to children are low compared to other countries, apart from the Nordic ones. I do not agree with that. I am one of those who believe that we have got the ratios right and they should not be changed. It is interesting that the sector feels that too, despite the fact that it would stand to gain if the ratios were to be increased. Indeed, many in the sector choose not to use the higher ratios which the law currently allows them to use in the interests of providing a high-quality service.

I have a theory about why costs are high. It is because a large number of parents are unable to resist the lure of 25 hours of free childcare in a primary school, so they send the child to school as soon as he turns four rather than keeping him in a nursery setting, where the free entitlement is only 15 hours. One can hardly blame them but the result is that nursery settings have lost all the children for whom they were legally allowed to use higher ratios and are left to make their money only from the younger children, to care for whom they need to employ more staff. Whatever the reason, we need to do something to help hard-pressed families afford good childcare if both parents wish to work and can find a job. The danger of providing additional cash benefits or tax vouchers is that the costs will simply spiral to take up the new money and there will be no improvement either in quality or affordability. So what do we do to keep costs down without compromising quality?

From these Benches, our solution, as outlined by my noble friend Lady Tyler of Enfield, is to increase the number of free-hours entitlement, thereby decreasing the number of hours for which a family needs to pay. This would soon pay for itself, as the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, has pointed out, through the greater economic activity of both parents. It would also bring down costs because nurseries could get back the four year-olds, for whom the adult-child ratios are higher. We and the Labour Party are both proposing that, at four years-old, the child would get 25 hours of free nursery entitlement. We believe that under-fives—indeed, under-sixes—thrive best in a play-based environment, in which their healthy and happy development is the main objective, rather than whether they can read and write at four, and where their development is supervised by trained early years professionals. There is much evidence that children who start formal education at seven catch up with others who started at five by the time they reach nine and overtake them by the time they reach 11. This is because their development and their learning have gone hand in hand so that what they learn is more firmly embedded. As to those families who rely on two incomes to survive the child’s first couple of years, I would like to see an increase in the parental leave benefits to prevent mothers feeling that they have to go back to full-time work too soon for the good of their own health and the well-being of their child.

The other major issue is, of course, the quality of provision and the qualifications of the staff in early years settings. I share the concerns of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds—we will miss him in this House when he comes to retire in about a month’s time, and I am sure the rest of the House will share my wishes for him to have a very happy retirement. I therefore welcome the proposals for a new simplified system of qualifications bringing in the level 3 early educator and the graduate early years teacher, although I regret the proposal that the latter should not have qualified teacher status and conditions like other teachers. However, I am not clear how the Government plan to ensure that these well qualified people work in areas of high deprivation where their skills are most needed. Funding through the different schemes is weighted towards very low-income households, who can receive the vast majority of the approximate £9,000 per year cost of an average childcare place while families in the middle, on an average income of approximately £32,000, receive only £2,500. Although lower-income families receive a great deal more funding, there is no clear way of ensuring that those children are getting the best-quality care. Perhaps my noble friend can say how that is to be achieved.

I am also concerned about inspection. Last year, Ofsted spent £21.1 million visiting and inspecting around 55,000 childminders, at a cost of nearly £400 per year per childminder. Sir Michael Wilshaw admitted at the House of Commons Education Select Committee that,

“we need to think about the future and how we inspect childminding institutions. I do not think we can carry on doing it as we are doing it at the moment: every time a youngster goes into a childminding setting, we have to inspect. That is unsustainable”.

He also admitted, in my hearing at a meeting of the APPG for Education, that the current inspections of childminders are a desultory and tick-box event and have little to do with the quality of care being provided as long as it is above the minimum the law requires. Perhaps this is the real reason why the Government do not plan to insist that Ofsted inspects all childminders signed up to one of the new agencies. I would therefore be very interested in how quality is to be guaranteed.

I share the concerns of others about disabled children. It is common knowledge that many parents of disabled children are unable to find appropriate childcare at all. Even when they do so, they have to pay a premium for it. I am aware that local authorities receive additional money for disabled children, but that does not seem to filter through to the right places to ensure that parents pay no more than any other family. I suspect that it is not the legislation that is going wrong but the practice. I would be interested to know whether the Government have any proposals to ensure that that money does what it is supposed to do.

Children: Development

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2013 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Walmsley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to promote early childhood development in the post-2015 development framework.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, the millennium development goals, or MDGs, helped to channel political commitment and investment to bring about reductions in poverty and child mortality and improvements in health and education. They expire in 2015. This presents me with an opportunity to advocate today the inclusion of an integrated early childhood development target in the post-2015 agenda. In this debate, I hope to demonstrate that we need a measurable and actionable ECD goal to reduce by half the number of children under five who fail to reach their potential. This will not only strengthen progress towards the health and well-being of all children but also help reduce the intergenerational transmission of poverty and inequality.

My right honourable friend David Cameron, our Prime Minister, is one of three co-chairs of the high-level panel appointed by the United Nations. This panel is one of the elements which, working together with others, will craft the new goals. It is intended that the post-2015 goals will be more inclusive of various stakeholders than before and have an agenda that builds on the strengths of the MDGs but also addresses their shortfalls. They should be implemented by all countries, not just those in the developing world.

Why are we talking about early childhood development today? It is because focus on early childhood holds the long-term solutions to solving the economic and social problems of intergenerational poverty, and to achieving world peace and our environmental survival. That may sound like a very big claim, but mountains of evidence from almost every discipline come to one conclusion: the earliest years of life can give us the strongest foundation for individual, societal, national and global sustainable development. Research has shown that the key to the survival of our species is our long early childhood. This is the period of our lives when we are at our most vulnerable but, because we take so many years to develop to maturity, there is time for our brains to develop into much more complex organs, capable of more complex thought and action than any other species.

Evidence from neuroscience has shown that when a baby is born, its billions of brain cells are mostly unconnected. To function properly, these cells must be connected to each other, and these connections develop in response to the baby’s experiences. These early connections form the basis of personality and the lifelong capacity to learn, adapt to change and have resilience in case of unexpected circumstances, as well as physical and mental health. We develop these foundations at great speed in the first few years of life and we never again learn so fast. We also know that the quality of early care-giving can alter the brain’s chemistry and structure. That is why we need to pay attention to the early experiences of the world’s children, from before birth and right through childhood.

Economic studies have provided evidence that the largest returns on investment are realised in programmes for children prior to primary school. Therefore, although the MDGs have ensured that most children now attend primary school, we have to ask ourselves how well they are learning when they get there. Do they have the capacity to make the best use of that education and of the best instrument with which to learn—in other words, their brain? It is a bit like having all the parts of the engine of a very fast Formula 1 car. If you do not put it together in the right way and connect all the parts and tune them carefully, the car will not go very fast. It may limp along, but it will not beat Sebastian Vettel or Jenson Button.

Therefore, I should like to highlight something very rare: experts from many different disciplines are all coming to the conclusion that early childhood matters enormously. At a time like this, when money is scarce and needs are great, we must spend money smartly. The smart way is early, because it works in two ways. Not only does it produce better results, it will avoid the cost of putting things right when they go wrong. Therefore, I argue that an early childhood development target in the post-2015 goals will help us to achieve some of the other targets. The MDGs have achieved a lot, but the targets have not been fully achieved, so business as usual is no longer an option. Transformative and holistic solutions are required, addressing the root causes of problems rather than applying an Elastoplast to the symptoms.

Let us look at the role of early childhood programmes in achieving the UN’s aims. Let us take peace, for example. There is neurobiological evidence to show that in early childhood, we develop the capacity to love, empathise and show compassion. Through early childhood programmes, we teach children social skills and develop their decision-making capability. Those are carried forward into adulthood, resulting in better co-operation, aggression control and a reduction in violence. Wars are not instigated by armies; they are started by individuals who feel that aggression is the answer to their problems. It is not very clever. Wars contribute to poverty and environmental degradation, as well as suffering and death.

Let us take sustainability. In early life, we have an innate capacity to love nature. One has only to watch a young child with animals or in a garden. It is very clear: if we nurture that innate tendency, we can leave the world a generation of people who believe in sustainability and care for the environment.

Take the target of inclusive development. Here, again, when children are very young we have a window of opportunity to provide good nutrition and care in a responsive and safe environment. Early child development programmes promote an equitable start to a healthy life, especially if they start when babies are still in the womb. One of the greatest challenges for the next generation is the inexorable rise of non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic lung disease and cancer. Although the symptoms of these diseases develop in adulthood, the foundations are laid in early childhood. That is when we need to lay the foundations for lifelong good health.

Let us look at gender equality. Early child development programmes improve outcomes for the girl child herself and often also for other female members of her family. Evidence shows that disadvantaged girl students are the ones making the most dramatic gains from such programmes. In Brazil, for example, girls from low-income families who attend pre-school are twice as likely to reach grade 5 and three times more likely to reach grade 8 as those who do not attend. In poor families, when the mother is at work, it is often older girls who have to look after the young children. If the toddlers are at pre-school, the older girls, too, can attend school.

However, the most obvious benefit of early years programmes is in the achievement of the target of learning for all. It has been said recently:

“A child born today must master skills and knowledge that were needed only by elites a century ago”.

I am sure that that is true. However, although progress has been made in school enrolment, great inequality occurs in actual learning.

Learning begins at birth. Does it not make sense for the UN to invest its efforts in the period when human beings learn fastest, thus also laying the foundations for a generation that eschews violence, cares for the natural environment and has developed the full capacity of its wonderful human brains? Learning is the result of a sequential and cumulative process of skills acquisition, with a hierarchy of achievement based on mastering early skills and then building on them, so early learning is vital for later achievement.

The UK, along with Nordic countries, is well positioned to be a beacon for early childhood development globally. We have already embraced the evidence of the benefits of early intervention and invested in the family nurse partnership, more health visitors and free early years provision for disadvantaged two year-olds. Now we need to become a global leader in championing early childhood abroad. The time to act is now, while the next set of goals is being developed. Will we be influenced by the mountain of scientific evidence? I hope so. I have a book full of evidence and solutions from the world’s experts. All we need now is the political will.

Will my noble friend pass on to her right honourable friend the Prime Minister our wish that he ensure that there is an integrated early child development goal in the next set of UN goals post-2015? Can she tell us how your Lordships’ House can influence the Prime Minister in his work with the UN? As the new goals will affect all countries, not just developing countries, will the UK Government take a lead by demonstrating the amount of economic and human capital that can be saved by investing in young children and their families?

Finally, I understand that there are to be multi-stakeholder consultations within countries on the post-2015 agenda to ensure a transparent process and meaningful participation from Governments. How is that being done in the UK? Can my noble friend assure me that the process will be comprehensive and that the Prime Minister will use its results when he works in his co-chair capacity?

Children and Families Bill

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Perry of Southwark (Con)]

Perhaps I may respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes. Ofsted’s category of “needing improvement” does not close a nursery down; other children will continue to be there. Also, if a parent has strong reasons for choosing a local nursery, where perhaps children of friends and neighbours are already attending, a parent should not be banned from making that choice, despite knowing what the Ofsted judgment is. As the noble Baroness rightly said, that judgment could be out of date and the improvement could have happened in the mean time. It would be wrong to condemn a child to being unable to go to the nursery of parental choice just because three or so years ago Ofsted declared that it needed improvement. It is more important that parents have a choice, knowing what they are choosing. The Ofsted report is there for everyone to see and make inquiries about, and there may be powerful reasons for a parent to want a child to go to that nursery. As I say, other children are still going there, it is not being closed down and it is not being put into special measures.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, have considerable concerns about Clause 76, and my noble friend Lady Tyler explained our concerns very well. I do not deny that there are problems with the Section 11 duty, and many local authorities want the Government to do something about it. In fact, the reports have become a bit of a monster and some local authorities do not regard them as terribly useful. However, to repeal the whole duty is taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut. My noble friend has suggested a sensible alternative and I support her view.

I, too, look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. If the Government were to change their mind about this, and simply change the guidance, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, that it would make a lot of sense to have some kind of standard template so that different local authorities could be compared with each other. Both policymakers and those who disseminate best practice would find it very useful to be able to compare apples with apples and not apples with pears. I also look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about the word “normally” in relation to inadequate nurseries. That, too, gives me some concern.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, although I had not intended to speak on this section, I would like to raise one particular concern. Before I do that, I will add my concerns to those of the noble Baronesses raising the issue of repeal under Clause 76. Earlier, before we began the Committee, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, talked to me about whether a particular group of children should be given priority and whether we could find a way of doing that. I said that, if you try that, you will find that almost every group of children that local authorities currently deal with are a priority, because those are the only groups that they deal with at the moment. It is very difficult for local authorities at the moment to move into preventive work or into other areas.

If we have one piece of legislation for adults, which has the duty, and another piece of legislation for children, which does not have it, my great concern is that children will slip down the priority list in this particular area. I am not saying that they will not be protected—that will be followed up—but proper assessment for under-five provision will slip down the priority level. It has to, because that is the only way that local authorities can manage their finances and priority ratings. I hope that the Minister and the Government will look again at this repeal. I think that the way forward is to look at the regulation and the framework and to get that into an accurate package, which would take us forward.

The other area that concerns me—this is a probing question—is those children who have additional needs and who need to be placed in under-five daycare so that their parents can work or develop skills. I am thinking in particular of children with, say, autism or similar developmental issues and am really trying to probe how this fits with the government amendment. At the moment, a local authority may provide funding for a place, but if the parent wishes to make additional payments for an extra quality of service, the local authority will not pay because that would be a mixture of private and statutory funding—even if the organisation providing that service is a voluntary, not-for-profit organisation.

I take some responsibility because I suspect that, in the past, I was one of the people who pressed for the principle of not mixing private and statutory funding, but I do not think I ever saw it coming to a position where, as a parent, you could not give added quality to children in need. The difficulty has arisen because some parents have objected to having to pay—one organisation I know in particular may have to close its doors because it cannot manage the quality of care that they need to provide for these difficult children. This is really a probing question: are the Government prepared to look at mixing or is it an absolutely sacred principle that private and public funding should not be put together? I also support the other the noble Baronesses who put the other arguments so clearly.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Walmsley]

243: After Clause 78, insert the following new Clause—
“Part 4AProtection of childrenActions due to a belief of possession by spirits
(1) Section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1993 (cruelty to persons under sixteen) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1) omit the words “and has responsibility for any child or young person under that age,” and for the word “him” substitute “any child or young person under that age”.
(3) In subsection (2), after paragraph (b) insert—
“(c) in subsection (1) the meaning of “ill-treats” includes the communication by word or by action a belief that the child is possessed by evil spirits or has supernatural harmful powers—(i) to the child concerned, or(ii) to anyone connected to that child.””

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 246, which I have agreed should be grouped with Amendment 243, although the two matters are somewhat different, in the interest of trying to save a bit of time. I am afraid that, because both require considerable explanation, I shall have to move from my usual policy of making very short speeches, so I hope that the Committee will bear with me. As the Committee knows, the noble Lord, Lord Laming, reported on the sad death of Victoria Climbié, but he cannot be here this afternoon. He has kindly allowed me to say that he supports this amendment.

Amendment 243 amends Section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933—“Cruelty to persons under sixteen”—to clarify that to communicate to a child, or anyone connected to the child, that the child is possessed by evil spirits or is a witch amounts to cruelty and therefore contravenes the Act. The Act sets out several specific offences, although it does not mention the word “cruelty” in the text. For example, it says that if anyone who has responsibility for a child,

“wilfully assaults, ill-treats, neglects, abandons, or exposes him, or causes … any mental derangement … that person shall be guilty of a misdemeanour”.

So far, so good, you might think, but there is a group of children who have been treated most cruelly, even killed, as a result of people telling them and others that they are possessed by evil spirits or have supernatural harmful powers. Currently, it appears that the law does not accept that to cause a child such terrible mental trauma is cruel and against the 1933 Act. It also appears that it is not accepted that telling other people that the child is possessed is against the law, even though doing so often causes superstitious third parties to ill treat and even kill the child.

This amendment is very carefully worded. It does not make it an offence to believe that the child is possessed. It does not make it an offence to go away privately and pray or try to exorcise the spirit that you believe is present in the child. It just makes it an offence to traumatise the child by telling him or to pass on your belief to other people in the knowledge that it might cause them to harm the child.

The first part of the amendment would delete the words,

“has responsibility for a child or young person”.

It is not clear why this limitation was ever in there because cruelty to children does not change its nature depending on whether you have responsibility for them or not. Why should a neighbour or a lodger escape prosecution when a babysitter does not? In relation to witch branding, we must remove these words because they would allow a pastor or the sexual partner of a relative to escape, too, even though such people do perpetrate abuse, as was the case in the murders of Kristy Bamu and Victoria Climbié.

The second part of the amendment clarifies the meaning of “ill-treats” in order specifically to include the communication by word or action of a belief that the child is possessed by evils spirits or malign powers, either to the child or someone connected to him. Please note that, although these children are often referred to as witches, the word “witch” does not appear in the amendment in order not to catch the benign type of witch, commonly known as white witches, or the fantasy that is often played out at Halloween. The intention of the amendment is to outlaw not harmless practices but a proven and serious form of child abuse.

Branding a child as a witch is an incitement to hatred and an attack on the integrity of the child. Once a child is called “a witch” or “possessed”, he or she is stripped of his or her innocence and considered as a perpetrator of evil acts, instilling fear and providing a moral ground for others to ill treat the child. Those who believe in the exorcist rite of “beating the devil out of the child” are then given leeway to do so. While parents and guardians can either be prosecuted for harming a child or appropriate social work interventions can be made under civil law, a faith leader, neighbour or member of the family’s friends and community who triggered the process of abuse by accusing or “validating” the accusation against a child cannot be brought to account under child cruelty offences.

I have been encouraged to lay this amendment by the charity AFRUCA, which was established in the wake of the Victoria Climbié tragedy. Victoria’s killers justified their abuse by their belief that she was a witch. Since then, the work of AFRUCA has shown the need for clarification of the law. For more than 11 years they have made efforts to raise awareness in the community and among the public about the plight of these children, but all that work was not enough to prevent the terrible death of Kristy Bamu in December 2010 and other abuses linked to witchcraft accusations. Kristy died with 135 injuries inflicted on his body.

Various consultations carried out in the community by AFRUCA showed that the overwhelming majority of those who took part believe that a law would go a long way to stop the harmful behaviour of rogue faith leaders. The branding of children as witches is not a long-standing cultural tradition either in the UK or overseas. It is a relatively recent phenomenon, in part arising from a deliberate exploitation of families for monetary gain or heightened social status by unscrupulous individuals calling themselves faith leaders.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Northover]

As I mentioned, this is a voluntary code. We are developing it and taking it forward. I am well aware that my noble friends may feel that that may not immediately go as far as they might wish, but I hope that they will welcome a move in the right direction. Let us see how we can take this forward. We need to make sure that a number of these organisations begin to sign up to this, because that is what will make a difference as they change the way they do things in relation to children in their care. We need to move things forward in a number of different ways. We will keep this under review and see how it is working. No doubt noble Lords will wish to probe to see how it is working out.

[Baroness Walmsley]

I thank the Minister for her comprehensive reply to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. I think we have succeeded in highlighting the issue. On Amendment 243, I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, and pay tribute to all her work on this subject.

It is quite clear that within the communities that are affected by witch branding, there are differences of opinion about what would and would not be helpful. None of us is saying that working with the communities and making them aware that this is child abuse is a bad thing. Of course it is a good thing. I just do not think it is quite enough for some people.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, talked about the existing law, as did the Minister. She said it is quite enough to catch people who abuse children in this way. What I am talking about is early intervention, if you like. Although once a child is physically abused, all kinds of laws have been broken and people can be charged on that basis, what I would like to get absolutely clear from the Minister is an acceptance that telling a child that they are possessed by evil spirits is child abuse. It causes the child enormous mental trauma, and you just do not know how that will affect them over many years. The Minister said a great deal about that amendment, so I will go away and read Hansard very carefully to try to find out whether there was an acceptance that simply telling a child before you lay a hand on them that they are possessed is child abuse.

The Minister mentioned a number of laws under which somebody might be charged with child abuse for doing that sort of thing, but I wonder how many cases there have been. How many people have actually been charged and imprisoned for that? Do communities and parents really understand that simply telling a child that is enough to qualify as child abuse, and that it should be reported and the child should be given special protection? Will my noble friend write and tell me what sort of guidance there is for social workers on this particular issue?

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and my noble friend Lord Storey and others who supported Amendment 246. My difficulty with what the Minister said is that you can charge and imprison somebody only when the case is reported. One of the major problems is the reluctance of parents to come forward and tell the authorities that the child is being abused, perhaps particularly if the abuse is happening in a place of faith instruction. The Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families, Edward Timpson, has been very open to discussions with me, as the Minister said. I am quite sure that he, like me, would like to iron out this sort of practice once and for all.

However, a voluntary code of conduct just will not do. Would a code of conduct do in the comprehensive school down the road? Would it do in the primary school round the corner? No, it would not. Parliament said a long time ago that a code of conduct for teachers was not good enough in those settings. I am afraid that it is not good enough in a place of part-time education, either. I shall undoubtedly keep on badgering Ministers about this until the law is implemented. A piece of legislation was passed, but it is no use if it is not implemented. It needs implementing in order to stop this. It is not going to be a magic bullet—I know that. Neither of my amendments would be a magic bullet, but they would contribute towards moving us to a completely different situation.

I will go back to Amendment 243. The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, talked about Africa. I am not suggesting that, just because a number of African countries have changed the law, things are all wonderful. They absolutely are not; they are horrendous. The fact is that it is very early days in those countries for the laws that have been put in place. When you have a situation where these beliefs and activities are as entrenched as they are in some of these countries—much worse than they are here—it will take years for the change in the law to have any effect. I do not accept that point.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

That is absolutely right, but it is not the law that will change what is happening; it is having a good childcare structure with basic legislation that protects children, and having people who understand that. That is why I think the law is not particularly helpful in Nigeria; it has been passed because it suits the Government’s purposes—perhaps I can say that here—but it will not protect children. We have a much better framework of protection here. If we have lists of children from different groups, and there are other groups we could name who need specific protection, it will take attention away from the others. We have to train people to look at all these very difficult areas—FGM is there, but it is a different issue and work is being done by the Trust for London on that—and understand the detail and how we train people across the board on these issues. I felt that I should say that I understand the African situation very well indeed.

[Baroness Walmsley]

I thank the noble Baroness for her additional comments. I am not saying that training is not a good thing; of course it is, but we need something additional. African countries that have changed the law need a much better child protection system—closer to what we have here—but we have a pretty good child protection system and we still have not succeeded in protecting these children. We need to make it absolutely clear that this is child abuse, that it comes under the law and that it will not be tolerated. I thank noble Lords for the passionate debate that we have had and beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 243 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Countess of Mar]

I support the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in his contention. We have a Minister for Children, and the Children’s Commissioner should report to that Minister.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I will not speak in detail about the amendments but I should like to express my general support for anything that strengthens the independence of the Children’s Commissioner. The commissioner is not completely independent. He or she will have their powers very much diluted, which would be a pity because the Bill considerably improves the powers and duties of the commissioner. I very much welcome that.

Of course, it is also important that the commissioner has appropriate resources with which to carry out those improved powers and duties. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has clearly shown the link between independence and money. If the Government are controlling exactly how the commissioner spends his or her money, where is the independence? Her amendment should therefore be carefully considered.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I will be reasonably brief on the three amendments to which I have added my name, although all the amendments in the group are admirable. I also very much thank the Minister for his helpful letter and proposed amendment. There has been little time to take it in and I look forward even more to what he will say at the end of the debate.

As my noble friend Lady Massey said—and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, expanded forcefully on—the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has made it clear that national human rights institutions for children, including children’s commissioners, should be established in compliance with the Paris principles, which were adopted more than 20 years ago by the UN General Assembly. These minimum standards provide guidance for the establishment, competence, responsibilities and composition—including pluralism, independence, methods of operation and quasi-judicial activities—of such national bodies. These recommendations underpin the amendments that I am supporting. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has said:

“It is essential that institutions remain entirely free to set their own agenda and determine their own activities”.

It has also stated:

“The appointment process for ombudspersons for children should be open, transparent and appropriate”.

With regards to the commissioner’s funding, the Bill currently affords the Secretary of State absolute discretion in deciding the amount, timing and conditions. Currently, too, this has the potential significantly to undermine the commissioner’s independence. The Committee on the Rights of the Child is clear:

“In order to ensure their independence and effective functioning, NHRIs must have adequate infrastructure, funding … staff, premises, and freedom from forms of financial control that might affect their independence”.

Also, as Amendment 257 states, the appointment of a commissioner has to be seriously considered from all sorts of perspectives. I have met the commissioner whom we appointed and, if I may say so, it is an extremely good appointment.

However, what is said in Amendment 257 is equally important:

“The Secretary of State shall appoint an individual only if the Secretary of State reasonably considers the individual”—

and this is the bit that I want to stress—

“has adequate experience and knowledge relating to children’s rights, including the involvement of children in decision-making; and … is able and willing to act independently of Government”.

The active involvement of children in decision-making is the area that I want to stress, because that is essential in today’s world and I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me on that point, quite apart from any others.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Eccles]

My Lords, I would like to continue to probe the question: what is the Government’s true opinion of the Children’s Commissioner as a corporation sole? I hope that my Government are not exclusively depending on John Dunford. His report was published three years ago. That is a third of the life of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner so I suppose that something must have happened over the past three years; I do not think that things will be exactly the same and I would like to know how they have developed.

On another occasion, maybe on Report, I will want to have a longer discussion about independence. I will confine myself to saying that arm’s-length relationships between public bodies and the Government are twisted arm’s-length relationships, and if you are funded by public money there is no such thing as independence in the true meaning of the word. If you consider the American War of Independence, which resulted in the United States of America, you can completely forget that as a meaning of the word when it is applied to a public body.

Three years on, I will just make the comment that John Dunford did his report on his own, in five months; he is a very able man. He did not have any peer group review; I think it was mentioned earlier that sometimes it is a good thing to have some peer group review. I hope that the Government are not just taking cover behind John Dunford because by now they should have an opinion of their own.

I have two background thoughts when I raise these issues. One is the size of the superstructure that we have built in recent years on top of what is, to me, the front line, which has been very frequently mentioned during our debates. This is a very big superstructure, starting with the United Nations—190 signatories, not including the United States of America; some 70 of them have a national human rights institution. The expert committee in Geneva gets a report every five years. We last sent ours in 2008. The next one is going in 2014, which seems to be six years, not five, and there may be some message in that. That draft report is 200 pages long. It is sponsored by the department present here today, which has to get evidence from the whole of the rest of government, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, mentioned.

My second amendment is also a probing amendment. I just wanted to remind myself that everybody is concerned with the human rights of children. There is no exception—apart from, perhaps, one or two people living on a beach in western Scotland who have completely dropped out into a hut. However, I do not think that there is anybody who is not concerned. There are parents and there are teachers; many people have two roles.

If one third of children under 18 are not represented by an adult, by whom are they going to be represented? We have to remember the huge scope of the subject we are discussing, and sometimes a degree of unreality comes into it. For example, the Explanatory Notes say that this Bill is “strengthening” the Children’s Commissioner. In what way is it strengthening the Children’s Commissioner? It does not appear from my noble friend’s answer to the previous debate that the commissioner is going to get any more money. They are given more duties; they are even given a direction by Parliament to look into advocacy, while the rest of the Explanatory Notes say that we are not going to tell them what to do, we are going to leave them entirely free to decide what to do for themselves—but apparently not in the matter of advocacy.

The Children’s Commissioner also has a duty in the Bill to,

“consider the potential effect on the rights of children of government policy proposals and government proposals for legislation”.

You could employ 27 people on doing only that and they would have plenty to do. The Government need to be much clearer with us on what they mean by strengthening. If you add to the duties of an organisation but do not add to its resources, you could argue that you weaken it.

Where has the Children’s Commissioner stood in relation to the size of the task? I think that the commissioners have done rather well. They have done research, co-operated with a lot of other bodies, produced interesting reports, been a thorn in the flesh and rather successful lobbyists. Whom have they lobbied? They have lobbied the Government in general. You can argue about whether you want a lobbyist 100% funded by public money, or whether you would rather it was Amnesty International or some other rather looser and less controlled body that you want to do your lobbying, but it seems to have worked rather well.

The question I end with is: what is going to change? How is this Bill going to change the capability of the Children’s Commissioner? Or is it going to continue with business as usual? I really would like an answer to that question. I beg to move.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I have some amendments in this group, but before I speak to them, I will say a word about the amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. I do not support it because it would take out what is the most significant improvement in the powers and duties of the Children’s Commissioner: namely, the duty to promote and protect the rights of children in England. This is making our commissioner a rights-based commissioner for the first time and I very much welcome that. I hope that the Bill makes a difference and that the Government are not, in the words of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, “playing a game”.

I will speak to Amendments 250, 254, 255 and 256 in this group. Before I do, I will mention my support for Amendment 252 on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and Amendment 266A about a duty on public bodies to respect children’s rights and give proper regard to their views, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey. However, in order to save the Committee’s time, I will leave both noble Baronesses to speak for me on those amendments.

Before I go into the detail of my amendments, I will pay tribute to the coalition Government and the current Ministers, and particularly to the former Children’s Minister, my colleague Sarah Teather MP, for bringing the Children’s Commissioner for England much closer to the Paris principles and making the office a much better national human rights institution, as it should have been from the start.

Children and Families Bill

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wilkins]

My Lords, belatedly, I will speak to Amendment 118 and in support of Amendments 112, 113 and 114. I will be brief because most of what I was to say has been said. The aim of Amendment 118 is to improve accountability around the local offer by requiring local authorities to meet basic expectations around provision for children with special educational needs. This issue is particularly acute, as we have heard, for children with low incidence special educational needs because local authorities are often ignorant of the support that these children need.

A number of organisations, including the National Deaf Children’s Society, the RNIB and Sense, are concerned that the Bill is extremely weak on overall accountability, particularly on the local offer, with a system that relies solely on the parents of children with sensory impairments—many of whom are, as we have heard, busy being parents. A system that relies on them policing it across all 152 local authorities is not likely to deliver the significant change that many of these children need here and now. Other noble Lords have also spoken on the need for increased accountability.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I have a few additional comments to make in support of Amendment 113, to which I have added my name. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, that in our amendment we do not seek a one-size-fits-all approach as far as local authorities are concerned. Of course we understand, and hope, that the provision made will vary from area to area, depending on the needs of the local population. We are simply looking for some commonality in the way the offer is expressed. The advantage would be that it would not just be helpful to parents in enabling them to choose between one local authority or another if they were able to move from one to another; there would be two other benefits.

First, it would deter a local authority from publishing a weak offer, because it would be very obvious that it was a weak offer. The “very little indeed”, as expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, would jump off the pages if there were some commonality in the way that offer was expressed. Secondly, it would help policymakers because this is a very new system. Undoubtedly the Government will wish to monitor how it is going and assess where it is going well and where it is going badly, and whether the regulations need to be tightened up at some point in the future. It would be very much easier to do that if there were a common way in which the local offer could be expressed; otherwise, I can see civil servants spending months digging into all the different local offers, expressed in different ways, in order to dig out that information.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, briefly, I would like to record my support for all these amendments, for all the reasons given. It seems to me that the very welcome reforms of the local offer remain quite insubstantial if there are no minimum standards and if there is insufficient transparency and no inspection. I recall the Minister’s letter to those of us who spoke at Second Reading on this point. He said:

“Regulations and the SEN Code of Practice will provide a common framework for local offers”.

I am worried that a common framework is really not specific enough. The draft SEN guidance is silent on the real monitoring of inspections. Without a power in the Act to achieve these, I should like to ask the Minister how the regulations are going to do the job which we have all been asking for. What is going to be in them?

Children and Families Bill

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, before I speak to Amendment 127, I should say that I support the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I pay tribute to the considerable amount of work that she has done in campaigning on the needs of severely bullied children.

As the noble Baroness said, this is a growing and worrying issue. This is backed up by a recent DfE report which identified that 47% of children reported being bullied at age 14, 41% at 15 and 29% at 16. This is a significant proportion of young people. Many report that the bullying is ongoing and for some of them it is an everyday event. There is also growing evidence that this problem particularly affects children with disabilities and special educational needs, who are, apparently, three times as likely to be bullied, with verbal, emotional and physical bullying prevalent. Again this is relevant to the debates that we have had in Committee. As the noble Baroness said, many of these children do not come to the attention of the authorities but some are so traumatised that their behaviour, school attendance and mental health begin to be affected. Figures have been cited of more than 16,000 young people at any one time refusing to attend school.

We support Amendments 74 and 217, which address these issues in a structured and helpful way. They would ensure that the Secretary of State produced a strategy and statutory guidance to prevent bullying, and provide effective recovery programmes for those affected and a temporary SEN statement to access help and support. These amendments, combined with ours, would go a considerable way towards addressing the poor educational provision and lack of consistency in meeting the needs of children temporarily unable or unwilling to attend school.

Our amendment seeks to introduce a new clause to widen out the concerns to cover children who, because they are bullied, suffer from a mental health problem or a medical condition and are unable to attend mainstream school for a period of time. We are attempting to address these widespread concerns. These issues were flagged by our colleagues in the Commons and were mentioned by a number of noble Lords at Second Reading.

In addition to the incidence of bullying, the Teenage Cancer Trust and CLIC Sargent have highlighted the fact that there are 3,600 new cancer diagnoses in children and young people every year, which can also have a significant effect on a child or young person’s education. There are other reasons why children and young people may be absent from school for a long period, including trauma, the loss of a family member or being the victim of violence or abuse at home. These children and young people should not have to suffer because of their experiences. We should do everything we can to ensure that they are able to achieve their full potential. This includes putting in place support systems and ensuring that alternative temporary education provision is as good as it would have been in mainstream education.

In his letter to Peers after Second Reading, the Minister argued that temporary access to SEN status was not the right way forward. He said:

“The definition of Special Educational Needs is deliberately broad, and it must allow local professionals the freedom to make judgements on who it applies to … However, for children who require statements of SEN it rightly takes time to make the appropriate assessments and establish the right provision. We hope and intend that the consequence of bullying can be resolved quickly … As with statements, education, health and care plans are intended for longer-term, more complicated needs, rather than for providing rapid support”.

While we understand that assessments and EHC plans take time, it is important that we also have mechanisms for addressing the needs of those children who have more immediate needs and fewer long-term needs, to make sure they do not fall through the gaps. I was interested that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said this afternoon that temporary statements are indeed available, because that certainly had not been drawn to my attention. Having that spelled out in more detail goes some way towards addressing this issue.

We believe that the amendments spoken to this afternoon provide a suitable package of support for severely bullied children and others temporarily unable to attend school. We hope the Minister will agree to reconsider the Government’s position, and to come up with a scheme that is as good as those amendments put before him today.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendments of my noble friend Lady Brinton, and would have added my name if I could have been sure of being here today to speak to them. However, here I am, very strongly supporting them.

Many thousands of children fall into the category of “severely bullied” but are invisible, for two reasons. One is that often the bullying takes place outside school, on the internet. The school does not see it happening. Unless school staff look carefully at the attendance record, or the parent is sufficiently distraught to bring it to the school’s attention, the school may not notice what is going on. The other unfortunate aspect is that often these children are quite shy; they take themselves off, rather than put up with it. They become visible to the rest of us only when they attempt suicide, or actually succeed. Then they land on the front page of the local or national newspaper. That is a tragedy.

When the school becomes aware of this problem, it often suggests to the parent that they educate the child at home. This is not the answer. Many parents are not capable, either professionally or economically, and cannot take the time off work to educate the child at home. They need specialist, professional help. Nor is it an answer to send the children to PRUs, for the reason my noble friend Lady Brinton has mentioned. Indeed, I would say it is cruel to expect these children to attend a PRU with a group of children of whom they are often frightened. They are square pegs in round holes in PRUs, because they are often children of great ability, and the provision offered in PRUs will not address their problem and allow them to achieve their academic potential.

Virtual schools can be an answer, but not the whole answer. These children need therapeutic and restorative help from well trained people. That is why my noble friend has suggested that what is needed is temporary special educational needs provision. As to the cost, yes, the sort of provision these children need is expensive, but it lasts for only a short period. If it is done well, many of these children go back into a mainstream school—perhaps a different one—after a relatively short time, during which their confidence has been built up and their mental health problems have been addressed.

If this does not happen, it is not the school that pays but the state that pays later. These children’s potential has not been realised; they do not have the qualifications that they could have; they do not have the well paid jobs that they could have, so do not pay so much tax; and there may be ongoing mental health problems that have to be addressed later in life by the health service. Although the school saves money by not paying for this provision in the short term, the public purse does pay—and, of course, the person who pays most is the child themselves. We have a duty to give these children back their education and indeed their lives. Provision is available, and it could be expanded if only a more sensible approach were taken to ensuring that the funding became available for these children. It is not a lot to ask and, compared to many children who need special needs provision for the whole of their school life—which of course very often they deserve—these children require it for only a very short period. What they need is very special provision from people who really understand what they have gone through and what needs to be put into place to enable them to face an ordinary education again.

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, the amendments in this group are particularly important, with respect to one group of children in particular. I declare an interest as chair of the Department for Education’s stakeholder group on the education of Gypsy, Traveller and Roma children. These are the children, particularly Irish Traveller and Gypsy children, who between primary and secondary school experience a 20% drop in attendance; one-fifth of children drop out. From the material that I have seen, a very large part of this is due to bullying, although there are also cases when the parents are so mistrustful of education and unwilling to expose their children to the violence that they experience that they are complicit. Whatever the reason, there is a gap in these children’s education. They are a small number of children so they do not always appear in the aggregates, but if you compare them to the population of Gypsy and Traveller children, the numbers are huger than for any other ethnic group in our country. That is why these amendments are of vital importance.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, mentioned alternative education. I place on record that I cannot speak to the fourth group of amendments in the name of the noble Countess, Lady Mar, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and others, about suitable alternative education, which in a way is parallel to the group that I ought to be discussing now. That, too, has a particular relevance not only to drop-out children but to children of Traveller parents. I hope that in some way my support for those can be recorded, even though I shall have to be chairing another meeting then.

Children: Parenting for Success in School

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I am sure that we are all convinced by the excellent opening speech of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, by various pieces of research and by recent, thoughtful reports by Graham Allen MP and Frank Field MP that a child’s life chances are determined in the very early months and years of his life. The Feinstein research published in 2003 found that early child development is a strong predictor of later educational attainment and that social class overlays this. In other words, it does not matter too much if development at 22 months lags behind other children if your parents happen to be in demographic groups A or B, whereas if your brain development is high at a young age but you come from a deprived background, you may not achieve your early promise. This is complex enough, but we then have to overlay it with the factors that affect brain development: maternal and childhood stress, poor attachment, lack of proper development of social and emotional skill because of isolation or violence, lack of stimulation et cetera. A highly complex web of factors affects how well a child does at school.

Have we now got the full picture? Well, no, because we now have to add in parenting engagement and style. There is no reason why a poor family cannot bring up children to fulfil their potential—though it is hard—as long as the parents are fully engaged with their child’s education, put a lot of effort into it and are thoughtful about their parenting. The trouble is that this is easier said than done if you are desperately stressed about money, live in a cold, damp home with nowhere for the child to do his homework, cannot afford the enriching experiences that help a child to understand the world and even find it difficult to nourish your child well. Perhaps, too, you had a bad experience at school. You may not even be literate, so cannot read the helpful parenting materials that are widely available, including on the internet.

I think that I am trying to paint a picture where three solutions emerge from the facts. The first is that we need to raise the income of the poorest families. Secondly, we need to provide parents with support and information about how to help their child not just academically but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said, mentally and emotionally, as well as in their physical health, their ability to form relationships, their self-confidence and, most importantly, their aspiration. Thirdly, we need accessible, proven early interventions that will make up for shortcomings in other areas. These three solutions are recommended in various ways by the two reports that I mentioned.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children was fortunate earlier this week to hear from and question Frank Field. One thing that he said, which stuck in my mind, was that money on its own is not enough. He cited the three year-old child of a very highly paid banker in the company’s nursery. The person in charge of the nursery asked to see the mother and said that she could not get the child to speak at all. The mother said: “I’m glad you noticed that. I have been waiting for him to speak to me”. This and other evidence made Mr Field conclude that, while we need to eradicate child poverty, other interventions are also needed in order to allow all children to flourish. He also pointed out that giving more money to some families would not help the children at all and concluded that we need to provide family support and early interventions for the sake of the children.

Early years education needs to be of high quality. If it is not, it can do more harm than good. This has long been known from the EPPE study. Less widely quoted is something else that came out of that study, which considered not just the effect of early years settings of varying quality but the importance of the child’s home environment. Kathy Sylva et al concluded:

“For all children, the quality of the home learning environment is more important for intellectual and social development than parental occupation, education or income”.

While we are offering 15 hours of free early years education to three and four year-olds, and now to the most deprived two year-olds, which I welcome, are we ensuring that it is done always in a way that is not intrusive, as the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, said, and that involves, engages and empowers the parents? If it is not, it will just scratch at the surface of the task of helping the child to develop. Stable, loving and supportive family backgrounds, with positive parenting, are the best for children, but we do not learn to create them by osmosis.

What does this mean for public policy? Sure Start centres are now scattered all over the country and we will be asking organisations to tender for them. Part of the deal must be that they should prove how they are reaching and working with parents. The outcomes for children depend on it.

Violence Against Women

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, for introducing this debate. She has been an untiring campaigner on these issues, and long may she continue. It has been a very wide-ranging debate, and I hope to widen it even further with my small contribution. Earlier this week, I was very saddened to see on the front page of one of our national newspapers the face of a nine year-old girl. I think that Christina was her name. She was shot in Tucson, Arizona. She was born on a day of international violence, 9/11, and she died in a hail of bullets. The extremes of her life, the beginning and the end, were defined by violence.

That reminded me, if I needed any reminding, that, for many children, violence is a way of life. I want to concentrate on the early part of life in my contribution today. I believe that prevention is better than cure. We all know that it is more difficult and more expensive to put things right once they have gone wrong. I believe that violence occurs when people do not respect each other, do not know how to react and are unable to react sensibly to stress, so they resort to anger and violence.

There are many ways in which we can address those problems. I think that we must go right back to the very root of the problem. My noble kinsman mentioned the maternity unit, and that is not too early. As I have mentioned before in your Lordships' House—I hope that I will be excused for mentioning it again, because it is very important—research has shown that a major factor in the development of all violent tendencies lies in the structure of the developing infant brain. Early patterns are established, both psychologically and physiologically, which affect brain formation, the development of personality and consequent reaction to stimuli for the rest of the person's life. At birth, there are 100 billion neurones and 50 trillion synapses or connections between them, but by the age of three the number of synapses has increased twentyfold. Genes specify some of these connections, but others are the result of experience and are hard-wired by repeat experience. This is why the early experience of the baby is so vital and why early learned behaviour is so resistant to change.

The young brain is extremely vulnerable to trauma, in particular, to stress, which causes the brain to be awash with cortisol, the stress hormone. Cortisol gets in the way of synapses being properly established. That is why it matters and why we need to avoid stress in young babies. Problems will arise from many situations, for example, from violence against the mother or the child. The problem may be pre-natal alcohol or drug abuse. It may be postnatal depression or failure, for some reason, to bond with the mother, the father or any primary carer. A child who has experienced these sorts of stresses will often grow up unable to deal with stress or to establish healthy relationships and may be easily provoked to violence. It is not necessarily his fault.

That is why I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister has asked Graham Allen MP to produce a report about early intervention, which I believe will be published soon—next week, I think—and I pay tribute to him and those who have assisted him with his report. I also pay tribute to Iain Duncan Smith for realising the importance and value of early intervention. I look forward with eager anticipation to reading the report since I hope it will provide us with some of the ways forward to help deal with domestic and other violence at their roots, as well as with poverty, crime, ill health and lack of educational opportunity. I will judge the report, and I hope the Government will judge the report, on how early are the interventions it recommends and how rigorous the methodology used to select the interventions to fund. I hope the Government have put aside public money to invest in early intervention, since it will be a very good investment, but, of course, we must be sure that public money is being spent on the right things, so we must look very carefully at the report. I understand that there have been many submissions from experts emphasising the importance of the early years of life, and I wonder whether the Minister can tell me whether these submissions have been published because I would be very interested in reading them. If we as a Government have vision and if we are to be responsive to the mass of excellent research out there, we must tackle the roots of domestic violence with really early and proven interventions.

That is why, despite economic constraints, we must continue to invest in family support. Strong families produce well-balanced people with good emotional and mental health. Children learn to copy the behaviour of their parents, so we really need to put a full stop to physical violence against women and children in the home. A boy who is constantly being hit by his father and who watches his mother being hit by his father will think that is the normal thing to do, and when he grows up, he will probably decide to model that pattern and hit his partner, so we have to stop it at a very early stage.

However, there is a lot that can be done in schools, and I would like to tell your Lordships about two experiences I had before Christmas. They both relate to programmes with teenagers that I think also have an important place in our armoury against domestic violence. One was a visit to Winchmore School in north London where I saw young people exploring issues of domestic violence in their drama class. At lot has been said in this debate about the attitudes of teenagers, but I was impressed by the way the young people had identified the situations that might arise, analysed the issues and improvised little dramatised scenes to illustrate what happens. They had clearly picked up the fact that many violent offenders blame the woman for “provoking” them to violence, an excuse which the young people quite rightly did not accept at all.

The work also helped them to develop strategies for themselves and their fellow pupils to avoid violence and to respond appropriately to it when they came across it or experienced it themselves. The importance of being able to talk to their friends was very high up their list of things that can help. It is very important that we continue to have opportunities in schools for young people to explore these issues.

The other experience was chairing a seminar for the charity WOMANKIND about violence against women and girls. Two terrific groups of young people from schools many miles apart made a great impression on me. Noble Lords will not be surprised to learn, following the words of my noble kinsman Lord Thomas of Gresford, that one of them was from Wales, where they are ahead of us in many of these issues.

Both groups were acting as mentors or counsellors about violence and bullying in their own schools. They were girls and boys. Under the guidance of some very committed deputy head teachers, they told us how they worked. They made presentations to the rest of the school at assemblies, they worked through the school council to inform the rest of the school about the issues they had studied and learnt about and they made themselves available as a ready ear for troubled fellow pupils. Because of the guidance and support they had been given, they were able to direct pupils with problems to places where they could get further professional help if necessary. They claimed that their peers were now more likely to confide in them than in a teacher and that they had good training and support and knew what to do if serious matters arose. The whole school was more aware of the problems. Both groups claimed that bullying had decreased in the school, and—this is crucial—that the attitudes and respect of boys towards girls had very much improved. Such schemes have enormous value, and I hope they will continue to be funded. Many of them are funded by voluntary organisations.

Finally, may I put in a good word for the enormous value of high-quality personal, social, health and economic education in all schools at all levels, age-appropriate of course? All children need, and have a right to, such education to establish and maintain good relationships of all sorts throughout their lives and help them develop self-confidence and healthy attitudes to other people. We in this country are signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Articles 17, 24 and 29 oblige us to provide our children with such education. I hope that the forthcoming curriculum review will give PSHE the importance it deserves and I will continue to lobby Ministers for that.

Women in Society

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Verma for giving us another of our regular opportunities to talk about the position of women in society. She made a number of very important and welcome announcements, particularly about rape centres, forced marriages, an increase in the right to ask for flexible working and, of course, the very important commitment to international aid.

In the past we have normally been led in our discussions on women by the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, and I pay tribute to the indefatigable way in which she has returned us to these important matters—we have heard yet another very fine speech from her today. I, too, look forward to the galaxy of maiden speeches that we are about to hear.

I was interested in the wording of the Motion. It mentions not the role of women in society, but the position of women in society. It is a sad fact that the position of women is too often at the bottom of the ladder in employment, on the floor in the home after a violent blow from a violent partner, or on her back, either willingly or unwillingly, but without any contraception or health protection. It is these things that I wish to address today.

There is no doubt that the key to the progression of women to their rightful place in society—equal to men and full partners with them—is education in its widest sense. Education is the route out of poverty, the key to independence, self-respect and self-confidence and the best contraceptive in the world. It is tempting to think that women and girls in this country have no problem with all these things, but that is not true. We still have young girls whose aspirations are limited at an early age because of poor career guidance in the choice of subjects at school and stereotyping in work-experience placements and choice of subjects to study after school. Women are underrepresented in the higher-paid apprenticeship sectors and those which offer level 3, as well as on the boards of big corporations and everything in between, and we all know about the gender pay gap more generally. Poor aspiration appears to be a factor in unwanted teenage pregnancy, since a significant number of young mothers had disengaged from school before they became pregnant.

It is important that we recognise that boys and girls, though equal, are different. Having taught both teenage girls and teenage boys, I would say that is particularly so when the boys are stuffed with testosterone and desperate to show how manly and forceful they are and the girls are showing their feminine side. Interesting work has been done on attainment in science subjects which showed that girls taught in single-sex groups did far better than when they were in with the boys, who tended to take over all the experiments and answer all the questions put by the teacher unless that teacher was very careful. That chimes very much with my experience.

Therefore, I have a lot of sympathy with the view expressed in one of the briefings that came to us before this debate that we need to look carefully at gender-specific services where it has been proved that these work better. However, while young people are in their compulsory schooling years, we have a big opportunity, which we must not squander, to ensure that they have the right knowledge, skills and values as well as the ability to get qualifications and earn a living. Yes, it is important that boys as well as girls have high-quality sex and relationship education—after all, it takes two to tango—but it needs to be in the context of a broad and balanced PSHE curriculum which helps them develop understanding of all kinds of relationships and gain the confidence which will keep them safe in future. In other words, I am not in favour of sex and relationship education on its own. I want the curriculum review that we are about to have to embed SRE within a holistic PSHE programme based on sound principles for all pupils in all schools. No aspect of our lives is an island; all are affected by all others. Learning how to make money and then manage it is as important as contraception to prevent young women feeling that they have to have a baby before anyone will take notice of them.

In so many discussions about women, the elephant in the room is population growth. In 1950, the global population was 2 billion; it now stands at 6.5 billion and is likely—I am told—to rise to 9.2 billion by 2050. The majority of this growth will take place in the poorest countries, where parents cannot guarantee that their children will live long enough to support them in their old age, so it is hardly surprising. Women will take the strain of this growth and continue to be poor and downtrodden unless something is done. The trouble is that once a woman gets into early pregnancy, it tends to become a cycle in her family. Recently, I read a book from Plan International entitled Because I am a Girl, which relates the stories of women and girls around the world to illustrate the need for Plan’s excellent work. One story, by the author Kathy Lette, talks of a woman in Brazil who became pregnant at 12 and had three children by the time she was 16. Her three daughters also became pregnant at 12 and 14 and one had two children by the age of 15. However, the woman’s own mother had also had three children by the age of 16. They were all starving, she said, and at 10 years old she became a prostitute to earn money to buy milk for the baby and food for her siblings. She took drugs, as did her 13 year-old violent boyfriend, who acted as her pimp. Those three generations of women did not stand a chance. All had violent, abusive relationships and all demonstrated that “copulation means population”, in the words of the author. Of course, all these women were deeply poor and at terrible risk of contracting HIV and other STDs. Women must have control over their fertility. In parenthesis, it was wonderful to read this week about the discovery of a new anti-viral gel that halves HIV infections, which women will be able to use to take their sexual health literally into their own hands.

The work that Plan and other charities such as UNICEF are doing to educate girls around the world helps not only this generation but generations to come. Will the Minister say what DfID’s business plan contains to rectify the most off-track millennium development goals; that is, goals four, five and six, on child and maternal health and combating HIV/AIDS? These, along with universal primary education, are the ones which will benefit women and girls the most.

Finally, although we are debating women, we really need to be saying just as much about men. It is time that some men, in some societies, took their responsibilities more seriously. Society should have no patience with the baby-mother and absentee father concept, if it means that the mother and child are unsupported by the father. To quote one famous author, one of the biggest problems these days is men with the three Cs—cash, car and cellphone—but lacking the fourth, a condom. Family planning saves women’s lives, but it goes much wider than that, and it is time that men in all nations and all cultural groups took that to heart. When we are cutting all the things we are forced to cut, I am delighted that we will not be cutting international aid. However, I trust we will also ensure that family planning at home and abroad is not cut also. Other kinds of snips, yes, but not a snip in the budget for family planning, please.