European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Newby

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 26th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, it is very late and I shall be brief. My noble friend Lady Deech is absolutely right: we can be very proud of the children’s legislation we have in this country. The Children Act 1989 is an outstanding Act for children. We are good at many things: we have great lawyers, great scientists and great soldiers in this country. Unfortunately, we do not do so well at implementing the law. I am particularly concerned here about children’s rights. Let me quickly give some examples.

I have talked to families with a disabled child trying to get access to early years education for their child. They get turned away again and again because the setting does not have the right equipment or staff to deal with them. Look at what is happening in the family courts. They are being overwhelmed by children being taken into care. Year on year, the number of children taken into care increases. Lord Justice Munby, the President of the Family Division, recently said that that is accelerating and that the family courts cannot deal with it. The All-Party Parliamentary Group has looked carefully at why that is over the past two years. It is because there just are not the resources in local authorities to support vulnerable families to stop their children being taken into care.

It is very interesting for me to read Article 24 on the rights of the child:

“Every child shall have the right to maintain on a regular basis a personal relationship and direct contact with both his or her parents, unless that is contrary to his or her interests”.


That right is being compromised day by day in this country. Children are being removed from their families because those families have not had the support they needed to make a go of looking after their child.

This is very difficult and the Government have very difficult choices to make, but if you talk to social workers and academics, you find that this right is being compromised day by day. I know that the Conservative Party, in particular, is concerned to see that families are strong and integrated. I am sure that the Minister will tell me on this article that there are already strong protections in British legislation to ensure that the best interests of the child are maintained and their families are supported to prevent this happening. What is happening on the ground, however, is that because social workers wish to safeguard the children, and because the threshold of access to a social worker is so high, they are getting to see the family when it is in crisis, when things have got to a terrible pass and they think that the interest of the child lies in removing the child from this terrible situation.

If we applied this principle properly, we would be intervening earlier to support those families. We see great examples of that. For instance, the family drug and alcohol court, which is expanding across the country, is supporting parents to get them off drugs and alcohol so that they can keep their children.

A number of important protections for children are laid out here: access to education and so on. I will have a look at the Joint Committee on Human Rights report to see what is exempted here. There is lots of good legislation for children in this country, but when I look at what goes on on the continent in terms of security of tenure in housing or quality of professional care for vulnerable children, I fear that so often they do so much better. My prejudice is that we need this sort of thing.

I worry about the elective dictatorship. We get small groups of very wise and intelligent people leading this country from the way we work constitutionally, and the breadth of experience, the people who get left behind, those just managing families, get forgotten about in the drive to do one or other very good thing which eclipses every other consideration. Being as explicit as one can about the rights of children and the protection for families can be very helpful. We will come back to this, and I look forward to debating it further, but on that specific article, I should be grateful for reassurance as to how it will be protected in future.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, I know how concerned he is about the rights of children, but I wondered whether he had read the joint submission from the Children’s Rights Alliance for England and Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights), which argues forcefully and at length, with many details, and gives many examples of why they wish to have the fundamental charter retained. Why does he disagree with them and wishes it not to be?

[The Earl of Listowel]

I am sorry; it is late. I would like in principle to retain the charter. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is not part of British law, and the charter has been a means of channelling the principles of the UNCRC into British law. We need that. The minimum age of criminal responsibility in this country is 10 years old; we can lock up children of 10 years of age. Even in Turkey—with respect to Turkey—it is 16, and 14 around the continent. We are really harsh with our children and we need such protections.

Economy: Public Finances

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Newby

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I was referring to the Government’s Budget.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the public should also keep in mind the fact that nearly half of local government spending is on adult social care and the care of children, and that includes 14.63% on children? While local government has risen to the challenges to its funding over recent years, there is real concern that it cannot take much more.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the way in which we ensure that local government and all other aspects of government are funded effectively and appropriately is by having a very strong, thriving, sustainable economy. The fact that our growth rate is the highest among the G7, unemployment is down and employment is up, is the biggest long-term guarantor of a sustainable funding basis for local government and, indeed, all other forms of government expenditure.

Greater Manchester

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Newby

Thursday 27th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, we have to look at what has been happening to the Greater Manchester economy and the north-west more generally, where there has been a massive increase in the number of apprenticeships, for example, and a dramatic fall in unemployment. There is specific funding in terms of hundreds of millions of pounds of additional funding for rail developments and to innovative new world-leading developments in the Manchester area, such as the National Graphene Institute.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, in continuing this process of development in Greater Manchester, does the Minister not agree that it is the training and development of the people that are so important? In that regard, will he draw the attention of the leadership of Manchester to the report of my noble friend Lady Howarth on family learning, which was supported by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education? It highlights the effectiveness of family learning for developing skills in the workforce.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, one of the key things about the devolution of powers to Manchester is that it covers some of these areas. For example, services in terms of targeted employment support for vulnerable people have already been devolved to Manchester, and there are others. The “Working Well” pilot is also doing extremely well in that area and other plans on integrating health and social care have been devolved down to Manchester, so what the noble Earl is seeking is all part of that process.

Children: Childcare Costs

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Newby

Thursday 31st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness. She will be aware that the Government have already focused funding on childcare and free childcare for the most vulnerable. That is why we will be increasing the number of two year-olds who get 15 hours’ free childcare from about 20,000—the number funded under the previous Labour Government—to about 260,000. This is one of the most tangible ways of focusing childcare support on people at the bottom end. Those getting that additional free childcare support in the first instance will be children on free school meals and looked-after children—that is, those from the poorest families.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, following the Government’s recent announcement, is the Minister aware of the widespread concern among practitioners about the increasing ratio—to above 3:1—of the very youngest infants to carers? The additional investment in training that the Government have offered to reassure these practitioners is welcome. However, can the Minister go further in reassuring them, given the utmost importance of the highest quality of care for children at this tender age in terms of their future welfare and indeed their future productivity, as well as the deep adverse consequences for them of early poor-quality care in terms of their future outcomes?

[Lord Newby]

Absolutely, my Lords. That is very much the thrust of the proposals that were announced at the beginning of this week. We have looked in particular across the EU, where childcare and nursery care is in some cases thought to be better than in the UK and two things have emerged: first, that we need to have better-qualified people involved and, secondly, that the ratios that the noble Earl spoke about are tighter in the UK than virtually anywhere else. However, the two go together, and that is why in our plans for early years teachers and educators we are putting a lot of emphasis on improving the qualifications of people working in childcare, while having more flexibility in the numbers.