Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Agnew of Oulton and Baroness Smith of Malvern

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am glad that the noble Lord reinforced my point—I think I am in big trouble with my son for having outed him in this debate. I am glad to hear that other excellent teachers have experienced this training. The noble Lord makes a very fair point. I will certainly go back to my colleagues in the department and say that, in reality, if we want people to be trained and updated on Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance, and if we expect that to happen at an inset day at the start of a school year, it would be a good idea if the guidance was there in time for them to be able to do that. That is a fair request.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her answers. I reassure her that I was not trying to suggest that this is a whole new scale of undertaking for teachers. My noble friend Lady Barran was right: I was trying to understand the scale of it, because this is a big and complex Bill. The Minister was helpful in saying that her son, who is dealing with this on the front line, feels that one inset day will be sufficient for the kind of familiarisation that will be needed. I am not trying to put words in her mouth. I am trying to say that, in my experience, a Bill of this complexity will need quite a lot of CPD for our teaching cohort—that is where I am coming from.

We have a specific amount of time available, because of the 1,265 rule, which, again, we will work to. Every hour that is taken away from what teachers are doing at the moment is one that has to be filled. I take absolutely at face value what the Minister has said, and I am encouraged that she has in her immediate life someone who can give her front-line experience. I genuinely mean that, because that is where I am coming from. I tabled this amendment because head teachers in my academy trust had asked me to clarify the situation. It was put forward with the best of intentions.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Agnew of Oulton and Baroness Smith of Malvern

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. Clearly, the family decision-making groups are extremely important, and we are discovering them rather late in the day. I could have said this on any of the other amendments involving family groups, but this one particularly caught my eye because of the emphasis on an evidence-based approach. The Scottish Government have had this for nearly 10 years, which gives us a tremendous opportunity to learn from the successes and failures they have experienced over that time. How much contact has the Minister had with her Scottish colleagues to learn from the best and the worst, and what has she taken from that to put into this Bill?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The fifth group we are debating comprises only one amendment, but we have had some useful contributions. However, quite a few of the arguments that I would make in response to this group were those that I made earlier in response to the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Armstrong on the need for evidence-based practice and on the use of proven approaches such as that of family group conferencing. I will repeat some of the points I made and respond to some of the particular issues that have arisen.

On the last point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, I do not know the extent to which we have reviewed the experience in Scotland, but as we discussed earlier, we have looked extremely carefully at the research carried out by Foundations that we talked about earlier and the recommendations and approach that it brought forward.

I agree with the intention behind this amendment that we should ensure that family group decision-making follows an evidence-based approach and is co-ordinated by trained facilitators. That is very important, and I liked the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on this point about qualifications, and in this particular context he has identified a little discrepancy in the position of some noble Lords opposite.

The noble Earl, Lord Effingham, refers to the LGA saying that it thought that we should make it clear in guidance what that evidenced-based approach is. I wholly agree with him and the LGA, and that is why we will use statutory guidance to set out clear principles of practice, building on the evidence from successful models, such as the family group conference approach, to ensure that all families are offered quality family group decision-making. That includes people being trained to do it.

On the point about independent co-ordination, I made the point earlier that while I think that in the vast majority of cases it is right that there is independent facilitation, there might be circumstances where the family want the process to be run by a social worker who is somebody they have a very strong ongoing relationship with.

On the point about private family time, it is obviously an important potential part of the process that the family have the opportunity together, with appropriate preparation, to consider what would be appropriate for them, but here as well there could be circumstances—the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, referred to the issue of domestic abuse, for example—in which it would not be appropriate to leave only the family to lead that decision-making if there were fears that there was a dynamic within the family that perhaps made it important for there to be somebody else as part of that process. I think people could envisage a situation in which that happened.

This is not to say—I think this charge was made earlier —that the Government take a laissez-faire approach to the way in which family group decision-making is developed. We do not want to see a thousand flowers bloom, as was suggested by my noble friend Lady Armstrong earlier on; we want to see the right evidenced-based flowers blooming. In order to make sure that is the case, we will be very clear in the statutory guidance about the approach that needs to be taken when organising family group decision-making. I hope I was clear about that earlier on.

There is also a need to ensure that suitable people and resources are there, and that is why the Government have committed to an uplift of £13 million for the children’s social care prevention grant for 2025-26, which will be used to support the rollout of family group decision-making across the country for all families on the edge of care, including for recruiting or training extra staff to facilitate that process. On the basis of those assurances, I hope the noble Earl will feel able to withdraw the amendment.