Vulnerable Teenagers

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, as a young teacher in Tullibody, in Clackmannanshire, in the 1980s, I had a bit of a reputation for being tough in the classroom, only because I wanted to make sure that the kids from the deprived communities locally had the same chances as the kids at the perceived to be much better school down the road. One of my big things was to make sure that the kids would do their homework; I would pursue them relentlessly to make sure that they brought it in on time.

One year, there were two girls in a class who consistently did not manage to meet the homework target. One day in the class, when I was being particularly heavy with them about this failure, they broke down into tears, and I asked them to wait behind afterwards in the classroom. It became clear in the discussion I had with them that the reason they could not do their homework was not that they did not want to do it, and not that they were not enjoying the subject or did not want to make things better for themselves, but that the children’s home they lived in in the local town was absolutely chaotic. Not only was there no table or place for them to do their homework or study at night but the noise and chaos in the environment meant that, even if there had been a table, it would not have been possible. I resolved that day to work to try to change that situation in any elected or public position that I held.

I partly kept that going, when, at the same time, in Stirling, as a local councillor, I came across a group of young break-dancers. There had been complaints from the local community in St Ninians that the local boys were causing so much trouble and noise that it was really disruptive to the community and the police or somebody had to do something about it. It became obvious in talking to the community, and then to the boys, that the core of this was about an area where the boys would start break-dancing, which would then break out into trouble in the local area.

They wanted to dance. At the council we hired a guy called Royston Maldoom who was a community contemporary dance consultant. He set up a group called Stirling Youth Dance. Some of these boys went on to practice professionally; one of them trained at the Ballet Rambert in Paris. These were boys who just needed an opportunity and a channel through which to seize that opportunity. In one year, in Stirling back in the 1980s, I saw on one side the despair of failure for kids who were looking for hope; and, on the other side, hope for kids who were staring failure in the face. That is one of the reasons why I absolutely welcome and congratulate my noble friend Lady Armstrong on securing this debate this afternoon and congratulate the remarkable Anne Longfield and her team for this outstanding report.

I should declare a number of interests in the register and elsewhere. I am an ambassador for Action for Children, a vice-president of UNICEF UK, a trustee of a mentoring charity, MCR Pathways, I was a member of the same Parliamentary advisory group as my noble friend Lady Armstrong on this report, my own foundation, the McConnell International Foundation, is active in this field and I am a patron of the Diana Award. There are so many great organisations working in this field, and they work not just in one country but across the UK, so although this report refers specifically to England, I want to make my remarks in the context of what I think should become a more united and comprehensive effort across the whole of the UK.

There were issues that were the core of my work as Education Minister and First Minister that I have always felt needed a long-term perspective and consistency to make a difference. One issue was knife crime, and we have debated in this Chamber before the work of the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit in Glasgow, which had cross-party support and survived all the political ups and downs in Scotland over the years to be a big success because it was a long-term project. Another was child protection reform. A number of children had died through neglect back around 2000, and child protection changes that were made then, again with cross-party support, were sustained over a long period and have made a real difference in Scotland on that front too.

However, I think that over the years we have failed to do this with looked-after children and vulnerable teenagers. It is partly because all the initiatives, the policies and the funding for looked-after children and vulnerable teenagers are subject to the whim of individual Ministers, and they change and move around, and they go up and down as a result of changes in Governments and leaders. In my view that is the key thing that we have to stop, and I welcome the fact that this report calls for consistency.

The situation facing these teenagers should shame all of us in public life and all of us in the professions that serve them, as I was once. The kids in the care of the state in this country have the worst outcomes. In many cases, they have the worst expectations. They certainly have the worst experiences and, ultimately, they have the worst lives. In the 21st century, the lack of consistent, cross-party focus, policy and priority for these kids has gone on for far too long. Sadly, these kids with chaotic lives face chaotic services and chaotic support. They fall into a spiral of neglect and abuse. There is a lack of support for special needs. They also face condemnation rather than second chances. They damage themselves, they damage our society and they go on to damage their own kids as well. It goes on from generation to generation. Some of them fall into aggression. They perhaps choose the perceived safety of gang to help them survive. Some of them simply fail in education or to find fulfilling work, they fail to find a stable family which they can head in the future and they certainly fail to be happy and, sadly, some of them take their own lives. We should take this seriously.

Anne Longfield is a remarkable individual. Her voice on behalf of these kids is powerful, relentless and consistent, and her commission has done a remarkable job in producing this report. I will briefly highlight three of its recommendations. The first is opening schools —and other buildings, I would add—outside school hours and during school holidays. As chair of the charity Cash for Kids in Scotland, I saw the benefits in turning our funding programme for vulnerable kids in the west of Scotland away from taking place just at Christmas each year to supporting them in school holiday periods and the difference that that made on the streets of Glasgow and other towns and cities in the west of Scotland. Providing for kids outside the school environment is just as important as providing for them inside it.

The proposal for massive investment in mental health programming is all the more acutely needed after the disaster of the past three years and the way in which children’s needs were ignored, with school closures and a lack of support during the Covid pandemic. That situation was particularly bad in Scotland; it was even worse than it was in England. I would include in the idea of an army of youth practitioners not just professionals and charity workers but volunteer mentors working with these youngsters and helping them through that difficult teenage transition. Teenagers in the most comfortable homes, with the best chances in life and the most resources find that transition difficult, so it is no wonder that teenagers who live these chaotic lives find it particularly difficult. We also need a genuine partnership, with children coming first and education for all.

I urge not just the Government but all the political parties in the UK—in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—to unite and adopt these recommendations and I urge leaders to work together across the UK and inside the individual nations and local regions of these countries and to use what my old boss, our headteacher back in that school in the 1980s, used to call “stickability” for the kids. The key thing he wanted them to have was stickability; he thought that was the thing that would give them a chance. The thing that might give them a real chance is if leaders, politicians and public agencies have stickability, so let us practice what we preach. I think that a 20-year strategy, passing over more than a generation, with consistency, education and parenting at its core would help to provide and support fulfilling lives and a better life for all.

One of the reasons these kids are left behind is that they do not have a voice. Nobody speaks for them; they cannot speak for themselves. They know what they want to say and what they need, but they are not heard. It is vital that we find a way of embedding in the system the changes that are required so that, even without that voice, they are still heard and supported. I suggest that rather than a triple lock on pensions for those of us who are nearing that age—there are many in the Chamber who might already be over that age—why do we not have a triple lock for vulnerable teenagers? Why do we not say that we will make sure that each of them will finish their education, that each of them will have a mentor to help them through those difficult teenage years and that we will not only invest in them as children but invest in that transition from childhood to adulthood, which is difficult for everybody and almost impossible for them?