Children and Social Work Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Howarth of Breckland(8 years, 6 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Nash
As we have not done it, I cannot produce any evidence. However, given that the profession very recently failed to do it—and it seems to follow that it is unlikely suddenly to be able to get its act together quickly—and given the sense of urgency that we have about improving the quality of social work, we believe that if we put the forces of government behind this, we will be able to do it quickly.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
I am sorry; I do not understand. Perhaps the Minister can help me. What does that mean? Who will be doing this? Who will ensure that the profession is improving? Who in government will do that? I am sure that it will not be the Secretary of State, so will it be officials—and how much experience do they have—or will there be people in the executive agency who will have experience? It is a serious question because I think it is crucial to know which personnel are going to be responsible for this terribly important task.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Howarth of Breckland(8 years, 7 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, which is particularly concerned that the national panel is too closely controlled by the Secretary of State. The association believes that that risks politicising the serious case review process. If reviewers are to identify the root cause of safeguarding failings, the association believes that they must be fully independent of government control to ensure that they are able to consider without undue influence whether changes are required at both the national and the local level. The association also believes that to ensure that reviews of national significance are able to pass comment on the impact of national policies without undue influence, they must be able to identify these root causes, again without undue political interference. I therefore support Amendments 101 and 102.
It is important to recognise that the Local Government Association, which wants to work with this process and take some of it forward, has these concerns. We are in this position as a result of having so little time to look at these amendments. The basic principles are probably ones with which we would all agree but there are some fundamental flaws in the way the process is being put together.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, for their amendments relating to the arrangements for the new child safeguarding practice review panel set out in Clause 11, and for the observations of the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Howarth.
Amendment 101 raises an important issue, which is that both Houses should have an opportunity to scrutinise regulations in secondary legislation where it is appropriate to do so. Noble Lords will be aware that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has issued its report on the clauses within the Bill. I hope that noble Lords can be reassured that while the DPRRC commented on other clauses, it raised no concerns about this one. The arrangements that will be made in respect of the establishment of the panel set out high-level matters that relate to the processes, arrangements and administration of the panel rather than matters of substance that the Houses would need to debate. This clause covers processes and arrangements. I will turn to the question of regulations in a later discussion on the functions of the panel. This clause provides for the making of arrangements that are necessary to enable the functioning of the panel which may include clarity around such matters as reporting and its day-to-day operation.
Amendment 102 seeks to involve the Education Select Committee in the appointment of the chair. I would expect the appointment of the chair to be subject to a full and open Cabinet Office public appointments process involving advertisements for the position, applications and formal interviewing. Panel members could also be subject to this process if that were deemed necessary. I would expect the number of panel members to be sufficient to enable the effective operation of the panel and for the chair to be able to draw on the expertise that he or she considers necessary for the right decisions to be made about individual cases. We would of course welcome any views that the Education Select Committee may have, but we do not believe that we should prescribe a pre-appointment hearing. In view of this, I hope that the noble Lord will feel sufficiently reassured to withdraw the amendment.
Care Leavers: Life Chances
Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Howarth of Breckland(8 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Nash
I am grateful for my noble friend’s support. I agree entirely that we want the principles to be embraced by a wide group of organisations—charities, the private sector, businesses and public sector agencies—and that is what the care leaver covenant is all about. It will be a promise from the nation to care leavers that anyone who leaves care will be treated fairly and given the support they need to make the best of their opportunity to make a successful transition to adulthood. It will be a commitment to support care leavers through the way in which we deliver services, the opportunities provided, promoting the covenant and getting others to sign up.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
I apologise; I did not see the noble Baroness. The Minister will know that the children who do worst at school and in life are those on child protection plans, rather than those coming into care. How will the Government ensure that such children have good parenting, either by being maintained in their own homes or being in permanent placements that will give them that life chance?
Schools: Academies
Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Howarth of Breckland(8 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Nash
I will give the noble Baroness an independent view from the chief inspector, who believes that every school should be an academy. As for local authorities, of course there are a lot of high-performing local authorities and we very much hope that people there will continue to be involved, by spinning out and setting up academy trusts. As I said in an Answer last week, no strong schools will close as a result of the policies in the White Paper. Indeed, we think that many rural schools will be much stronger working together in multi-academy trusts. There are very strict rules about the closure of small and rural schools, and I expect that all such considerations will continue in the future in relation to all rural schools.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, I have a slightly different angle on this Question. Where there is a playgroup that wishes to join a primary school that is an academy, because it wants to get that continuous stream of education through the playgroup, the primary school and into the secondary schools, what kind of help do the Government give to that playgroup?
Children: Drugs
Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Howarth of Breckland(8 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, the Minister will be well aware of the importance of work with families, and that there has been a substantial increase in respect of Section 47—child protection—and Section 17, which concerns children in need. I quote the sections to underline the statutory nature of the work for local authorities. We understand that, because of this increase, Section 17 work—the preventive work—is being reduced by local authorities. Is that not just the work that is needed for children living with families where drug abuse is high?
Schools: Funding
Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Howarth of Breckland(8 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister also share my concern about services for under-fives, which I know he has come across, where specialist services are funded by local authorities at their whim? I hope that when he is reviewing the schools programme he will also look at under-five services and ensure that they get an equal proportion of funding.
Childcare Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Howarth of Breckland(9 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the work that has been put into this Bill and I welcome it. I also thank him for the meetings that he arranged, which were extraordinarily informative and helpful, together with the documentation, which I have looked at but needs quite a lot of study to get a grip on the numbers.
I have two points. Like the Minister, I am keen to see implementation, so I am delighted that there will be projects moving forward early. How will the lessons that are learned from these early projects be applied to looking again at regulations, and how can we improve any further projects, which look rather like pilots, if I can use that word? I should be pleased to know how that learning is carried forward.
Listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, I, too, have a concern that some of the poorest and most disabled children will not gain access to this funding. I have spoken to the Minister on a number of occasions about autistic children and children in specialist care provided by the non-governmental sector where it is very much at the whim of the local authority as to whether someone gains funding for their project. Can we at some point look at that? As far as I can see, the eligibility criteria have been changed because of the financial ceiling that is available for this work to go forward. Knowing how keen the Minister is on children and their education, and on giving them a good start, maybe in the lifetime of this Parliament, more children will be able to enjoy the benefits of early childcare places. When we learn about the benefits, maybe another childcare Bill will be introduced in the future.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones, Lady Pinnock and Lady Howarth, who have spoken in the debate. Their contributions in today’s debate emphasise the extensive knowledge and experience of childcare policy across the House. This is a widely supported manifesto commitment, much anticipated by parents who want the Government to provide more help with their childcare costs. It is very pleasing to hear support across the House and the other place for the aims of the Bill and the Government’s commitment.
As has been highlighted during the passage of the Bill, we all recognise the benefits that free childcare can bring. This includes supporting those who are most disadvantaged by increasing their social mobility through providing opportunities to work or work more, rather than the availability of quality affordable childcare being a barrier to getting on. The amount of detail and certainty about the funding settlement for early years has increased significantly since noble Lords last debated this Bill, as I said earlier. As we have heard today from the announcements of the spending review, we are looking at a really positive position for early years. We have gone over and above our promise by investing a record amount in childcare and making a clear commitment to paying more to those providers who wish to deliver the free entitlement.
We want the increased rate to enable and encourage providers to deliver the entitlement. Following our comprehensive review of the cost of childcare and our significant additional investment, we are confident that this will happen. We firmly believe that we have established a sustainable rate for providers, taking into account the evidence that we gathered throughout our cost of childcare review. The upfront nature of our funding uplift, coupled with the introduction of a national funding formula, will help providers to manage future cost pressures, such as the introduction of the national living wage. We are confident in the work of the cost of childcare review, and there is no case for establishing a bureaucratic and costly process that repeats the review on an ongoing basis. The Government will monitor the implementation of 30-hour free childcare, for example, through the early implementers, and if any issues arise relating to funding they will be considered in the context of delivery of the whole policy.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Pinnock, talked about eligibility. Parents will be eligible where they work the equivalent of 16 hours at national minimum or national living wage, whichever applies to them. The Government have also taken the decision to introduce a higher earnings threshold, so that where parents earn more than £100,000 per year each, they will not be eligible for the additional hours. I remind noble Lords that all three and four year-olds remain eligible for the first 15 hours of free childcare, which remains universal. We estimate that the additional 15 hours will benefit around 390,000 children.
As noble Lords will be aware, the free entitlement hours sit within a wider package of childcare support available to parents. This package includes the universal 15 free hours for three and four year-olds and disadvantaged two year-olds, tax-free childcare, and universal credit, under which parents can receive up to 70% of their childcare costs, increasing to 85% from April this year.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is quite right about the 600,000 figure. This was the original estimate of the families who could benefit from the extended entitlement, but that included children in reception classes who could choose to stay in an early-years setting. The effect of the revised eligibility criteria is nowhere near as dramatic as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, referred to. It is a reduction of 50,000 places, of which 9,000 are as a result of the income cap. Parents on zero-hours contracts will be included if they meet the minimum income requirement. In addition, part-time workers may well be able to access the entitlement and remuneration. It is important to note that they will all access the existing early education entitlement.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, for her remarks. The intelligence from early implementation will inform us about operational issues and market challenges as we finalise the functioning of the operational delivery system, enabling us to adjust our plans as we move towards full rollout in September next year. Shared learning from early implementation will provide us with early intelligence on how we can refine the system ahead of that time. The department has established a local authority working group, which the Minister, Sam Gyimah, met with in January. It will feed real-time intelligence back to the department on learning from the early implementers.
The noble Baroness also raised the case of disabled children, which is obviously an extremely important issue that was discussed at length by the Bill Committee in the other place and which I know is of interest to many noble Lords. The review found that the nature and level of support required by children with special educational needs and disabilities can vary significantly for each child, as does the prevalence of additional needs across each setting. The cost estimates reported in the review made allowances for these factors, but the review is very clear that funding for children with additional needs in the early years cannot be solved with a one-size-fits-all approach. In response, the Minister for Childcare has committed to consider early-years funding for children with special educational needs and disabilities as part of our wider consultation on allocation and a fairer funding system. The department is now working with the sector and local authorities on how this might work.
The message is clear: the Government are on the side of working parents, helping them to get on and supporting them at every stage of their life. That is why we are pressing ahead with these reforms, going further than ever before to help with childcare costs, help hardworking families and give people the choice to get into work or work more hours. This will all lead to having the right childcare in place, which will mean more parents can have a genuine choice, security and peace of mind when it comes to being able to support their family. The Bill clearly delivers on those objectives, and I hope that noble Lords will support the Government’s amendments.