Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. As a family lay magistrate who sits in central London, I hear many of the kind of cases about which we have heard today. It is worth repeating the point made by my noble friend: when we sit as a family bench we think primarily about what is in the best interests of the child. We are well aware that while it may be in the best interests of the child to be taken into care, it is not in the best interests of the mother. Many such mothers are themselves children. It is an obvious dilemma when we sit.

My noble friend was right that young women who lose their children, or have them taken away into care, need as much support as possible so that the tragic situation is not repeated again and again, as we see so often in our family courts.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend has made a convincing case for action in this area. We discussed this in Committee and the Minister was sympathetic to the principal points made by my noble friend. However, he put his eggs in the basket of encouraging innovative good practice and referred to his department’s innovation programme and the funding that has been put into the Pause project to support women who have experience or are at risk of repeat removals of children from their care. He argued that it was better to support good practice than to mandate local authorities. I get that up to a point.

However, to pick up on the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, the problem is that we have been talking about innovative good practice in this area for a considerable number of years. As the Family Rights Group chief executive, on behalf of the Your Family, Your Voice alliance and the Kinship Care Alliance, has pointed out, looking at the country as a whole, we are not covering sufficient vulnerable people in the way we know can be successful, as these examples of good practice have shown.

This leaves us with a dilemma. I take the noble Lord’s point about the risks of mandation, but if we cannot see from the Government a determined programme that will ensure that good practice is spread throughout every local authority area, we are forced back into the area of mandation. I hope the Minister will come forward with distinct proposals for how his department will make sure that, in every part of the country, the vulnerable people we are talking about will get the kind of support my noble friend has proposed.

Children and Families Bill

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I support this important amendment, which I knew was coming up today. I was sitting as an adult magistrate in Westminster Magistrates’ Court earlier today, in a general remand court, and I took a note of the type of cases we heard. I had 26 defendants in front of me today, five of whom were in the age range of 18 to 21: a perfectly typical illustration of the age range that we see. Although it is not always obvious in court what someone’s background is, I would make an educated guess, based on their previous criminal history, that four of those five had been in some sort of care: that was not a surprise. The fifth defendant was a foreign national who was only 20 years old and was living rough in London.

This is totally typical of the type of defendants whom I see in my adult work in central London, and that is why I support so strongly the amendment moved by the noble Earl. I would see a similar distribution in my youth work, and this one amendment could make more difference than any other single amendment we are talking about this evening.

[Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, made a point about the age of 21. Noble Lords are sharing their experiences of parenting today, and the thought that my 21 year-old could be launched out into the world now fills me with anxiety. I feel that she is on a bit of elastic, will be coming back every so often and we will be there for her as things go on. I understand the evidence put very eloquently by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for this proposition, which I support. However, this is such an unusual opportunity that I wonder whether we should be saying 21 or 25. It might be pushing it slightly to say 25, but 21 seems so young. This is about making evidence-based policy, so I would be interested to know what the evidence is for the age of 21.

Children and Families Bill

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Grand Committee

The last thing that I want to say is that I really object to this Bill being run at the same time as the Care Bill is on the Floor of the House. There are issues in the two Bills that the Government should see as coming together. This is not a matter for the usual channels, and I say that as an ex-Chief Whip; you cannot go back to the usual channels and say, “That’s what they wanted”. This should be a matter of government determination. These two Bills should be seen as complementary and, therefore, the people who have a commitment to them and an interest in them should be able to contribute and to vote. They are not able to do so at the moment, and I hope that the Minister will take that away and come back with a better answer than we have had to date as to why the two are coinciding in their passage through this House.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to make a brief intervention. I welcome the Minister to his current position. He is not the only new boy; I am a new boy to this subject, although not to this House. I declare an interest in that I sit as a family magistrate, and I have been doing that for about one year now so I regard myself as new to the subject.

I had not intended to speak to this group of amendments but I want to make one point: in my experience, the use of parallel planning for younger children is extremely beneficial. The far more experienced magistrates and district judges who I sit with have told me many times over the past year how effective parallel planning can be. I heard what the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said about the problems of extending parallel planning and how it needs to be carefully looked at, but from what I have seen there would be far more benefit in doing that. It is certainly the case, and I am sorry to have to say this, that you come across wider family groups who have a lot of experience of the family courts and—I use this expression deliberately—know how to play the system. They know how to extend it again and again before the courts make their final decision. If you can have an element of parallel planning in this, that is for the benefit of the child. I will leave it there. That is the point that I wanted to make in support of Amendment 10.

[Lord Nash]

I am grateful to noble Lords for their kind welcome as we start our consideration of this very important Bill. I welcome their challenges and questions as we all seek to do our very best for the children who may be the most vulnerable in our society. We have had a very good discussion and I hope that I can provide some clarification on some of the points. I am happy to write to noble Lords about any issues that I do not pick up, of which I am sure there will be a few.

Turning to the first point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, local authorities have a duty to place a child with the most appropriate placement available and one which best safeguards the child’s welfare. If a local authority is unable to make arrangements for the child to return home, then it must look for someone else who is able to care for the child. This might be through a placement with friends and family. At this point, the local authority must give preference to suitable family and friends carers.

Where there are no suitable family or friends carers able to care for the child, the local authority must make alternative plans for the child outside the family. If adoption is a possible option, then the clause requires the local authority to consider a placement with approved adopters who are also approved foster carers. They will foster the child until the court makes a placement order. In some cases, the local authority will be working to rehabilitate the child with the birth family, with adoption as the alternative if that is not successful. If it is successful, the child will leave the FFA placement and return home. The clause specifically requires that the local authority must first consider family and friends care before going on to consider FFA. At this point, the clause disapplies the duty to give preference to family and friend carers because before considering fostering for adoption, the local authority will already have considered whether the child can return home and, if not, have considered suitable family and friend carers.

However, if a family or friend carer emerges at this stage or after the child has been placed in an FFA placement, the local authority must consider them. If placement with these family or friend carers is the most appropriate for the child, the local authority must move the child. We must remember that this is a duty to consider fostering for adoption, not to place. It will not be suitable for all children but for those for whom it is right, it allows them to move in with their potential permanent family much earlier.

In Amendment 10 the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Jones, propose a duty to seek to identify a family or friend carer when a local authority has concluded that a child should be looked after but before applying for the care order. There is the potential that this could lead to a delay in making a care order application for a child who may be in danger of significant harm. This would be contrary to the duty of the local authority to safeguard and promote that child’s welfare. It is a principle of the Children Act 1989 that the local authority must first look to place a looked-after child with a family and friends carer, as I have said, if they are unable to be returned to their parents. It is of course right that the child should be kept safe while arrangements are made for an appropriate placement.

I agree that establishing what family support is available is essential in pre-proceedings. Family group conferences are one particular way of achieving this. This Government are committed to the use of family group conferences at all stages of the involvement of children’s services with families. We are currently funding the Family Rights Group over a two-year period to implement a framework of accreditation. However, we would not wish to make them compulsory as they will not be suitable for all families in all circumstances, not least because the families themselves must agree to one.

It is clear, and understandably so, that the noble Baronesses’ proposed clause has been prompted in part by the concern that more rapid proceedings might make it difficult for family members to put themselves forward to care for a child. However, we have put in place the necessary measures to allow for extensions to care proceedings and for them to be resolved justly. There is no limit on the number of extensions that can be granted. I hope that the noble Baronesses will feel reassured by this and consider that a new clause would not be necessary.

On Amendment 8, regarding placements with siblings, I spoke briefly about the first part of this amendment. With regard to its second part and the points made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Jones, about siblings, it might be that in some circumstances it would be in the child’s best interest to be placed with or near a sibling. However, we are talking about the placement of a child with foster parents who may go on to adopt him. It will not always be the case that adoption is being considered as an option for the child’s sibling. It may not be in his or her best interests to be adopted together with a sibling. It must be for the local authority in each case to decide what is in the best interests and what is the most appropriate placement for each child in a sibling group. I hope that the noble Baronesses will agree that Amendment 8 would therefore not be appropriate in this context.

I turn to the trigger point for the duty to consider fostering for adoption. A number of arguments have been put forward about the point at which the duty should bite. Your Lordships will have seen that the government amendment enables a fostering for adoption placement to be considered from the point when the local authority starts to think about adoption as an option for the child to the point at which the local authority is authorised to place the child for adoption with prospective adopters. We believe that this will enable local authorities to consider fostering for adoption for a child at any point during the care journey for children for whom this type of placement is appropriate. This is consistent with other early placement practices such as concurrent planning—a practice that the Select Committee recommended should be promoted more widely.

What is meant by “considering adoption”? The term comes from the Adoption Agencies Regulations 2005 and its concept is very familiar to adoption agencies. “Considering adoption” means considering it as an option for the child. A local authority may be considering adoption at different stages during a child’s care journey. In some rare cases, it might even be before the child comes into care or, as in a concurrent planning scenario, where the local authority is working with the birth parents to return the child home but has adoption as the alternative plan should rehabilitation fail. In some cases adoption will be the only option being considered and in others it will be one of several.

I appreciate the concerns raised about the term “considering adoption”, which some feel might be misinterpreted and lead to rushed decisions about whether adoption is an appropriate option before all other options have been carefully assessed. The clause requires that when a local authority is considering adoption as an option it also considers fostering for adoption. It will be for the local authority in each case to decide whether the chances of the child going on to be placed for adoption are sufficiently high for a fostering for adoption placement to be the most appropriate one for him or her. Cases where there is robust evidence and background history about the child’s birth family could support the need for such radical intervention. Using “considering adoption” as the trigger would also cover concurrent planning cases.

We have explained in more detail what is meant by the term “considering adoption” in draft statutory guidance, which the Minister for Children and Families promised to provide. We will consult on the draft guidance soon and would welcome all comments on how it could be improved. Amendments 4, 5 and 9 propose alternative trigger points. I hope that the noble Baronesses will agree that the government amendment best delivers on the objective of the policy and will agree not to press their amendments.