Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Farmer

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for bringing forward this welcome amendment—Amendment 2. It follows an amendment I tabled in Committee and on Report, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern and my noble friend Lady Hodgson put their names. I am grateful to them for their enthusiastic support and for speaking so eloquently in the various debates. I tabled that amendment because it would remedy a serious omission in the list of the areas of support that local authorities are required to include in their local offer.

Recently, North Tyneside Council rallied staff across the authority to improve the employment outcomes of care leavers. Experience taught the council that it would need to be very intentional about ensuring that young people have at least one strong relationship with someone who genuinely and obviously thinks they matter. The council also knew that it would have to help them be part of a supportive network. This emphasis had to be explicitly stated if it was to become embedded in everyone’s practice.

There is a dynamic to this: it is not simply a case of providing young people with an adult who will keep in touch with them and to whom they can turn. Young people need to know how to maintain and grow relationships and how to work through conflict and avoid destructive feuds. Disruptions in attachment processes often lead to an understandable but ultimately vicious circle of an “I’ll reject them before they reject me” pattern of behaviour. Many long for independence far earlier than they can handle it because they do not want to be let down again. Furthermore, our individualistic culture seems to endorse the natural inclination to go it alone and avoid hurt. Not having relationships to draw on can also result in these young people being unbearably lonely, which can have severely negative effects on their health and well-being. It can undermine their education, their ability to maintain a tenancy or other accommodation and manage work, and their financial security. If they do not understand bills, they can easily get into arrears and debt, which can be quite terrifying. Such life skills often develop through a process of guided mastery—encouragement and guidance from someone who is genuinely concerned about them.

In summary, healthy and supportive relationships are fundamental to the other five areas included in the local offer. The Government’s amendment has the potential to tackle the haphazardness of current arrangements which mean that it is not automatic, and is probably highly unlikely, that young people will receive help and advice in the area of relationships.

Given the careful attention that the Minister and his team paid to this matter, I hope that this amendment is a portent of a more relational approach in many other areas of policy. Given the enthusiastic support from across the House that this amendment has received, I am sure that many other noble Lords would agree.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for his work and persistence in this area. I recall a 28 year-old woman with experience of the care system who recently married a lovely man, an accountant. She had had the most terrible start in life and never met her father until she was 16. She talked in public about her experience at university and the relationships she had with the women with whom she shared a house while at university, who visited her and comforted her when she often fell into depression and withdrew to her room and isolated herself. I commend the noble Lord for his perseverance on this matter. I am very grateful to the Minister for listening to him and bringing forward this amendment today.