Support for Infants and Parents etc (Information) Bill [HL]

Lord Meston Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 6th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, it is impossible to disagree with anything said in this debate so far. The motives and thinking behind the Bill cannot be questioned: seeking to support the physical and emotional development and security of any child’s crucial early years, and underpinning initiatives already in place. The Bill would require a local authority to make information available about existing support services in their area, but it should be recognised that the proposed duty would not make support available from local authorities which would not otherwise be provided.

Moreover, beyond the primary duty to publish the information about services on a local authority’s website, the duty to go further in bringing information more directly to the attention of parents and carers is qualified by the terminology used in Clause 1(4), which leaves a discretion with expressions such as

“by any other means it considers appropriate”

and

“such steps as it considers appropriate”.

In most normal situations, new parents will have only limited contact with those who might provide the information the Bill wishes them to have, so local authorities will have only limited opportunities to convey it to individual parents and carers. Presumably, this can and will be done through the NHS, involving midwifery and health visiting services, and, I suggest, on registration of birth, which still requires a face-to-face appointment. In addition, social media and messaging will play a part, but I suggest we resist the temptation to see that as a panacea and certainly not as a substitute for direct contact, where possible.

Clause 1(3) refers to services available to prospective carers, as well as to others. It is therefore to be hoped that the benefits of the Bill will extend to other family members who find themselves taking responsibilities of kinship care or are considering doing so, not necessarily just in respect of children under the age of two. Kinship carers may be called on at short notice and will need to be supported as soon as they are known to the local authority.

I do not wish to take more time on the mechanics of the provision of information, which no doubt will be covered by guidance. Rather, I wish to raise questions about the reach of the information and support on offer. I look at the Bill by reference to my experience as a family court judge, dealing mainly with public and private law cases relating to children, which inevitably have a short and long-term impact on those children, their parents and wider family. They also have severe financial impact on hard-pressed local authorities. It is estimated that the total cost of care proceedings to the state each year is £1.2 billion, with a single public law case costing a local authority on average £120,000. This total annual cost incurred by central and local government represents 10% of all direct annual expenditure on the children’s social care system.

Anything the Bill can do to prevent litigation and to mitigate those costs must be of value. However, it has to be recognised that there are limitations. Some of the most complex cases that come before the family courts concern newborn children with mothers who have unaddressed drug or alcohol addiction, or mental health difficulties. The baby’s early weeks in hospital may have to be spent withdrawing from the drugs ingested in pregnancy. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, referred to foetal alcohol syndrome, which of course causes even worse long-term problems.

Typically, the mother will not have had or kept prenatal appointments, even if her pregnancy was known to the health services, which is not always the case. There may be little or no reliable family support available to her; there may be a background of intergenerational problems. These are the parents who are likely to be resistant or indifferent to the provision of advice and information. It is not through any fault, but they can lack insight and tend to make things more difficult for themselves. They can be mistrustful of children’s services, and resentful and dismissive of advice and help, fearing stigma and outside involvement. Sadly, those parents and their wider families—who are difficult to identify and engage—can also be the people most in need of the support which might be on offer.

Accordingly, all those who receive and might benefit from the information to be provided in accordance with the Bill will need to be given the confidence to find and use the support services offered. Visible and accessible support services will depend on the further development of the network of local family hubs. In the area in which I was the designated family judge, there is an excellent and well-regarded family hub aiming to provide holistic support from pre-birth onwards. The guide for all such hubs, issued in August 2022, set a high bar when it stated:

“The workforce should proactively reach out to vulnerable and seldom-heard families”.


It is therefore to be hoped that the present Government will extend the distribution and reach of family hubs, particularly, but not exclusively, in areas of deprivation and confirm a commitment to those hubs.

I will make two further points. First, the saddest statistic relating to care proceedings is that at least one in four women will return to court having had a previous child removed. The struggle to prevent recurrent removals has been highlighted by research done by the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory. Too often, some mothers have reacted to the removal of a child or baby with an ill-considered decision to have another baby, with all too often the same consequences. These are often mothers who find it so difficult to seek or accept help. For the courts, they can be truly wretched cases to deal with. Therefore, I repeat the hope that this Government will endorse the intensive support from, and expert work by, the charity Pause in the prevention of the cycle of removals. Pause has pointed out that the point at which a child is removed is also the point at which the mothers lose access to support and information, leaving them more vulnerable to further removals. These may not be “prospective parents” within the meaning of the Bill as currently drafted, but they are clearly parents who may later have children again in their care and who clearly have a continuing need for information, support and advice. I therefore hope that consideration is given to the use of this Bill to address the predicament of these parents and to reduce the misery and expense of their cases.

Secondly, I ask that the Government indicate their response to the powerful recent report by the Centre for Justice Innovation about Family Drug and Alcohol Courts—FDACs. They are truly problem-solving courts which achieve considerable savings and better outcomes for children and their families.

This Bill is to be applauded, but I suggest that some modest amendments could be made. These should be seen as steps that will greatly add value and save the costs of later and more complicated interventions by local authorities when children are older and the family’s difficulties more entrenched. The provision in Clause 3 for an annual report is welcome; it will allow for monitoring of compliance and will provide an overview, as the clause itself states.

As to amendments, I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said about trying to avoid overloading the Bill. However, I cannot help noting that the short title contains the abbreviation “etc”. I remember a legislative purist telling us to be wary of any Bill that contained that abbreviation in its short title; however, in this case, perhaps the use of that wording may give permissible scope for the sort of amendments suggested.

The Government have stated their wish to “fix the foundations”. If this Bill helps to reinforce the stability of children and future generations, it will indeed help to fix the foundations for children and underpin relationships within families.