Young People

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, after thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, for tabling this timely debate, I shall confine my contribution to the challenges facing those at the bottom of the pack, namely those young people who become involved with the criminal justice system. I also thank Edward Scott for his very helpful Library briefing.

To begin with numbers, as of June 2018 there were 894 children under the age of 18 in custody. This is a fall of more than 70% over the last 10 years, for which the Youth Justice Board must take much of the credit. Forty-seven of these were aged 14 or under and held in local authority secure children’s homes. Meanwhile 14,077 prisoners, or 17.5% of the total prison population, were classified as young adults in the age group 18 to 24. Young offenders used to be held in separate institutions which were for those aged from 15 to 18, or 18 to 21, or contained both age groups. However, in recent years too many young adults have been held in adult prisons on the grounds that they might grow up more quickly if held with adults, which I believe to be dangerous nonsense. All too frequently, adult prisons have no staff trained to look after or suitable facilities to cater for the educational, work training, social or medical needs of young adults, among whom were many “vulnerable and troubled”, as inspectors reported.

Moving on to the challenge that the YMCA believes causes most harm to young people, when released from custody only 27% of them had a job to go to. In 1991, in his seminal report on the prison riots in 1990, my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf identified the three things most likely to prevent a person reoffending: a home, a job, and a stable or family relationship, all of which were put at risk by the way that imprisonment was conducted. In 2017-18, inspectors gave only 43% of the prisons a positive rating for providing positive activity, finding that much of that provided was mundane, repetitive and rarely linked to resettlement objectives. I have always favoured the regionalisation of prisons, again recommended by my noble and learned friend in 1991, the impact of which I can best illustrate by describing an incident that I saw in a young offender institution which the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, knows well.

At Deerbolt in Barnard Castle, to help solve local skill shortages the local chamber of commerce brought in an aptitude test to see whether any of the young offenders had the potential to fill jobs. I shall never forget the grin that lit up the face of one young man, whose potential had been identified, when he was told that he could be trained in that skill while in prison so that, on release, he had a job to go to with a future. I believe that this could be repeated in every region in the country, thus helping to ameliorate skills shortages and the reoffending problem.

In addition to the 30% of people aged 14 to 21 in the United Kingdom who are living in poverty, 38% of those in secure training centres and 42% of those in young offender institutions have been in care. Forty-six per cent have been excluded from school and at least 70% are suffering from one or more personality disorders, about which virtually nothing is being done. In 1998, when the Office for National Statistics first disclosed this figure, it also found that the type of household they were living in,

“poor intellectual functioning and a history of sexual abuse or of bullying, were the factors most strongly associated with evidence of psychotic disorder”.

All this is on top of too many being locked up in their cells for 23 hours a day, with only limited access to the gym and almost none to playing fields, only 14 hours’ access to education per week, and their exposure to drugs and alcohol. Small wonder that 69% reoffend within a year.

What is to be done about all this? The only raw material that every nation has in common is its people. Woe betide it if it does not do everything possible to identify, nurture and develop the talents of its people—all its people—because unless it does, it has only itself to blame if it becomes a failed nation. I fear that on the evidence of the way that the criminal justice system is failing to respond to the challenges facing young people, that is where this great country of ours may be heading.

Children: Special Educational Needs

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, as I mentioned in answer to an earlier question, we have increased the overall funding for children in need to £6 billion, up from £5 billion in 2013. When we brought in the specific changes to the SEN process in 2014, we allocated some £391 million to this programme, which includes the burdens on local authorities and help for other partners involved, including schools.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as co-chair of the All-Party Group on Speech and Language Difficulties. Do the figures the Minister gave for those on plans include young people in custody?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I cannot answer specifically for young children in custody, but I will add that to the answer to the other noble Lord.

Home Education (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 27th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

I am grateful for that last-minute intervention. Anybody who believed that home education could not produce some pretty emotional responses should have listened to this opening debate or been involved with me in the many meetings and discussions that I have had, including one via Skype for Business, with people all over the country. I think that I have been able to allay some of the fears that people have.

Before I turn briefly to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, let me put all this in context. This Bill is about creating a register. We need to know what is happening and to be able to help. It is a helpful Bill; it is a Bill which we can build on. I commend the Government and the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Addington, to whom I talked yesterday, who are working with me to try to get it right. More needs to be done on it, but we need the Bill because we have no idea where some children are. I have said for many years that some people who home educate do it extremely well and the results are very good. One of my frustrations is that there is virtually no research in this area, and we need some—I have asked some universities to think about that.

A second and bigger group are people who need help in home educating. Precisely as my noble friend Lord Adonis said, children who have been pushed out of school sometimes need help because their parents might want to home educate but cannot, or there may be others who do it but find it a struggle or have difficulty accessing the resources they need—access to laboratories, for example, or access to exams and to having them paid for.

Then there is a small group who have always worried me deeply: those who are taken out of school to be home schooled when in fact it is about radicalisation, trafficking and abuse. Anybody who ignores that is ignoring something very serious.

I agree with the amendment and with the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that we need to look at this. Following my conversation with him yesterday, I think that I need to look at another area where I may be able to help him, because I know that he has a particular concern which will perhaps come up on a later amendment. I also want to thank the Government for having embarked as a result of this Bill on a wide-ranging consultation which enables us to take into account many aspects of the amendments that have been put to the House. I also thank my own Front Bench and my noble friend Lord Watson, who has been incredibly helpful to someone who does not know that much about education in the round but knows a lot about the problems of children caught in impossible situations, not least in trafficking, abuse and radicalisation. The House has to take that very seriously.

I have no problem with the amendment but, if we spend as much time on all the other amendments as we have on this, this Bill will fail. I do not want to discourage people from speaking, but I say to noble Lords that it would be helpful if we could focus on the amendment and keep it brief because, otherwise, there will be no Bill and the Government, whom I commend for working closely with me on this, will be not be able to get through the consultation process that we need to build a Bill that is more fit for purpose than my present one—I believe myself, of course, that it is almost perfect, but I will accept significant changes. I think that we can do that, and it will be to the benefit of home educators who are doing it well and, above all, to children who are at the moment getting a pretty raw deal.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as patron of an organisation called SkillForce, which is probably doing more than any other organisation in the country to help those excluded. It had its genesis when a Territorial regiment in Northumberland was declared redundant. The commanding officer went to the local head of education and asked, “Can you use my NCOs in any way helpful?” He said, “They would be most valuable going round the difficult schools in the north Tyne area and persuading the potential excludees to come back into the school system”. It started under the MoD and it is now an independent charity. It uses ex-military to go into schools to persuade people not to be excluded. When I went into a school in Slough which was at the bottom of the pack, I was told by the headmistress that SkillForce had been responsible for turning her school round, not least because it had persuaded some potential excludees to join the right way.

One reason for my supporting the amendment is the register, because what SkillForce has to do might well benefit some of those being home educated. At the moment, there is no way of connecting the two. I also support my noble friend Lord Falkland, whose daughter’s films I have had the privilege of seeing. They are a remarkable tribute.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 4th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I add a few words to those of my noble friend Lady Pinnock. I particularly thank the Government for the amendments to Clauses 4, 5 and 6, which were in response to a promise made to the noble Baroness, Lady King of Bow, and me during the Bill’s passage through your Lordships’ House. They will certainly improve the position of children in this country adopted from abroad, but, as you would expect, the amendments can only bring those children within the scope of the measures in the Bill.

The battle is not over for the parents of those children, because many of them are now coming to the age where they transfer from primary to secondary school and are having difficulty getting into the school which their parents feel is most suitable for their particular needs. Is the Minister aware that some parents and I have spoken to Mr Edward Timpson about the need to extend priority admissions and pupil premium plus to those children? We are waiting to see whether the Government will make those changes. Will the Minister agree to meet me and some of the parents of those children so that he may hear for himself their concerns? Having said that, they asked me to say that they thank the Government and very much welcome the changes that they have made.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Government for how far they have come since we started work on this Bill in this House many months ago. However, I raise one question, which I raised yesterday in the very helpful drop-in session held by the Minister, which refers to government Amendments 9 and 30. Government Amendment 9 allows children from England and Wales to be held in secure accommodation in Scotland. As we know, the circumstances in which a child looked after by a local authority may be deprived of his or her liberty by placement in secure accommodation are listed in Section 25 of the Children Act 1989.

Government Amendment 30 sets out a new schedule. Paragraph 5 of that schedule refers in particular to the Children (Secure Accommodation) Regulations 1991. It states:

“In regulation 1 … ‘This Regulation and Regulations 10 to 13 extend to England and Wales and Scotland’”.


Does that mean that Regulations 2 to 9 and 13 do not apply to children detained in Scotland? That is very important, because those regulations contain the requirement to obtain the child’s and parents’ consent to a move and the right to independent periodic review. If the regulations as set out in the government amendment are to be believed, those rights are removed from children who are transferred to Scotland.

I suspect that this is either an administrative oversight or has been left out not deliberately but because the implications were not wholly appreciated. I should be grateful if the Minister could clear up this question.

Armed Forces: Capability

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, like many other noble Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, on his admirable introduction and thank him for tabling this important debate. Inevitably with such a predictably large number of speakers and the four-minute time limit, there is little that is new or unknown that anyone can add, but I hope that the aggregation of some common concerns will have impressed itself on government.

Quite apart from being an old soldier, I must declare an interest as a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, and I would like to begin my contribution from that viewpoint.

Like many other members of the Joint Committee, I had hoped that government would have learned its lesson from the disastrous 2010 SDSR, which contained so many imponderables and loopholes. Naively perhaps, we hoped that hints that the 2015 SDSR would follow and be based on a national security strategy would result in just that, because in logic other requirements, such as the comprehensive spending review, could have been based on the national security strategy as well. But no, they were published simultaneously, and I submit that 23 June 2016 rendered both out of date.

Many factors have to be taken into account when planning the defence of the United Kingdom, on which the capabilities of our Armed Forces must be based—not least partnership arrangements with neighbouring countries. Until 23 June, these were with fellow members of the European Union, but now bilateral arrangements will have to be made with each. It is true that some are members of NATO, but its continued existence, in its current US-reliant form, must be in doubt after 20 January, as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and others have pointed out. It is also true that all are members of the OSCE, but since the early 1990s in former Yugoslavia this has not featured on the military horizon.

In thinking about the current inadequacies in each of our Armed Forces, which other noble Lords have spelled out in some detail, I could not help casting my mind back to the options for change exercise in 1991, to which my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig referred. As Adjutant-General, I was responsible for implementing the reduction in the size of the Army by a third over three years, from 156,000 to 104,000. Our key worries about implementing the requirement can be encapsulated in two words—uncertainty and sustainability. Uncertainty coloured our thinking about force structure, in the context of the lessons of the first Gulf War, which included the inadequate size of infantry battalions, not having been assimilated, and the emerging requirement to provide contingencies to peacekeeping operations and post-conflict reconstruction.

Sustainability coloured our thinking about the ratio between cuts to teeth or tail. Noble Lords will therefore appreciate that we wondered whether we were being required to make a jump too far, in isolation of consideration of the current international situation. To jump to today, plans to cut the Army yet further, to 82,000, were made before 23 June, and I submit that that needs to be rethought in the light of the changed international situation.

Of course resources are the key, and we all know that there is unlikely to be any more money. I have mentioned before in this House that Field-Marshal Carver, whose military assistant I was once privileged to be, had two definitions of the word “affordability”—can you afford it, and can you afford to give up what you have to give up in order to afford it? One of my main reasons for calling for a review of both the national security strategy and SDSR 2015 is to enable an affordability test to be carried out on the capabilities of the United Kingdom Armed Forces planned before 23 June 2016 to determine whether they are appropriate in current and future international situations.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, briefly, I support the noble Baroness’s amendment, to which I added my name. I am very grateful to her for bringing this back and to the Minister for the good work that the Government are doing in this area.

I work with a number of people who have experienced care. In particular, I work with Dr Mark Kerr. He did not begin his education until he entered a young offender institution. He now has two degrees and recently obtained his doctorate. He is a great champion and academic working on the needs of young people in care and care leavers, and he always emphasises that mental health has been grossly underestimated in terms of meeting needs. If more young people are to be as successful as he is after coming out of care, we need to do far better at meeting their mental health needs. I am grateful for the work of the Minister and his colleagues in this area, but I think we need to support the noble Baroness if we are to make the difference necessary.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, added my name to the noble Baroness’s amendment, and I echo what she said about the many organisations which have supported it. Many times during the Bill’s passage, mention has been made of the postcode lottery regarding the performance of local authorities around the country. If this assessment procedure is adopted, who will perform the quality assurance of the delivery of the assessment around the country? It cannot be the expert advisory board, which has a completely different purpose.

[Lord Warner (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment, to which I added my name. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, on her persistence on this, which has been well recognised by those who work in the sector.

As a former director of social services, I think it is essential that we recognise the need to assess many of these children. That is not to say that large numbers of them will necessarily progress to the most demanding parts of the system, but we know that if you do not assess and pick these problems up early, they go in only one direction: they get worse. We end up with children who have already had a pretty tough time having to fight their way into a CAMHS system which is itself struggling to cope with the demands made on it. We need to give children coming into care, those who are looked after, a good shot at getting access to the services that they need.

I think that the amendment has met the Government’s concerns about flexibility, which were legitimate. This House and the Government have always argued for parity of esteem between mental and physical health. This is another piece of the jigsaw to try to ensure that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I, too, strongly support the amendment, but as a sceptical old Whitehall warrior, I will open up an issue that may suggest it is not the Minister and his colleagues in his department who might be the villains in this area, but other interests across Whitehall. As I understand it, if the Government accept the amendment they will then have to accept amendments relating to all the other services that are of concern to children. It would be very difficult for them to accept the amendment if they have reservations about the cumulative effect of implementing the convention in this way through statute for all the services that may affect children.

My suspicion about Whitehall, because I am of a suspicious nature given my background, is that there are problems around an impact assessment on what the implications of all this may be. Instinctively I feel that somewhere in this mix are our old friends at the Treasury and the control of public expenditure. They are often to be found when we have these long periods of inaction in any particular area. Some of the areas where children could be seriously affected—clean air, benefits and access to health services to name but a few—go much wider than the scope of the Bill.

I do not expect the Minister to divulge the workings of government, but can he throw any light on whether it is necessary to provide across Whitehall an impact assessment on what the costs of implementing this through statute would be? Do the processes by which these things have to be agreed across Whitehall have any chance of being agreed before the Bill completes its passage through Parliament?

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I support everything that has been said and pick up on the words of my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf. It is very sad that the last two reports of the UN committee coming to this country have started with the words that they regret that so little has been done to implement the recommendations they made five years earlier. If, as my noble and learned friend has suggested, the convention or the causes should be made the centrepiece of cross-government action in this area, then there is a solid basis for all affected ministries in Whitehall to rally round and make certain that their contribution to what is required is not criticised the next time the committee visits.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I do not think that we should worry too much about my noble friend Lord Warner’s point, to which I shall return—the Cross Benches are not always at one on these matters. I have not spoken on this Bill before, but felt I had to intervene because in 1989 I was with Save the Children and remember the excitement at the convention and the Children Act that followed it. Save the Children was already translating those duties into its own policies and activities and it must be horrified that they have not been extended into all government services. We have already heard evidence from CRAE—the Children’s Rights Alliance for England—and UNICEF that statutory child rights duties have a real impact on children’s lives. Perhaps I may quote just one sentence from its briefing, which states:

“A child rights framework such as would be created by this amendment will embed the CRC in children’s services and within other public authorities working with children and families no matter where they are, and enable public authorities to better safeguard, support, promote and plan for the rights and welfare of children in their area”.

My noble and learned friend said that the amendment would place a minimal responsibility on government. Surely we are convinced by that and not by the words of the noble Lord, Lord Warner.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

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

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Dear) (CB)]

My Lords, I draw noble Lords’ attention to four of the amendments in this grouping. If Amendment 57 is agreed, I cannot call Amendment 59 by reason of pre-emption. Similarly, if Amendment 61 is agreed, I cannot call Amendment 62 for reasons of pre-emption.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 57, 58, 64 and 68. I begin, however, by welcoming government Amendment 54, following an amendment that I tabled earlier in the proceedings of the Bill, and hope that it will remain the Government’s position even if, as I hope, Clause 29 is left out of the resulting Act.

I acknowledge the case that the Minister has made for retaining the section headed “Children’s social care: different ways of working”, but each of my amendments seeks to leave out a separate clause, thus removing the whole section. Since we discussed these clauses in Grand Committee, no one could accuse Ministers or their officials of being idle, including as they have—among a deluge of letters, amendments, explanatory documents and offers of meetings—a policy statement on the power to test different ways of working and government Amendments 55, 56 and 59, which spell out the parliamentary procedures applicable to any use of Clause 29 to exempt from or modify existing legislation, and Amendment 61, which introduces the proposal of the appointment of an expert advisory panel.

However, I submit that Clauses 29 to 33 amount to nothing less than the subversion of Parliament’s constitutional position. It is not only wrong but totally unnecessary, in view of existing arrangements, to process proposed innovation because new ways of working can already be tested within the existing legal and regulatory frameworks, as my noble friend Lord Warner will explain. Therefore I contend that, however outwardly reasonable the processes proposed by the Government may seem, they do not alter the need to leave out Clauses 29 to 33 of the Bill for reasons of constitutional and legal principle, as I will attempt to explain.

I emphasise that I am in no way opposed to innovation or a bottom-up approach to it, a lifetime in the Army having taught me that the best way to make improvements is to identify good practice somewhere and turn it into common practice everywhere. I agree that good local authorities often feel frustrated and restricted by legislation, regulation and excessive bureaucracy, but it is of interest that when the Department for Education brought in similar powers for schools they were virtually never sought. That the Government have produced so many amendments to a Bill that was sprung on us at such short notice reinforces the suspicion that, rather than the result of careful consideration, it was in fact a panicked reaction to this year’s report by the Ofsted single inspection framework that the social care work of three-quarters of local authorities inspected either was inadequate or required improvement, which, had they been parents, might have resulted in their children being placed in care.

At Second Reading I quoted the regret of the Constitution Committee of this House that,

“despite the concerns expressed in the past by this and other committees, the Government continues to introduce legislation that depends so heavily on an array of broad delegated powers”.

I also quoted the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, who, referring to this Bill in particular in a debate about the balance of power between the Government and Parliament, said that,

“there are more provisions for the Secretary of State to use regulations than there are clauses in the Bill, including on issues that should be considered matters of significant policy”.—[Official Report, 9/6/16; col. 860.]

I suggest that the mechanism for innovation set out in the clauses amounts to nothing less than the usurpation of the proper parliamentary process and subversion of the rule of law. I am not alone in believing that it is entirely inappropriate for primary legislation to be amended by regulations made by a Secretary of State at the request of, and applicable to, a single local authority.

In addition, all legal duties and obligations placed on local authorities by children’s social care law are ultimately enforceable by the courts, meaning that if a local authority fails to meet its statutory obligations, the young person or family concerned can take legal action to ensure that the protections laid down by Parliament are put in place, but the courts will be unable to enforce the rights of the young person or family concerned if a local authority has received an exemption from acting in accordance with the law. I therefore ask the Minister how the courts are expected to respond where a young person or child in a particular local authority area is clearly disadvantaged by the arbitrary disapplication or modification of the law as it is applied in all other parts of the country.

Clause 29 has been mentioned many times in connection with previous amendments which were tabled because of fears that the Secretary of State might use it to set aside legislation and regulations in a number of specific areas, such as the care of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, whose care status has been adversely affected by the provisions of the Immigration Act 2016.

As I have said many times in this House in connection with prisons, not all local authorities are good, and the Government must always strive to ensure that standards of care for vulnerable children are not a postcode lottery by imposing and overseeing consistency. I suspect that the acknowledged importance of consistency is behind many of the other proposals in the Bill, such as corporate parenting principles, safeguarding arrangements and social worker regulations.

I have been struck by the united opposition to the clauses of so many practitioners, some of whom I shall cite. The Professional Standards Authority states that it has some concerns about the current drafting of the clauses relating to its power to scrutinise and refer fitness-to-practise decisions to the High Court. Together for Children has more than 104,000 signatures to a campaign for their removal. Article 39, representing 43 involved voluntary organisations, sees them as a smokescreen for deregulation which poses profound risks for children. No deregulation is allowed in adult social care, but the clauses could be used to remove transition-to-adulthood entitlements from disabled children until the age of 18, and from care leavers until the ages of 21 or 25.

The Local Government Association has found that councils are struggling to cope with reduced government funding, and that the specialised care that some children need for conditions that we were assured were covered by the very welcome government Amendment 1 is at risk, because the need to maintain a core statutory service leaves little room for discretionary cost savings and efficiencies. In welcoming the powers in Clause 29, subject to the additional safeguards set out in the policy statement, the Local Government Association is, however, concerned that Clause 32 gives the Secretary of State power to remove legislative provisions from a local authority in intervention without any local democratic scrutiny or consultation with local partners. The Royal College of Nursing is concerned that local authorities may use the clauses to water down nationally agreed standards set out in the Children Act 1989, leading to unacceptable local variations in outcomes for children. The British Association of Social Workers points out that there is no detail in the Bill about monitoring or quality assurance of any authorised different way of working, or who is responsible for it. UNISON reported last week that 69% of social workers oppose any exemptions on the ground that they would lead to more children being put at risk, and so on. Such a wide spectrum of opposition inevitably raises the question of whether the Government actually consulted these practitioners before making their proposals.

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[Lord Nash]

Yes.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for the careful and considered summing up. I am particularly struck by the remark about Clause 32, which is all about the introduction of the Secretary of State. Before I go on, is the Minister seriously proposing that the Secretary of State should be removed from the process?

[Lord Nash]

No, I am not proposing that. I am proposing that where a local authority is no longer in charge of its own destiny, as it were, the Secretary of State cannot use the power herself.

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Moved by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

57: Clause 29, leave out Clause 29

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for the care with which he summed up and to all those who have taken part in what has been a very thoughtful debate. I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, and the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Farmer, for giving us the benefit of their experience and taking a slightly different line.

The Minister said at the beginning that he was depressed about the attitude he had heard to making improvements. I have to say that I came into the Bill depressed, because there was clearly a great fixed gulf between the Government and the practitioners on the ground. That worried me, particularly as the Bill went on and more and more practitioners wrote to us about their concerns, in particular about these clauses. As I said at the start, I am totally in favour of innovation. I outlined the way in which the Army—I know the other services do the same—processed innovation by identifying it and turning good practice somewhere into common practice everywhere.

I am sorry to go back to my time as Chief Inspector of Prisons, but what worried me about good practice in prisons was that the prisons lacked a structure and a wherewithal for turning good practice into common practice. During my five and a half years as chief inspector, I identified 2,800 examples of good practice, only 40 of which were turned into common practice, because there was no machinery for doing the others. As I said, I am all in favour of innovation and of a bottom-up approach, but I am concerned that there appears to be no system in the Department for Education looking for innovation or improvements and then processing them. If necessary, and if legislation is the reason why they cannot be processed, then surely the initiation of a machinery which can get round that should be investigated.

As I said at the beginning, what concerned me about this was that the Secretary of State was being empowered to take action which might undo the law laid down for social work and therefore affect the rule of law. I do not believe that that machinery has been properly worked out in the ministry, and if it has, it certainly has not got through to the workers on the ground whose understanding and support for legislation is absolutely crucial. I asked at the end of my speech whether the Minister would consider withdrawing these clauses and holding a proper consultation with the people working on the ground—who clearly have no confidence in the clauses in the Bill—out of which could come a machinery for innovation and for identifying initiatives and processing them, which would satisfy everyone and give confidence in the system. If people have confidence in the system, the outcomes will be better for children.

I have listened very carefully to all the arguments and, as I say, am extremely grateful to those who have taken part, particularly because both sides of the argument have been put very clearly. Now the time has come for a decision, and I wish to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

58: Clause 30, leave out Clause 30

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Moved by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

64: Clause 31, leave out Clause 31

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Moved by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

66: Clause 32, leave out Clause 32

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Moved by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

68: Clause 33, leave out Clause 33

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[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I remind the Minister that he used the word “depressed” in connection with our previous group on improvements. I have to admit that looking at the last committee report of the UN convention and comparing it with the previous committee report, I was depressed at how many in the previous one were still there in this present one. If you are looking for improvements, I suggest that you could start well with the two committee reports because they set out a very clear agenda for improvement.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I add a word on how this matter might be viewed in the courts. As many of your Lordships will know, I was a member of the UK Supreme Court; from time to time the UNCR convention was cited and we always paid close attention to what it said. It is plain from a number of our judgments that it did influence the way we approached cases involving children but, more importantly, there was a case called P-S Children in 2013 in the Court of Appeal in England, where it was said:

“The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child has not been made a part of English law but the duty of the court is nonetheless to have regard to it when considering matters relating to it”.

In that case, the question was whether a child had a right to be heard in proceedings relating to him. There was no statutory right, but there was nothing to prevent it. However, the court—having regard to what the convention said—went on to say:

“It should now be declared that the child does have the … important but limited right, that is to say, a right to be heard in the proceedings”.

That is just one example of the way in which the courts today are drawing upon the convention in developing their jurisprudence. It is also well established as a matter of fundamental law that when the United Kingdom has signed up to an international convention, it is to be presumed that this Parliament, when legislating, will legislate in accordance with what the convention provides. Therefore, if you find a provision relating to children, or the duties of authorities relating to children, the courts, if asked to do so, would interpret the legislation in the light of the convention.

We are in an imperfect world so far as England and Wales are concerned, but the courts are doing the best they can to follow the guidance of the convention and it would seem far better that England and Wales should follow the example of Scotland and legislate to put the matter beyond any doubt.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, in Committee, quite rightly, we had a substantive debate about the importance of the mental health of looked-after children and care leavers. The Government share the views of noble Lords about the need to ensure that the mental health and emotional well-being of this vulnerable group of children and young people are given as much consideration as their physical health. As my honourable friend the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families explained when he met Peers last week, we have reflected on the points raised in Committee. As a result, we have tabled an amendment to Clause 1 to put beyond doubt that promoting the health and well-being of looked-after children and care leavers will mean promoting their mental and physical health.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 4. I am very glad that the Government have tabled Amendment 1, which is the burden of much of the intention behind my Amendment 4, although my amendments spell out some of the mental health descriptions, which, under the heading of mental health needs, are not always apparent.

Perhaps I may start with a plea to the Minister that in future, Bills be handled differently from the way in which this one has been. We got extremely short notice of Second Reading immediately after the Queen’s Speech and then, immediately before Grand Committee, we were bombarded with documents, papers and briefings. Those of us who have no research or clerical support, for example, have to spend a considerable amount of time perusing those in order to understand what is being said so that we can play our part in the purpose of this House, which is to revise and scrutinise legislation.

We complained about that in Grand Committee but, lo and behold, during the short return between the two recesses we again received a number of briefings and letters, and this past week has been absolutely mad. Ministers gave three government briefings last Wednesday. I am not complaining about that, but I ask Ministers to remember that others have diaries and that it is not always possible to change with the rapidity that is expected. Also, there has again been a deluge of government amendments, government briefings and government papers, which suggests to me two things: first, that the Bill was not properly thought through before it was introduced; and, secondly, bearing in mind what was said in Grand Committee, that no impact assessment of any of the measures was carried out—a complaint we have made several times before. An impact assessment does not just say that you either do it or not. It should consist of an analysis of the outcomes of doing it or not, so that those of us not coming at it from a party-political angle can make judgments based on the facts as they are given.

What has also disturbed me during the passage of the Bill is the number of practitioners, including organisations such as the Association of Directors of Social Services, and others working in children’s services, who have tabled amendments and made appeals because they do not feel that they have been consulted, or, if they have, that any of their advice or experience has been listened to. That is really not a healthy basis for important legislation about vulnerable children.

The other thing that has come through strongly—I am very glad that the Government have tabled Amendment 1, because it reinforces the point—is that unfortunately, since the demise of the Social Services Inspectorate, responsibility for children’s social care has passed to the Department for Education. Yet when you talk to the people working in the delivery of children’s services, you find that most of the problems they face are more to do with health, emotion, behaviour and well-being than education. Indeed, preparing children so that they are in a fit state to be educated—mentally as well as in every other way—occupies a great deal of their attention. I am worried that more emphasis is placed on the educational direction of social work and that there is not a more apparent cross-government approach, working with the health industry in particular.

Amendment 4 is designed to spell out in more detail the conditions that children in care and other vulnerable children present. It is based on a paper published by the British Psychological Society in 1915 called, Children and Young People with Neuro-Disabilities in the Criminal Justice System. Unfortunately, we have become used to using the phrase “learning disability”, which carries an understanding of a more serious lack of ability to comprehend than some of the conditions in the amendment. The reasons for this go back to the marvellous paper prepared by Baroness Warnock way back in the 1970s in which she spelled out conditions warranting special educational needs status and therefore special treatment. That list was by no means exhaustive but since her paper there has been a great deal more research, and there is now a great deal more understanding of the various conditions grouped together under the phrase “neurodisability”, such as ADHD, dyslexia, and autism. I am strongly of the belief that all of these conditions—which have now been listed by the British Psychological Society—should be better understood. You need only go and talk to the director of a children’s home to find that it is those conditions that give them greatest trouble.

I am very glad that since Grand Committee, there has been a meeting between officials in the Department for Education and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. In Grand Committee, I spelled out the need for the assessment of speech, language and communication difficulties on the grounds that inability to communicate is the scourge of the 21st century and means that too many of our children are unable to communicate with their teachers and therefore engage with education. There is now an assessment programme, carried out, I hope, for all children in this country before the age of two by health visitors who have been trained by speech and language therapists. The aim is to ensure that a plan can be made to introduce treatment that will enable that child to engage with education in five years’ time, when they start primary school.

Officials from the department have also spoken with the National Association of Virtual School Heads, which I must admit I had not heard of—I was slightly worried when I saw the word “virtual”, because I thought that either you are a school head or you are not. Apparently, however, the virtual school heads have a very valuable role in this area, as does the expert working group on mental health.

I am glad that the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists has been brought in. They are the best people to advise on looking after children and to advise the Government on how to ensure that children, and those working with them, have access to the communication services they so badly need, particularly children suffering from neurodisability orders. Therefore, I am seeking in this amendment the Minister’s undertaking that, in addition to the bald statement in Amendment 1 about improving access to mental and physical health treatment, he will agree to spell out the conditions that so dominate the lives of those responsible for delivering children’s services and ensure that local good practice—which I know his officials are aware of, because it has been listed to them by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists—is turned into national good practice, so that all children can take advantage of what has been done in some parts of the country.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 8 in my name and indicate my support for Amendments 4 and 5, also in this group. In addition, I warmly welcome Amendment 1, which the Government have tabled in response to discussions in Committee. The addition of mental health to the corporate parenting principles is an important step forward towards ensuring that mental and physical health are treated with equal importance by local authorities when they are making decisions about the services and support available to children in care. The Minister’s amendment, therefore, is an important signal of principle—but principles alone will not improve the outcomes for children in care.

My amendment is designed to ensure that we can achieve some practical improvements to the care that children receive. It introduces mechanisms that will ensure that the mental health needs of children entering care are properly assessed and that they have access to specialist support if this is needed. Basically, the amendment has two elements: first, a mental health assessment for children entering care, carried out by a qualified professional; and, secondly, a designated health professional in each local authority who has strategic oversight of the outcomes of the assessments and matches those with the services that are available for children in care to support their needs.

In short, this amendment seeks to establish a mechanism that will identify children’s needs early on, refer the children to the right services and ensure that services exist that children in care are able to access—and access easily. This joined-up approach is supported by the Alliance for Children in Care, a coalition of leading children’s charities, as well as the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

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[Lord Nash]

We will certainly draw attention in the statutory guidance to all these conditions and their importance. We are reluctant to encourage people to assess everyone for all these conditions, if the noble Lord sees what I mean.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I thank the Minister for what he has said, but it is not assumed that everyone should be assessed for all these conditions. Rather, they were not recognised in Warnock and have therefore not been recognised as specific conditions in the criteria for special educational needs. It is merely listing them as those that should be included in the SEN description in future.

[Lord Nash]

I think we can do that. I am happy to discuss this further with the noble Lord but, as I understand it, we are proposing to list them as conditions and draw practitioners’ attention to them. As I was saying, I am reluctant to do anything further on this in relation to mental health until the expert group has met, but I invite the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, to meet that group.

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Moved by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

3: Clause 1, page 2, line 6, at end insert—
“( ) to promote access to legal advice and representation for children and young people, including independent advice and representation where appropriate.”

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, this amendment seeks to include a duty to promote access to legal advice and representation for children in care in order to safeguard and promote their welfare and future life chances. It seeks to do that on the face of the Bill.

Local authorities, in their role as corporate parents, have a particular obligation to promote meaningful access to legal services for the children in their care. Recent evidence presented to the Refugee Children’s Consortium suggests that it is not enough for access to legal advice to be included in a child’s care plan. There should instead be an active duty to promote access whenever needed. For example, children may need access to legal advice in regard to accessing appropriate education in their area if they have special educational needs; to have a voice in family law proceedings that concern arrangements for their care; to regularise their immigration status; or to claim compensation where they are a victim of crime, including human trafficking.

In the concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child’s recent periodic report, it was noted that some children in care do not feel listened to, and that unaccompanied, migrant and asylum-seeking children may not receive independent legal advice. I am particularly concerned that children are missing out on opportunities to resolve their immigration status before they turn 18 because of the limited provision of legal advice and the difficulty of finding independent and reliable advice providers. A child without a way to regularise their immigration status in local authority care becomes a young person without support at 18, and now will be able to appeal against deportation only once they have been returned to their country of origin under the terms of the Immigration Act 2016.

My reason for proposing this subsection is that it is yet another example of where the solution does not seem to lie in the hands of the Department for Education alone, but requires co-operation and co-ordination with the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. I therefore hope very much that the Minister will feel able to accept the amendment and turn it into a government amendment in due course. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of this amendment, especially in relation to unaccompanied migrant children. I will not repeat what I said in Committee, especially around the regularisation of immigration and citizenship status, but will simply emphasise—here echoing the noble Lord—its importance from the perspective of meeting our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In an earlier report, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I was then a member, underlined the importance of access to qualified legal advice and representation to compliance with Article 12 of the convention, which stresses that children must be,

“provided with the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings”,

affecting them. The Equality and Human Rights Commission highlighted this as a priority issue for implementing the concluding observations of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the noble Lord referred. It calls on the Government to expedite the promised review of the LASPO Act to assess its impact on children. Here it is echoing the committee itself.

In yesterday’s Written Statement on the UNCRC the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families encouraged colleagues to reflect,

“the voice of the child fully in the design and implementation of policy”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/10/16; col 23WS.]

In the light of that, I hope the Minister will be able to respond positively to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for this amendment and for his contribution and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister.

In local authorities where the ethos of corporate parenting is strongest—for example, in North Somerset and Trafford—the views of looked-after children and care leavers are at the heart of how local services are created and delivered. Along with the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families, I applaud the way in which many local authorities, through their children in care councils and care leaver forums, listen and respond to the views and needs of this vulnerable group.

The corporate parenting principles are designed to ensure that the local authority as a whole has regard to the need to act in the best interests of the child whenever it carries out functions in relation to looked-after children or care leavers. Considering this together with the existing functions to ensure that the rights of children and young people are promoted, I do not believe that amending the principles in the way suggested is necessary. However, I am aware of the report on advocacy services for looked-after children by the Children’s Commissioner, which highlighted that 55% of looked-after children were unaware of their right to independent advocacy support. Local authorities have a duty to provide assistance for advocacy services for all looked-after children, children in need and children in care, and this includes making them aware of this provision. I do not believe that further legislation would help here.

We need to work directly with local authorities to improve good practice and raise awareness. I will commit to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that we will do so. Some local authorities are already very good, but others are not; as the Children’s Commissioner made clear in her report. It is about raising the game of the poorer authorities to meet their existing responsibilities. Indeed, while I sympathise with the underlying intention behind the noble Lord’s amendment, I believe that it may risk introducing an unhelpful adversarial dimension to the relationship between children and young people and their local authority as corporate parent, which I am sure the noble Lord would not wish to see.

The framework for care planning and the transition from care to adulthood that exists already gives children and young people routes for voicing their views. These include court-appointed guardians, their social worker and a named IRO who follows their case, meets the child privately before the formal meeting to review his or her care plan, and also advises the court.

A key role of IROs is to resolve problems arising out of the care planning process. Every local authority should have a formal process for IROs to raise concerns and to ensure that those concerns are respected by managers. This is referred to in our guidance as the local dispute resolution process. An IRO has the statutory power to refer the case to Cafcass at any stage if he or she considers it appropriate to do so. He or she may consider it necessary to make a concurrent referral to Cafcass at the same time that he or she instigates the dispute resolution process. There is clear guidance on this point in the Children Act 1989 statutory guidance on care planning and in the IRO handbook. That handbook, which is statutory guidance that local authorities must comply with, also makes it clear that each local authority should have a system in place that provides IROs with access to independent legal advice. Skilled independent advocates who speak on behalf of looked-after children also work with the legal service. They provide the independent advice and assistance sought by this amendment.

Local authorities are required under Section 26A of the Children Act 1989, which deals with advocacy services, to make arrangements for the provision of assistance to looked-after children and care leavers for advocacy and representation support, and local authorities must make these arrangements known publicly, as they see fit. I am not therefore convinced that adding a further principle on a specific area as regards services or support, which is already the subject of a statutory duty, is necessary.

The corporate parenting principles and the needs articulated in Clause 1 are about improving the culture and ethos of local authorities so that, as far as possible, children are treated with care and as a good parent would, so that the children do not feel that they are being looked after by an impersonal corporate body. The way to do that is not to create expectations of legal representation for all looked-after children and care leavers when disputes can be resolved without escalating it to lawyers. That means using IROs and advocates effectively and making better use of children in care councils, which all local authorities will have. I hope that the noble Lord will feel sufficiently reassured to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply and to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for her comments and remarks. I am concerned by the content of the UNCRC’s fifth report because it repeats so many criticisms that were contained in the fourth report that do not appear to have been actioned. I am also particularly concerned about the change in status of immigrant children in care, which was included in the Immigration Act 2016. The comment that they lacked legal advice before they were deported is not something of which we should be very proud.

I hope, therefore, that in considering all the things that he has said to me, the Minister will go back and assess the local area legal provision, particularly relating to immigration, because I give notice that I shall raise this question again at Third Reading. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 3 withdrawn.

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[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

I should advise the House that if Amendment 18, is agreed to I cannot call Amendment 19 due to pre-emption.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendments 17 and 19. The purpose of Amendment 17 is both to ask to ask the Minister to clarify the intention behind subsection 3(b) of new Section 23CZB and to highlight a potential loophole which could risk local authorities opting out of their duties to former relevant children. It would appear that the intention behind that subsection is to enable a local authority to cancel the appointment of a personal adviser if at any time a former relevant child says that they no longer want one. However, the wording of the subsection is ambiguous. The phrase “if earlier” leaves open the possibility that a local authority might interpret it in a way that would enable it to refuse advice and support to a former relevant child who had previously said that they did not want a personal adviser but at a later stage requested advice and support. This opens another possible loophole of local authorities requesting that former relevant children sign a form on leaving care at 18 to say that they no longer need support. Would the Minister therefore be kind enough to clarify the Government’s intention and resolve any possible ambiguity in the wording of the legislation?

My Amendment 19 is made completely unnecessary by government Amendment 18, and so I propose not to press it.

[Lord Nash]

As I understand it, the noble Lord is asking us to clarify that when we say that care leavers will have the right to this every year, they will have the right to it every year and there is no way that local authorities can get out of it. That is our intention, and if it is not clear in the legislation then we will change it. I think I can give the noble Lord the assurance he needs: we do not think there should be any way that local authorities should invite an 18 year-old to contract out of this right.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I do not wish to prolong this, but it is practitioners who have raised this question with me because they are unclear. Although young people have the right every year, it is an opportunity basis that they are considering.

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, I thank the Government very much for the change they are bringing in—

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[Lord Ramsbotham]

I am grateful to the Minister. I am sure that this is capable of resolution. It just seemed an irritant rather than a major issue, but one which it would be unwise to let go. Therefore, I will not press my amendment.

Amendment 14 agreed.

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[Baroness King of Bow (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House on this amendment—I will detain the House on a later amendment instead—but I want to sincerely thank the Minister for the excellent news that he has brought. As the noble Baroness said, it is only a small number of British children, but they are British children. As an adoptive parent, however you adopt your child and wherever your child comes from, you expect them to have the same life chances in Britain, because that is, I hope, what Britain is about.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, my Amendment 29 seeks to use Clause 8 to mitigate the possible impact of provisions elsewhere in the Bill on a group of children described by the phrase,

“there being no person who has parental responsibility for the child”—

in other words, looked-after children. I refer in particular to looked-after children in custody, of whom the noble Lord, Lord Laming, in his report, estimated that there were approximately 400 at any one time, 100 of whom were on remand. Although this is not in itself a large number, it adds up to slightly less than half the numbers of children currently in custody. This ratio accentuates the need to consider their position.

Currently, all children remanded into custody are automatically granted looked-after status for the duration of their time on remand. Children in care retain this status throughout their custody. However, in Grand Committee the Minister suggested that this could be removed by other clauses in the Bill. Looked-after children in custody show greater levels of mental health needs than other incarcerated children, need greater levels of emotional and practical support, and respond less well to behavioural incentive schemes and resettlement planning. As a group, they already face problems in engaging local authority support, and it would appear to be at best counterproductive to enable local authorities to opt out of their duty to support those looked-after children who happen to be in custody. This is yet another cross-government matter, and I wonder whether the Department for Education has discussed the possible effect of this with the Ministry of Justice, which aims to reduce reoffending.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I, like my noble friend, am very grateful for government Amendment 20, which we fully support. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and my noble friend Lady King spoke eloquently about children adopted from care outside England who are now resident in England, and on the need for educational equality. We, too, very much welcome the Minister’s intention to bring forward amendments in the other place. Obviously, they will come back to your Lordships’ House in the new year.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, made a very telling point about the particular challenges of looked-after children in custody. At heart, it is a question of whether the Minister’s department’s intention is consistent with that of the Ministry of Justice. It would be very helpful if, between now and Report, the Minister would enable some discussions to take place with the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, just to make sure that there is absolute consistency, because I very much take the point that he raised.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, I have to inform the Committee that if Amendment 135B is agreed to, I cannot put the question that Clause 20 stand part of the Bill by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I added my name to this amendment because I was moved to do so, particularly by the British Association of Social Workers, which wrote saying that:

“We are not opposed to exploring new social work regulation options. We support steps to improve accountability of social workers, enabling them to show increasing specialism and skill. But we are opposed to these proposals that concentrate government control and that contain no incentive for the profession to lead in setting standards and developing its self-governance”.

In other words, it is not averse to regulation and it is all in favour of maintaining the independence of that regulator and separating him or her from the governance that is proposed in the Bill.

This is the second time in my life that I have supported an initiative in which my noble friend Lord Warner was involved. When I took over as Chief Inspector of Prisons in 1995, the control of young offenders was entirely in the hands of the Home Office, and it was an absolute disaster. They were treated badly, their conditions were appalling and nobody was taking an interest in the conditions and treatment that they received in the various establishments. Then came the Youth Justice Board—proposed and led by my noble friend—and there was immediate transformation. The merit of this amendment is not only that it has come from someone who clearly knows the profession because of his past experience; it also reflects both the practicalities of regulation that is required and has the support of the whole profession, which the Bill clearly does not.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I have also added my name to this amendment, and to Amendment 135C in the next group, which we will come to in a moment.

I really think the Government have some questions to answer. Why is this new regulator needed? The Minister might answer by saying that having its own regulator would add to the status of social work. That is a perfectly decent answer, but not one that is totally under the thumb of the Secretary of State. Perhaps the Minister could tell us what the cost of creating this new regulator would be. The NSPCC is concerned about the danger of it creating a two-tier system of statutory and non-statutory social workers. I wonder if the noble Lord can answer that. What is the justification for putting regulation and improvement together? That question was very ably outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Warner. Why does this health and care profession have to be under the skirts of the Secretary of State? While I am about it, which Secretary of State are we talking about? The Bill does not say. Perhaps I should ask which woman it will be.

Many of us feel that if social workers were to become directly regulated by the Government, that would further weaken the trust—which is already fragile—between them and Whitehall. As the BASW said in the briefings we have all received, the Bill does nothing to address some of the real problems that affect social workers.

There is a real issue here because we have a significant shift of significant powers. It is a matter of principle. Why should social workers be the only profession in the health and care sector to be regulated by government? Nursing and medicine are not. They are public service professionals using their professional skills and judgment to make vital decisions about vulnerable members of the public. Bringing regulation under government control risks sending a demoralising set of signals to the sector. Loss of independence is likely to be seen as evidence that social work is really not up to it and needs a very close eye kept on it. That seems odd because it is at odds with what Ministers have been saying recently. They have been saying that social workers have been disempowered by command-and-control-type initiatives from central government and should be trusted to exercise their professional judgment and respected as professionals who undertake very complex work. Hear, hear! I agree with that. Why seek this government stranglehold now?

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[Lord Nash]

It is clear that the agency will be supported by the DfE and the DH. Both Secretaries of State will be responsible. If they do not agree, I assume we will put them in a room until we have an agreement. Secretaries of State do not initially agree on a lot of things. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, the Department of Health is responsible, just as the DfE is responsible for children’s social care. I do not know whether I can say any more at this stage, so I shall go on.

This new regulator will have an absolute focus on raising the quality of social work education, training and practice through setting new and more specific standards. We intend to establish a new executive agency for the regulation of social workers, jointly supported by the DfE and the DH and accountable to the Secretaries of State. I reassure noble Lords that in arriving at this conclusion we considered the merits of a number of different models. We also considered whether the HCPC could strengthen its regulatory framework to deliver the improvements that we want and to make it more social work specific. It is responsible for 15 other professions, and we believe it would require a fundamental shift in its approach to create the model required for social work. It would be likely to involve additional costs and could impact on its ability to regulate the other professions for which it is responsible. We have therefore concluded that at this time we need a bespoke regulator which can bring an absolute and expert focus to standards in social work education, training and practice that the current system lacks.

I know that many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, have questioned this approach, given the Government’s wider commitments to regulatory reform of the health and care professions. A number of noble Lords have also highlighted—as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has—that the regulation of social workers was moved to the HCPC in 2012. This decision and the decision to close the General Social Care Council were not taken lightly. We believed that it was the right decision at the time, but things do not stand still and, since then, the College of Social Work has also closed, creating a real gap in the representation and professional development of social workers. We have received the independent reports on social work education, which I previously referenced, and have identified continuing concerns about the quality of social work practice in some areas. That is why we think it is right to take a new approach.

However, that does not signal a change in the approach to the regulation of other professions; it is simply about making the right arrangements for social work. The Department of Health remains committed to broader reform of the health and care professions, building on the work of the Law Commission and the Professional Standards Authority in this area. However, it has not yet secured parliamentary time for a proposed public accountabilities Bill to inform wider professional regulation. We are discussing with interested parties how our ambition to simplify and improve the regulatory framework can be taken forward.

The new agency will support improvements across the social work profession by setting higher and more specific standards that go beyond the traditional safety-net approach of many regulations. The agency will set pre and post-qualification standards across practice, education and training, and CPD. It will not be a professional body. We believe this is the right approach for social work. There is no intention to replicate the representative functions of a professional body or membership organisation.

I assure noble Lords that we have, of course, also considered whether an independent regulator should be established. I will set out the key reasons why I believe it is not right to do that at this time. I have already set out the higher level of ambition that we have for our social work workforce: excellent social workers delivering world-class practice. Of course, government has a significant stake in ensuring high-quality social work practice, not least because it delivers vital services for the most vulnerable in the state. There is, however, a notable lack of consensus across the profession as to agreed standards of practice. Various efforts—through independent regulation and the development of the College of Social Work—have, unfortunately, failed to deliver what is needed or to move standards to where they need to be.

There are practical considerations too. Establishing a wholly new independent body will take time, as leadership and infrastructure are built from scratch, and our reform programme is rightly ambitious. The Government have significant resources, and it is right that they bring these to bear to rapidly deliver the reforms that we need. The effective functioning of an independent body requires, we think, a strong professional body. However, the profession has as yet been unable to sustain this, despite the Government investing over £8 million in funding the College of Social Work. I recognise, of course, that many noble Lords have signalled their support for a strong professional body. That was also raised by the Education Select Committee, which the Government also welcome. However, particularly given the recent experience with the College of Social Work, it must be for the profession to develop it.

For the reasons I have outlined, we remain convinced that regulatory reform is needed, but it cannot be addressed simply through the development of a professional body. For those reasons, we believe there is a strong and compelling case for moving the regulation of the profession closer to government at this time. This will allow us to rapidly deliver improvements and to embed a new regulatory system that supports this. I know that this closer relationship is a matter—

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, very briefly, what evidence does the Minister have, first, that moving the regulation closer to government can be done more quickly than establishing an independent regulator and, secondly, that it will be more efficient?

[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.

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[Lord Warner]

My Lords, my name is on this amendment, which is probably bad news for the Minister, and I support what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said. I want to add a couple of points on setting up a new unit by coming back to the issue of the Department of Health and adult social workers. It needs to be a unit which would deal with both groups of social workers, which means it needs some machinery that represents the interests of both the Department of Health and the Department for Education. I still see no really convincing evidence that it has been thought through in terms of those departments working together on something to benefit the range of social workers—those who work with children and those who work with adults. If we were to go down this path, there would have to be an agency or unit. I do not think one would mind what it is but it would have to be a convincing agency that looked across the spectrum of social work with children and adults.

I also want to pick up on some of the Minister’s comments in the discussion on my Amendment 135B. At the end of the day, if the Minister has all this money and wants to get on quickly—he said that he had the money and wants to get on speedily with the job of improving social work—then I would say, having been a Minister in government, that the fastest way to do that, as some of us have done, is to set up some kind of grouping across the piece. It would include the types of social workers for adults and children, and all the outside interests. The Minister could almost do that before the autumn and before we come to this on Report. At a later stage, that could be turned into an executive agency if he wanted to do that. There is nothing to prevent the Government putting in place very quickly indeed something of the kind that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, suggested if they have the money and the capability. If they have those then they should do it; they do not even have to ask Parliament.

If the Government want to improve some of the training requirements for social workers, they could also have a conversation with the HCPC, which will be looking at education in September. It has committed to that as part of its work programme. I am sure that any regulator in this area would always listen to a government department or the Government of the day and consider the evidence for change.

If the Minister is really in a hurry and wants to take people with him, why does he not use what is available now, get on and have a discussion with the HCPC and set up a unit jointly with the Department of Health to do as much improving and make as many changes as he wants? Why are we all being subjected to, and spending some of the best years of our lives discussing, the shambles that is Part 2 of this Bill? It is a sad waste of parliamentary time and I do not think that it is terribly good for the profession, which is being subjected to a lot of uncertainty when it needs more confidence and more certainty. I hope that, even at this late stage, the Minister can see that there are some merits in the approaches of the two amendments.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I was attracted to putting my name to Amendments 135B and 135C because of their cleanliness and simplicity, and the fact that they picked up all the points that had been made in the Government’s policy statement, Regulating Social Workers, which was published last month. There was nothing missing. Furthermore, what the amendments proposed was independent and objective, and therefore they were likely to attract the support of the profession.

I could not help reflecting on two things. One was that when I was Chief Inspector of Prisons, when I inspected a prison that had an under-18 wing the social services were responsible for under-18s at that time, so I took a social services inspector with me. She said that if it had been a secure children’s home, it would have been closed because of the lack of facilities. Those facilities were then under the direction of the Home Office, which claimed to be responsible for young people in custody. That has always suggested to me that government should not get close to the delivery of these things.

The second thing, which I admit struck me as strange, was on page 19 of the Regulating Social Workers report. One paragraph says:

“Ministers will lead on issues such as setting standards and delivery of responsive improvement programmes to raise the calibre and status of the profession”.

The next paragraph says:

“While Ministers retain ultimate responsibility, decisions will be kept at arm’s length”.

How can you lead at arm’s length? It struck me that there was considerable confusion in all this and that therefore the Government can consider the clarity of Amendments 135B and 135C as helping them to deliver what they want. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, we all want improvement as quickly as possible, and I think that the profession does as well. We appear to be in the mire of confused thinking, which could be avoided by withdrawing from it.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I hope that the Minister sees Amendments 135B and 135C as a helpful attempt to get over problems with the way that the Bill is currently worded. There are two clear issues: one is the muddling together of regulation and improvement and the other is independence.

The Minister made a very decent argument for a new regulator focused solely on social work. Many social workers agree with that. Indeed, that is exactly what Amendment 135B would do, but it would not muddle it with improvement and, of course, the regulator would be independent. I was a little confused by some of the things that the Minister said about independence in the debate on the previous group. He talked about moving the whole thing closer to government but he also talked about operational independence. Those sound like two conflicting things to me. Given that the HCPC is both financially and operationally independent, what it is about the way it has operated its independence that make the Government think that the new body should not be independent?

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

105: Clause 12, page 12, line 11, at end insert—
“a “place of detention” means police custody, the prison estate, mental health detention, immigration detention and military detention;”

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I am aware that my noble friend Lady Meacher and others have indicated their intention to oppose the proposition that Clauses 12 and 13, to which my amendments in this group refer, should stand part of the Bill. In advance of that debate, I will offer a brief explanation of what my amendments are designed to ensure.

Amendments 105 and 107 are linked to Amendment 135, which was tabled on Monday by my noble friend Lady Howarth of Breckland, in that they relate to a specific recommendation in the recent UN Rights of the Child report that the United Kingdom should ensure automatic review of child deaths in institutions. Amendment 105 is a description of what is meant by a place of detention, to which Amendment 107 refers. If my amendments are accepted, Amendment 105 should appear in new Section 16B(9), after Amendment 107, which will appear in new Section 16B(8) —to thoroughly confuse the Committee.

Like my earlier Amendment 92A, Amendment 109 is designed to bring existing statutory guidance into primary legislation. Noble Lords will recall the very disturbing footage of the physical and emotional abuse of children in Medway Secure Training Centre broadcast in a BBC “Panorama” programme in January of this year. The Ministry of Justice’s usual response to such allegations is to convene an in-house National Offender Management Service panel, which is not the same as a national Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel.

During my time as Chief Inspector of Prisons, this was exemplified by the refusal of successive Home Secretaries to allow judicial review of the circumstances leading to the murder in Feltham of a young prisoner, Zahid Mubarek, by a known racist psychopath, until ordered to do so by the Law Lords then sitting in this House. This resulted in 78 recommendations for future improvement, plus the naming of 28 individuals who had failed in their duty—serious matters that might otherwise have remained hidden. Both incidents show why it is so important that the new arrangement, and this legislation, should include children in places of detention.

Amendment 109A is designed to ensure that concerned individuals and organisations have a channel through which to share significant information. The amendment allows for boundaries for public notification to be set by statutory guidance in order to protect the national panel from inappropriate referrals.

Finally, Amendment 110 clarifies that a regulated setting, in respect of a local authority’s duty to notify the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel of a child’s death, includes places of detention, as listed in Amendment 105. I beg to move.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, my Amendment 106A is in this group. It was Amendment 108 but for some reason has been retabled. The arrangements for the national review panel appear to omit its opportunity to review cases of serious mistreatment and/or physical injury caused by restraint in youth custody institutions or other kinds of institutions. This amendment makes it clear that these cases should be looked at by the panel because they raise serious issues of national policy and practice. I do not think that it should be restricted to just deaths in custody, as suggested by my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham, although I fully support what he said about that.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, referred to the BBC “Panorama” programme about the Medway Secure Training Centre. Reports obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests reveal that children in custody suffered serious physical injuries following restraint on three separate occasions in 2013-14 and on four separate occasions in 2014-15. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, mentioned, Ministers will often refer to the National Offender Management Service. But that is not a safeguarding panel. One of 10 recommendations made by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons, following its review of the new system of restraint in child custody, urged more effective independent oversight of restraint by local safeguarding children boards and local authorities.

The Government have tabled an amendment to abolish LSCBs, which makes it even more important that this new arrangement of a national panel includes harms to children in custody and other institutions, not just deaths. This matter is of a very serious nature and is not really suitable for review at local level. The children in these institutions are often not located in their home authority, so it is essential that the new national panel looks at these cases—unless, of course, these clauses do not eventually stand part of the Bill, which will be debated later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Walmsley]

For the sake of an accurate record, may I point out that Amendment 108, referred to by the Minister, was retabled as Amendment 106A?

The noble Lord suggested that the national panel would have the discretion to choose whether to investigate situations such as those described in my amendment involving,

“harm caused by unlawful or abusive restraint in any institutional setting”.

If we eventually have a national panel, this is exactly the sort of situation they should look into, because it is a matter of national policy and because children in such institutions come from a range of different local authorities. Despite the guidance, very often they are not located in their home authority. My point is that these cases should be investigated by the national panel on all occasions; it should not just be left to its discretion.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I am grateful to the Minister for his carefully considered response. I just hope that between now and the next time we meet, there will not be a fourth huge volume of government policy for us to consider during the passage of the Bill. I am sure it is very reassuring to think that the Department for Education is producing all this stuff, but I must say that it would have been helpful to have had it before we began our deliberations, rather than having it fed in during Committee.

When the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, was speaking, I could not help but reflect on my hopes when we introduced the corporate manslaughter legislation. I hoped that it would provide the stick to make certain that the outcomes of such investigations were taken seriously. But nothing has yet happened to bring corporate manslaughter charges against the managers under whom these unnatural deaths have taken place. It is something that is worth considering.

I was going to comment on my noble and learned friend Lord Judge’s remarks in the discussion on Clause 15. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned his comments on the regulation, I will repeat what I said at Second Reading. I quoted the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, who, during the debate on the balance of power between the Government and Parliament, said of this Bill that there were,

“more provisions for the Secretary of State to use regulations than there are clauses in the Bill, including on issues that should be considered matters of significant policy”.—[Official Report, 9/6/16; col. 860.]

I also quoted my noble and learned friend Lord Judge, who, in addition to making some devastating comments about the increasing number of Henry VIII clauses in current legislation, highlighted the number of them in this Bill and asked,

“when are we going to actually achieve something before our ... arrangements disappear into some vague unknown future?—[Official Report, 9/6/16; col. 875.]

I must admit that I am extremely alarmed at the number of them in the Bill, not least because the impact assessment on the Bill states:

“The Bill’s contents have been reviewed and ruled out of scope for the regulatory impact assessment exercise”.

To my mind, nothing could be more inappropriate because the regulatory impact assessment really needs to be carried out in spades on this Bill, as many noble Lords have said.

I am grateful to the Minister for offering his meeting on the national safeguarding panel, to which I look forward. In the meantime, and until Report, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 105 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, before speaking to my amendment in this group I make clear that I support those noble Lords who call for the clause to be removed from the Bill. This is not the time to erode the rights of vulnerable children. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, we are facing a period of austerity. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has just removed his target to pay down the deficit by 2020 but we should certainly not think that that is the end of austerity; we can expect it to extend for many years to come. Unfortunately, that means that local authorities will continue to have severe downward pressure on their budgets, so I share the noble Baroness’s concern that whatever the good intentions of this clause, it might result in cutbacks on protections for children in order to save money.

The purpose of my Amendment 131A is, where a local authority has been exempted, to enable a child, his advocate or a professional to ask for the exemption to be released for that child. For instance, if the responsibility for putting in place an independent reviewing officer was removed, a child could, if he decided to do so, call for an IRO to be instated. The Minister referred to the role of IROs at Second Reading.

I draw your Lordships’ attention to research by the National Children’s Bureau. It has found that the area in which the IRO service has been seen to make the biggest difference is in ensuring timely reviews of the care plan. Nationally, the survey found that that was where IROs were perceived to have made the greatest difference, with 91% of IRO managers, 82% of IROs and 72% of directors of children’s services strongly agreeing that, since 2011, IROs have contributed to the timeliness of reviews. Another area in which IROs are seen to have had an impact is in ensuring that the care planning process remains firmly focused on the child and that the child’s wishes and feelings are taken into account. Nationally, the survey found that 90% of IRO managers, 72% of IROs and 73% of directors of children’s services strongly agreed that, since 2011, IROs had ensured that children’s wishes and feelings were recorded and taken into account.

Amendment 131B would ensure that there is excellent parliamentary scrutiny should Clause 15 continue to be in the Bill. Major voices from the children’s sector have been clear that innovation is necessary to ensure, in the face of increasing risks and challenges, that the sector can learn and improve. Like many, I share the concern of all the major children’s charities that the right safeguards should be in place to ensure that innovation is overseen properly and delivers for children and families without disruption to their lives. Such scrutiny is essential and should not be overridden. Local authorities should not be exempted from laws that have been developed and scrutinised with care and attention by both Houses without a comparable amount of parliamentary oversight of the potential impact of any exemptions. That is what the amendment seeks to achieve.

The amendment would ensure that only laws subject to the negative resolution procedure in their formation could be overridden by the same process. Whether in the process of seeking to innovate to improve services for children or otherwise, it is not appropriate or democratic that regulations introduced through a debate and vote in Parliament should be exempted without such a process. Our job is to hold the Government to account, and we should not be prevented doing so. It is imperative that our powers to scrutinise the safeguards needed to protect children from the impact of any exemptions are not disrupted by the desire to innovate to improve outcomes for children.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I return briefly to Clause 15, which is a classic example of regulation too far. I agree with everything that has been said so far. It is inappropriate and ought to be struck out of the Bill. Only two things are needed. One is the minimum list of tasks that must be done with children. If anything, the Secretary of State should seek to improve the list and to improve delivery if there is any failure to deliver what must be done, rather than remove any task. Secondly, as has come up over and over again, we are looking for consistency in delivery and to avoid the postcode lottery in the treatment of children all over the country. If there is a minimum list and machinery for looking at that, we will find, as many noble Lords have said, that individual local authorities will encourage improvement in the way those minimum requirements are operated. The way to improve things is by changing single practice somewhere to common practice everywhere, not by regulation. Therefore, I hope very much that, if not before then certainly on Report, this clause will be struck out.

--- Later in debate ---

In answer to my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay, technically we could modify arrangements to be conditional in a way similar to that suggested by Amendment 131A but we believe that there will be some practical difficulties with that, which I would be happy to talk to him about further. I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and if we have a meeting as soon as we can arrange it with a number of local authorities, we can discuss these matters in much more detail. That would be the best way forward, and in view of the above, I hope that noble Lords will feel able to withdraw or not press their amendments.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I welcome the thought of a meeting but I would be grateful if the Minister could ensure that somebody from the youth custody arena attends it. I was extremely alarmed when he rather dismissed the example of the legal safeguard that could be lifted, of removing the looked-after status from children remanded in custody. That is very often the first time that they have had any stability in their lives and it would be tragic if it was removed.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply and for the offer of a meeting, which I am sure will be very helpful for me. I should have said in my earlier contribution that I am the patron of the National Association of Independent Reviewing Officers, so I have an interest and some experience there. I hear what he says about independent reviewing officers; in my mind, there is certainly a question about tying up so many experienced social workers in one capacity. But one of the concerns is that when a child is in a long-term placement, it may go very well but things can suddenly go wrong. One of the chief concerns that often come up when children need advocates is that while they are in a long-term stable placement, a local authority may suddenly have decided that it is too expensive so they are moved on. There is particular concern that a child may be in a stable placement for a long time and he or she may suddenly need the expertise and professional capacity of an independent reviewing officer. However, I see that there is another side to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, this amendment is concerned with the well-being of unaccompanied children whether they have come as refugees straight from Syria and other parts of the region or from parts of Europe, as was determined by an amendment that passed this House and the House of Commons under the Immigration Act.

These are clearly sensitive children who have been through trauma. We know they may have been subject to trafficking; they may have been victims of crime: they may have suffered sexual violence; they may have been lured into debt slavery—all sorts of things may have happened to them. Some may still be in danger, which is why there is an urgency to bringing them over to this country. Clearly, though, everyone is agreed that they are vulnerable and that they need help and support.

I have had discussions with the Local Government Association about this, and quite understandably the LGA would like to have some assurances about longer-term funding arrangements for councils that are looking after unaccompanied children. Subsection (1) would require the Secretary of State to consult organisations representing local authorities and providers of children’s services, as well as the Children’s Commissioner, before publishing a national action plan for the welfare of unaccompanied children. That is a rather grand title but I think we know what it means.

Subsection (2) includes a non-exhaustive list of the kind of vital services that children must be able to access wherever they are placed in the country. For example, they will need specialist immigration legal advice to help them know where they stand. They may need special educational needs support. They may have been particularly traumatised by the experiences through which they have gone and those that I described. It is important that they have active health service support. They may have suffered the trauma of war, separation from family members for months or even years, they may have had long journeys in perilous and unsanitary conditions. All of those are important, as is education. Many of these children will not have had an education for some time and it is important that we try to get as many of them as possible to this country by September in order that they can benefit from the beginning of the school year.

I should say that not all of them are traumatised. I was talking to a young man from Syria who had spent a year travelling from the region before he got to Britain. I met him on the green outside. In a chat with him he said his main ambition was to go into politics, so all is not yet lost. Perhaps he did not know enough about our politics; perhaps when he learns a bit more he may think a different career is more important. Those services are crucial and it is important that the national action plan for unaccompanied children takes them into account.

In certain local authorities, Kent in particular, a large number of unaccompanied children are getting help and Kent County Council is clearly having difficulties. I think there is a scheme already but it could be improved to help children who are transferred between local authority areas, mainly to ensure that there is an evenness of pressure and demand on local authorities. The Government have recently announced an enhancement in the funding to be made available, but local authorities are understandably concerned about longer-term provision. If they have money for only one year, they need to know what will happen afterwards.

There is great willingness on the part of local authorities—I have met some. They are willing and anxious to help; they want to be able to get on with it on the basis that they know where they are and can manage to deal with it. For example, there are greater difficulties in London, where housing costs are higher than in other parts of the country, but even in London, the local authorities I have met are willing to step up to the mark and provide accommodation for people, whether under the vulnerable persons scheme or to look for foster parents who are appropriate for their needs. Of course, foster parents will have to be monitored carefully, as are all foster parents. That is all part of the extra responsibility that falls on local authorities.

The amendment is clear: it is intended to provide the right level of support and ensure that everything is handled as well as it can be for the sake of very vulnerable children. I know that the expression “national action plan” sounds a bit pompous—I could not think of a better one—but I think we understand what it means and I hope that the Government will accept it.

I should add that I am due to meet the Immigration Minister tomorrow. I had hoped that that would have happened before now, because then I might have been able to modify what I have said; but I am doing so prior to the meeting with him. I had discussions with the Home Secretary and the Immigration Minister some time ago, and he assured me that the Government would enter into the letter and spirit of the amendment. That is positive, so I look forward to a good outcome from my meeting with him tomorrow. I beg to move.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in his amendment and confirm that the issue of sharing children around the United Kingdom has been raised many times because social services near the ports of entry were becoming swamped and these children were being deployed right across the country, which led to inconsistency in their treatment—some people putting them in bed and breakfasts, some looking after them properly.

I raised the issue of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children at Second Reading. I am glad that the Minister has arranged for the meeting with Mr Brokenshire because, among other things, there is a tension between the Immigration Act and the Bill over when such children cease to qualify for support. The Immigration Act makes it clear that that is at age 18, whereas the Bill seeks to extend the support until 21 or 25.

Another clause in the Immigration Act, which I mentioned at Second Reading, states that if an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child wishes to appeal against deportation following the failure of his appeal, he now has to go back to the country of origin even though he may have been born in this country before he can make the appeal. That is denying him all the rights that he has earned during his time in this country. We must remember that two-thirds of these children are actually in foster care now, quite apart from the numbers in care. I am glad that the noble Lord has raised this amendment and I hope that, whether revised or not, it will appear in the final Bill. I am sure that the noble Lord will wish to attend the meeting with Mr Brokenshire and the Minister on this very issue.