Education and Adoption Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 4, which is in my name and that of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. I think that the noble Earl has withdrawn from that, so I am now—

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

If it would be helpful to the noble Lord, I think that Amendment 4 is in the next group.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 3 and 4. I was taken with the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, in Committee when, speaking for the Government, she said:

“I absolutely agree that the mental health of adopted children is a key issue”.—[Official Report, 17/11/15; col. GC 38.]

She went on to say that the £1.25 billion would be available and how the Future in Mind report would be implemented. Of course, we all want to see children who are in adoption find the right parents to adopt them as quickly as possible, but we also want to make sure that that adoption works. It is no good children being adopted if the adoption then breaks down.

One of the reasons that adoption regularly breaks down is that we have not properly assessed the children, particularly in relation to mental health. If we want to make sure that adoption works, we must put this crucial area right. I will not—well, I will—repeat the figures that 45% of children in care have a mental disorder, which is a huge number, while 60% of those who come into care have experienced neglect or abuse.

How do we ensure that we get this right? To me, it is very simple; to use an old expression, it is not rocket science. It is about providing the expertise and the resources but also about making sure it happens, which is why these amendments actually specify how it should happen. Like the noble Lord, Lord Watson, I cannot understand why the Government would not agree to that. It will be to their credit, and to the success of the Bill, that children who are adopted or who go into care are in the right situation and getting the right support.

We have come a long way in terms of mental health issues in the last few years—and it literally is only in the last few years. One of the areas I am concerned about is that we say, “Oh, there’s a strategy; there’s X amount of money available”, but often those resources do not go to the right people. I know from experience and from talking to other teachers that getting CAMHS into schools now is much harder than it was a few years ago. Never mind a few weeks’ wait, it can often be several months before that support is given. So I wonder whether, when the Minister replies, we might hear how mental health support might be given to schools in a more orderly and speedy way.

I repeat that I want it enshrined in the Bill that we do the assessment for children and young people as soon as possible so that we get it right. In replying, perhaps the Minister could say whether, if the mental health strategy comes out and says that, the Government will agree to it and implement it as well.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 3 first, which I think is an excellent amendment. I wish to be very brief at this stage because I found the Minister to be most helpful in addressing my concerns in Committee and since then. Before I speak further about that, I thank noble Lords who have spoken on all sides of the House in support of amendments that I have tabled previously in this area to better address the mental health needs of looked-after children. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and the noble Lords, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Watson, for their support over those concerns.

Since Committee, I have received a letter from the Minister on the mental health needs of young people. I have heard that the office of Edward Timpson MP, the Minister for Children, will be contacting me about a meeting, which will be very helpful in this regard. I also heard him speak yesterday at the Nuffield Foundation at the launch of a report into the educational achievement of looked-after children. I was very much struck by his recognition that the mental health needs of looked-after children had not been properly addressed in the past and heard, in what he said, his real commitment to addressing these issues for them. We have yet to learn the specifics of what he intends to do, but I feel that the direction of travel is just right, and I look forward to meeting him to discuss the specifics of what needs to be done.

I will not speak to my amendments, and nor do I expect the Minister to respond to them. Being as brief as possible may be the most helpful thing I can do at this point, unless the Minister would like me to speak briefly to my amendments—if that would be helpful to him—in which case I would be glad to do so. But my feeling was that the Government have been very helpful and I do not wish to push things any further or take any more of your Lordships’ time at this moment. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

In welcoming what the Minister said, and in noting that the noble Lord, Lord Prior, is sitting next to her, which is comforting in this current discussion, I ask her whether she has quite recognised the nub of the concern of Peers all around the House. While current practice is that a GP, a generalist, will give a health assessment that will include mental health elements when a child comes into care, many of us believe that that is inadequate, and we have been trying to communicate this to the Government. While there is a strengths and difficulties questionnaire, which is useful, it simply does not meet the need for a mental health professional to undertake an initial assessment of all children coming into care so that their mental health needs can be identified early on and they can then be met with services following. I listened with great care to what the Minister said and it was very helpful, but I hope that she can assure us that the Government recognise that that is the concern that many noble Lords are raising—the need for a specialist mental health professional to do that initial assessment for every child coming into care.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply, along with all other noble Lords who have contributed to the debate on this group of amendments on this important area.

I was very pleased that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, had received a letter from the Minister for Children and Families, I think he said, subsequent to our last sitting in Committee. I wonder whether he might be prepared to share that with us because it might have information of general interest to those of us who have been involved with the Bill and are looking to take these issues forward.

My noble friend Lady Massey raised an important point about what the outcomes of not providing this proper mental health care could be. You do not need a very vivid imagination to foresee that there will be many effects, once children reach adulthood, if some of the issues with which they are trying to deal in childhood are not adequately cared for and are allowed to get worse as they approach adulthood, not least at a time when they have to go out into the world and live on their own. That is an important point and it was well made.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, if I noted her point down correctly, talked about the resources being targeted at need rather than category. I very much agree, as she will know. Despite what the Minister said, I do not doubt that the Government are committed to other forms of care but it looks as if this is given a disproportionate amount of attention; it is the only one involved in the Bill, and then there were the remarks—attributed to, I think, the Prime Minister in his speech in November—that further legislation was somewhere in the pipeline,. Those working in the other categories would value something of substance from the Government to say, “We’ve looked to beef up the ability of the adoption sector; now this is what we are doing for the other sectors”. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind and that the Government will come forward with that in due course.

The Minister said that mental health care for children in adoption was a key issue for the Government. I am perfectly willing to accept that, but I come back to the point made on Amendment 2 that there should be an assessment prior to placement. In response to that, the Minister said that assessments were carried out prior to placement but she seemed to say, and I hope that I am quoting her correctly on this, that both types of assessments—that is, physical health assessments as well as mental—were included. That is very welcome, but it is not understood by the organisations involved in adoption, judging by the comments they have made to me and other noble Lords as the Bill has progressed through its various stages. It therefore might be helpful if she could write to me, perhaps to expand a bit about what mental health assessments are given prior to placement, as I think everyone involved sees that as a key issue.

The Minister also mentioned the £4.5 million that the Government have provided to accelerate the establishment of the regional adoption agencies. While that is welcome, I made the point in moving the amendment that that is seen to be if not running dry then already running a bit thin, and I wanted some assurance of what might follow that. She mentioned another sum of £12.5 million. I do not know whether that will be used in the same way. Some of it might be, but certainly the feeling among the adoption agencies is that £4.5 million will get things started but will not take the whole process very much further, and that additional resources will be necessary.

When the Minister assured me that the Department for Education works closely with the Department of Health, I thought, “Well, of course you would say that, wouldn’t you?”. However, a serious point is: how will the progress of implementing the recommendations of Future in Mind be reported? How can they be monitored and made available to organisations in the field that are involved in their delivery to some extent but which also care about being able to trace the effectiveness of those recommendations that are put into place? Some form of reporting would therefore certainly be valuable. Again, I ask either of the Ministers whether they would be prepared to write about that, because £1.25 billion, which is over a five-year period, is a huge sum of money—although I am not sure when the five-year period started. I think I am right in saying that Future in Mind was published in 2012 but I do not know whether that was the start of the five-year period. However, that is one of the questions that may well be answered in the Minister’s response.

We have had a number of helpful comments from the Minister. Those involved will be happy to take some of them forward and, I hope, to build on them, but at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.