Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lang of Monkton (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened with growing admiration to the wealth of experience and knowledge that has emerged from all corners of the House this afternoon. I cannot compete with that myself, but I rise to speak on behalf of the Constitution Committee, which published a report on the Bill yesterday having agreed it at our meeting last Wednesday. Since then, the Opposition have tabled the amendment shown on the Order Paper. I note that it prays in aid our committee and two others of your Lordships’ committees. I cannot speak for them, but the Constitution Committee has not reviewed the amendment; and anyway, being an independent all-party committee of the House, it would not in my view deem it appropriate to associate ourselves with or comment on an unusual political initiative of this kind, either in respect of its wording or its motive.

As your Lordships know, the Constitution Committee scrutinises all government legislation that comes before the House. Where we decide it may be helpful to your Lordships to consider certain aspects of a Bill that we believe could have constitutional implications, we draw attention to them in, I hope, measured and impartial terms, with the suggestion that your Lordships may wish to consider them during progress of the Bill. That is what I would like to do today, as a way, I hope, of assisting with Committee stage.

However, before I do that, I will briefly express the personal view that this is an important Bill, which contains wholly admirable measures that should advance the interests of looked-after children in England and Wales, of child protection and of those leaving care, as well as setting up a new regulatory regime for the English social work profession. “No child held back” is an aspiration that surely deserves our full support. I welcome the breadth and depth of detail in the first part of the Bill, much of which might in the past have appeared in secondary legislation or in schedules. That is progress, and Rome was not of course built in a day. Secondary legislation does feature later on, but it replaces in a more focused way the previous regime of delegated legislation under powers derived from the 1999 Act. As my noble friend stated in his opening speech, only two of the delegated powers now proposed are new, relating to the new arrangements for the professional regulation of social workers.

The general view of the Constitution Committee and my own views on secondary legislation were made clear most recently in the constitutional debate that we held last Thursday and in our sessional report for 2015-16, just published. The Bill was only recently published, and we are still at the very early stages of its scrutiny, but I welcome the assurance my noble friend gave to the House today that he plans to ensure that the draft regulations will be published ahead of Committee. That is something to which our committee would attach great importance. He will know as well as I do that Parliament can scrutinise legislation properly only when it knows how the Government will implement policy and what subsequent delegated legislation will contain.

Turning to the committee’s report and some specific recommendations, I have only three points to raise today. First, on Clause 20, it states:

“We would expect the creation of a significant statutory body, such as a regulator, to be enacted by primary legislative provision to enable proper parliamentary scrutiny. The House may wish to consider whether it is appropriate for the creation of a regulator … to be left entirely in the hands of the Secretary of State, rather than set out to some degree on the face of the Bill”.

I will not develop that theme at this stage but I suggest that it is an issue that might be worth considering further as the Bill progresses.

Next, I draw the House’s attention to Clause 34, which allows the Secretary of State to create offences by regulation. Although such a power is not unknown, we are concerned not only that the proposed criminal offences are undefined but that they will relate to other clauses in the Bill which themselves need to be defined and implemented by regulation. Our report states:

“The House may wish carefully to consider how it can appropriately scrutinise the creation of criminal offences which are not only themselves undefined but which will relate to other legislative provisions that are also still to be delineated”.

The committee made one other point which I should draw to the attention of the House. Clause 14 proposes that a Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel should be able to request information and that those to whom the request is made,

“must comply with the request”.

I would welcome clarification from the Minister on whether he envisages that such material will include material covered by legal or medical privilege and whether an assessment has been made as to whether the restriction of the right of legal or medical confidentiality is necessary and proportionate in this context. I appreciate that those are rather specific and detailed requests but I hope that my noble friend may be able to offer some reaction today. Failing that, of course, we look forward to the normal official response that we would get from the Government in due course.

I conclude by saying that nothing I have said need prevent this excellent Bill from moving without further delay towards enactment.