Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I support the amendment because I argued for it during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill. When the Minister turned it down then, he did agree to a whole range of other benefits such as kinship carers’ allowance and so on. Frankly, I think he reached the point where he could give no more. The illogicality of saying that benefits could be paid for two sibling children but not for two children who have been adopted separately must have been for the noble Lord, Lord Freud, who is an intelligent man, something to do with the politics of it all. I say that because it was clear at the time that this exception would make sense.

We trying to increase the rate of adoption. We know that the children who are now being placed for adoption are not easy. There are very few if any white middle-class babies being placed for adoption. Most of these children have special needs or they are older and therefore it is much more difficult to find a placement.

I recognise that the Minister here may not have the power to agree to the amendment, but he can go back and talk to his colleagues. We have discussed silos in government at length and how people need to talk across government departments. This is an area in which we could make a real difference to a group of people who wish to look after children and, more importantly, it would offer a better standard of living to the children being adopted. It would be easy and I am sure that it would not be vastly expensive, although I have not yet done the maths.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, there are moments in Committee when we can listen to people with a lifetime of experience in law and the military, but we ignore at our peril someone with experience of adoption who speaks from the heart and makes such an emotional plea. Certainly our side thinks that this is an important issue.

It is not just an emotional issue, of course; it is also fulfils that awful phrase we use constantly—it would be value for money. This obviously makes sense. I had not appreciated how many low-income families adopt children. We should support them and thereby, we hope, increase the number of children who are adopted.

The last time I heard such an emotional plea was when my noble friend Lady Benjamin made a similar presentation and, I believe, stalked the Minister on a few occasions outside his office. Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady King, could do the same, but I hope the Minister will take note of this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, this is an important amendment that is worthy of serious consideration. There must be something worryingly and seriously wrong when mothers constantly have their babies removed from them. We have seen social services almost having to get care orders in place as the child is born, and it can happen three, four, five or six times. Obviously in all circumstances the interests of the child must be put first, but there also must be a realisation that something must be done to support the mother. Are there mental health or emotional issues at play? This constant removal of children safeguards those children, but it does not safeguard the mother. We need to try where possible to look at why this is happening.

This is an issue of which I do not have any experience and, indeed, I have not considered it. The amendment asks in a sensible and supportive way for us to look at therapeutic support and so on. There is also the cost aspect. If a child is taken away from its natural family and we as a society have not considered effective treatments that could reasonably be made available to keep the parent and child together, then surely as a society we are failing.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I simply want to mention the organisation Pause, which has found a way of intervening with these families. I know that the Government hope to set up a unit looking at what works and that there are programmes that work in this field. I do not think this is a legislative issue. I think it is again an issue of spreading good practice through all local authorities. Sometimes the voluntary sector develops the best ways forward, and I hope the Government will do all they can to promulgate these programmes. I have removed children at birth from their mothers. It is a traumatic and appalling process to have to be involved in when working in social services. The follow up has always been poor for the mothers. We now have an opportunity to do something about it. We know how to do it.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Monday 4th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I obviously support what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, has said, although I am not going to go through the long list of experiences that I have experienced as a director of social services, as an assistant director and a social worker, and even more so, working with the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, which dealt with predatory grooming adults and how they got in touch with children.

I am concerned about how we work through two parts of this. One is how we make absolutely sure that the vetting is solid and absolutely reliable for all the reasons the noble Lord, Lord Warner, has said—and how we set performance standards—but also, at the same time, as having some flexibility in who the young person might see as the person who is going to be their personal adviser. I think this is more complex than it looks on the surface. I think we could set standards of training—we have all done that in our time; we could have a vetting system and place it on a register, although I would say 130 days to get a vetting back from the Met police at the moment seems to me a scandal, and is interfering with the recruitment of appropriate social workers right across the piece. But we have to look at how we have both of those things together, with the young person having some choice about who they want to be their mentor. There may be people in their lives, such as a teacher who stuck with them right through their school or a foster parent who struck right with them. Are they seen as different from personal advisers, who are a sort of profession apart? I have not yet conceptualised who those people are in relation to all the other people who are supporting the young person, and where the standard is set. The one thing that is absolutely clear is that whoever they are, they must be vetted. In my day, we had people called children’s homes visitors, and we learned the hard way what happened if you did not vet appropriately those visitors, when young people disappeared on to the street. I would underline that—it is quite a complex question.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, this is an important probing amendment. I now understand why it is in this grouping and not in the other groupings, and I apologise to whoever is responsible for that. As the British Association of Social Workers rightly said, it will be important to clarify what qualifications and capabilities will be required for the new personal advisers. Throughout our Committee discussions, we have shown how important personal advisers are and will be, in terms of speech and language and literacy, financial matters, and in putting the pathways plan together. It also is important that these are the right people for that and currently, there is no prescribed professional or occupational qualification determining which person should carry out the personal adviser’s function for any individual care leaver. There are suggestions of what a PA should normally possess. They should,

“be working towards a professional qualification … good practice …for the young person to maintain the same PA from the age of 16”,

et cetera. Presumably, the current personal advisers are DBS-compliant. If they are not, why not? I would have thought that was something that happened straightaway. They are working in a very intimate situation with young and vulnerable children, so if that is not the case, we need to know that straightaway. If it is the case, we need to look at the other suggestions that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, has made. We also need to ensure that the line management of personal advisers is not something that is just put on paper and does not happen but that somebody line-manages those personal advisers and sees them on a regular basis. There is another issue—that if we are not careful, sometimes young people who are emotionally vulnerable can make allegations against personal advisers, and that personal adviser is in a very difficult situation. If an allegation is made against a teacher, at least the teacher is in a setting where there are people around who can support and advise, whereas a personal adviser is acting entirely on their own. As well as any register and making sure that correct procedures have been gone through, there also has to be proper and effective line management of personal advisers.

Childcare Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness’s wish for a national workforce strategy, for children with disability generally but particularly for those with learning disabilities or in specialist nurseries. That is because the availability of places for those children is simply not there, in my experience: that is why parents cannot access them. Where parents do wish to access them, local authorities often make it very difficult for them to do so, by producing very complex financial arrangements that exclude those nurseries from the capacity to give help to children. I have spoken about this to the noble Lord, Lord Nash. The Bill is complex, and this is another range of complexities that would benefit from a further look at a later stage, outside the Bill.

At the same time, as many of my colleagues know, I believe that we need a good mix. Of course we need qualifications. Having been involved sometimes at both ends of inspections, I know that qualifications belong to a tick box that is easier to look at, measure and add up than it is to look at skills, competency and relationships. Those are the things that actually matter. They are often enhanced by qualifications, but we need to look at provision that has a mix of all those qualities, particularly for children with difficulties. I do not believe, therefore, that qualifications are everything, but I do think that it is sometimes difficult to measure the other areas of expertise. Moreover, many voluntary organisations would like to add to the training of their staff, but as their colleagues will know, if you are going to train a member of staff you have to release them. Even if organisations are doing in-house training, they have to find time. That adds to the cost, so they have to make sure that cost is covered, which puts extra pressure on the budget.

Therefore, I cannot fully endorse the amendments in terms of qualifications, but we all need to move forward and look at the complexity of what we are trying to provide for children in these situations.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 3 and 23. I find this debate a little frustrating. My noble friend Baroness Pinnock is right when she says that it is not just about care, but about educational experience: for instance, the importance of play. It is not about the type of provision or the amount of time we spend talking about costs. If the Government are going to invest—and are investing—huge amounts of money, it is important that we get the quality right. The best way of guaranteeing that quality is by the people delivering it.

I am sorry to disagree with the noble Baroness, but qualifications are not—and should not be—tick boxes. Qualifications are about a body of understanding and practice that one has to go through. It is hugely important that people working with young children know about child development. Notions that one is working with children but has no understanding of how children develop are anathema to me. Yes, it is hugely important that the assistant understands the importance of play and that the setting has an understanding of some of the special needs issues. It is not about ticking boxes but making sure that people have the qualifications.

The people who used to work in nurseries were of course called nursery nurses. They were highly regarded and highly trained, and resented it when, suddenly, nursery nurses were done away with and became level 3s —or perhaps level 4s. Level 3 is not a particularly onerous qualification to get; one can do it in 12 months or over two years. I hope that we stick our mast firmly to the top of our nurseries and say, yes, we want the people working there to have the right qualifications.

Of course, there are some wonderful people working in playgroups and helping out in nurseries who do not have these qualifications, but for goodness’ sake—we asked for a commission to look at this issue, and the Nutbrown commission spent a lot of time working on this. It said, “Yes, they should be at level 3”. Should we just ignore that and tear it up? No, we should not. We should make sure that quality is at the heart of the provision. Finally, we should also make sure that the leadership of those nurseries is of the highest calibre.

Childcare Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

First, I thank the Minister for his letter, which raised a number of issues in my mind but which was at least helpful in resolving some others, and say that I support Amendment 1. I believe that I heard the Minister say in his introduction that he had had useful discussions with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and that some of the issues that he outlined in his introduction were going to come forward in any event. Despite all the difficulties that have gone before—I am glad I am not taking a political view—this gives us a really good opportunity to take a strategic view of childcare at the moment. I want to be absolutely clear about the who, the how and the what as we go through the amendments. We have a number of amendments, which we will discuss later, about what a working parent is, who in a range of other groups, such as disabled groups, might qualify for extra childcare and how that will be delivered. Will it be on an educational or a childcare basis? The Sutherland report pointed out clearly that there are differences in those two things. What will it be? Who will deliver it? Will it be delivered by childminders as well as within that educational framework?

If we could understand, through these reports, the answers to some of the issues that the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, raises, we would have a good opportunity to settle funding, cost and consistency issues. Those are among the main difficulties across the country for those trying to access childcare—you only have to move across a county border to find you pay twice as much for childcare as you did in the previous county, which can cause great difficulties, particularly with a mobile workforce. I hope that as we go through the amendments we will get answers to these questions and that we will stop, if you like, the procedural issues—we have made enough of those. We now have some baseline information from the Minister, and maybe we can move forward and get further information so that, by October, we know which parents will qualify and can understand what they will get and where they will get it from.

[Lord Storey]

First, I apologise to your Lordships for not being able to speak at Second Reading. I will speak to Amendments 1, 29 and 38A. I very much agree with the comments of the noble Baronesses, Lady Andrews and Lady Howarth, but am very nervous of phrases such as “value for money” and “best value” in local government. It has to be about what is best in terms of provision. We have seen early years childcare grow over the last two decades. We have seen the Labour Government, the coalition Government and now the Conservative Government all doing something about early years, but we have not really thought about how it is going to look and how we want it to work. I find it concerning, for example, that three-quarters of our nurseries are, as we know, independent. There is nothing wrong with that, but we know that of those independent nurseries only half have a qualified teacher on the staff. We also know that, when there is a qualified teacher, the learning experience for those children is far greater than otherwise. So it has to be about the quality of the provision, for me.

I wonder about the effects of having those extra 15 hours. It might be great for working parents, but how do they affect the child? I will give an example. Schools will have nurseries, where children will go for part-time provision for three hours a day, Monday to Friday. So you can see a system arising now whereby the working parent will take the child to the childminder and the childminder will then take the child to the school nursery for three hours. With the extra 15 hours, they cannot use the school again, because it is a different set of children in the afternoon—not in every case but in most cases—so they will look for a different provider for the afternoon session. Then the child will go back to the childminder to be taken home to the parent. So there will be four different regimes or experiences of childcare, and I really wonder what the effect will be on those children. We need to look closely and calmly not just at the extra resource and provision, which we all welcome, but at how we ensure that there is quality.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey]

I support my noble friend Lady Brinton on this excellent probing amendment, and will briefly take the opportunity to say that often the bully needs support as well. I have seen many occasions where that support has been given to the bully. Sometimes the bully, with the support of the parents, is referred and the problems are sorted. I say this with great caution but often, quite rightly, we put all our emphasis on the poor child or young person who is being bullied and we forget about the bully. Often with the bully, it is a cry or plea for help. As well as doing all the excellent things that my noble friend Lady Brinton is saying we should, we have to find and understand that need.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I had not intended to intervene on this at this late hour, but I am tempted to, as I thought that every school had to have a bullying strategy and that there was a code. It may sit dustily on a shelf in the headmaster’s study but it is supposed to be there. I thought schools had to have a practice and some sort of plan to involve children and young people in that strategy. ChildLine has certainly produced peer programmes down the years where young people have worked together to prevent bullying themselves, through their councils. Much as I support the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in her efforts, it is my understanding that this should already be in every school.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, we all know that 70% of these young offenders have special educational needs. We also know that 10% or 20% of them have statements. We know, too, that a huge number of them—I do not know the exact figure but 70% or 80%—will go on to reoffend. Therefore, it is really important that this group of young people gets the best possible special educational needs support. When this Bill first came out, I found it unbelievable that EHC plans would not be going with these young people into their institutions.

One of the hallmarks of the Bill has been the Minister’s desire to discuss, consult and listen to what people say, and I pay tribute to him for doing that. During the discussions on this matter, it has become clear to all of us that the number of young people in these institutions is declining, as is the time that they spend in them—thank goodness. The practicalities of getting their EHC plans to go with them becomes very difficult, particularly if you are talking about different local authorities, and therefore what the Minister is proposing seems sensible.

I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for his remarkable knowledge in this area. I agree with him, and I hope that when the Minister replies he will be able to refer to the concern that a lot of us share about the words “best endeavours”. Sadly, the justice system is not an educational system, and “best endeavours” is too wide a hope—for example, “I use my best endeavours to get up early in the morning but I don’t”. I hope that noble Lords can see the point that I am making. The use of this phrase is a recipe for not doing the sorts of things that we in this House want to see provided for these young people. Maybe the word to use is “responsibility” or “duty”—I do not know—but I hope that the Minister will indicate that he will look at this again and come back with exact wording to make sure that the special needs provision that we all want to see is provided.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I shall be brief, as I usually am, but I want to say two things. One is that when I read these amendments my heart leapt. I thought that if only the home local authority could be made responsible for every young person in secure provision on this basis with a proper plan for seeing them through—as I remember, and as I am sure my noble friend Lord Laming will remember, was the case in children’s departments, where someone was responsible for a young person, with a plan, wherever they were—that would be absolutely wonderful. Of course, at that time there was much more focus on education in the institutions, as childcare establishments, than there is in some of the more penal establishments that exist today.

So I was utterly delighted and was going to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, whose tenacity of purpose has taken this through, until I realised, as he did, the key flaw in this piece of legislation. That flaw is that those who wish to take the plans through are not the people with the capacity to provide the resource in order for it to happen in the place it needs to happen. As I am always interested in implementation, I thought about how this would work. There has to be a further step somewhere, either in some sort of regulation or a change in the legislation, that ensures that these plans are formulated into the institution—because, remember, these are individual plans. In the institution they have to be put together into programmes for groups of young people; it is not as easy as simply saying that you can carry each plan through as it stands without extra provision being brought in, with all the problems with that in terms of financing.

I hope that the Minister will look at this, take heart that many of us have been very impressed with the way he listens, and take it forward. Many of us are very concerned about young people in detention who have been failed by everybody by the time they get to detention, particularly those with special educational needs who should not be in this form of provision at all. Surely they can get the right education through this legislation, but they certainly will not with this flaw.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I want to speak briefly because the health arguments have mainly been made. I want to make two rather different points. I support both of these amendments. I have a long-standing reputation for campaigning in this area. I find it interesting that the industry has suggested, from time to time, that packaging makes no difference. If it makes no difference, why is it so important? Let us get on and take it off the shelves. We have all the evidence to show that children are attracted to packaging and we all know our own instincts. I have never smoked, but both my parents died from smoking related diseases. My mother was addicted and said that I should stop anyone else I could from smoking.

My other point is on the smoking in cars amendment. Having said that the medical arguments are substantially made, which the Minister knows whatever the position he has to take on this, there is also a clear safety issue about smoking with children in cars. Anyone who has driven with two arguing children strapped in the back of their car—because children argue in the backs of cars, and if yours do not, then they are remarkable—will know how distracting it is and how you have to absolutely keep your concentration up. So I have always found it strange that we do not stop people being distracted by fiddling into a bag or a pocket for a packet of cigarettes, finding something to light up with and taking their eye off the road—we have all seen it—while they light a cigarette. They then have a cigarette in one hand while they are driving their children in their cars. This is an added reason for ensuring that people cannot smoke with children in cars. You might say that where there are two people one of them may smoke, but there is the medical reason and this additional safety reason. I have no idea whether there are any statistics on accidents because people have been smoking in cars, but when you think of the legislation we have to stop people using mobiles, which in some ways are much more automatic, I cannot understand why we do not have similar legislation to protect children, not only for the medical issues in relation to their health but also for sheer practical safety reasons.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I will speak to Amendments 263 and 264. If you said to some parents that you were going to put their son or daughter or both in a tin box, cut some holes in the box, then fill it with smoke, put it on wheels and drive it around all the time, they would think you were absolutely mad. The tin box is almost like a coffin because you are killing children. You are literally killing children.

My parents were heavy smokers; they smoked 40 Senior Service every day. In fact, they smoked so much that our living room ceiling turned yellow once a year and had to be repainted. I always remember that when my father drove me through the Mersey Tunnel he would say, “We’ll have to put the window up because you can die from carbon monoxide poisoning, you know”, yet—perhaps this is why I get chest infections regularly—he was putting our family in that sort of situation. Of course, he did not know about the effects.

All of us look back at things in our lives that we are really proud of. The thing that I am most proud of in politics was that we introduced Smokefree Liverpool. Thanks to support from noble Lords of all groupings, we were able to influence, in a small part, government thinking. You often get people saying, “Oh, it’s the nanny state. We don’t want a nanny state. We don’t want people telling us what to do. If we ban smoking in cars, the next thing will be that we ban it in the house as well”. Well, nannies are there to protect and look after children, and a nanny state should be there to look after and protect children.

Children are particularly vulnerable to second-hand smoking as they breathe more rapidly and inhale more pollutants than adults. ASH has shown that parental smoking is a causal factor of asthma in children, and that the prevalence of asthma increases when the number of smokers in a car or in the home increases. Children exposed to second-hand smoking also have an increased risk of lower respiratory infections, bronchitis, middle ear disease, bacterial meningitis and sudden infant death syndrome. There is also a very social issue, one that is directly related to making our society fairer. Evidence has shown that children living in the poorest households have the greatest levels of exposure to smoking and that passive smoking has been shown to affect children’s mental development and school absenteeism. That clearly undermines our efforts to increase social mobility. Experts have suggested that banning smoking in cars while driving with children is an important step in limiting the effect of second-hand smoking.

For those more interested in the economic side, the numbers are staggering. The health disorders caused by smoke-generated disorders cost the NHS about £23.3 million a year. In particular, £4 million is spent on asthma drugs for children up to the age of 16. The future treatment costs for smokers who take up smoking as a consequence of smoking by a parent could be as high as £5.7 million each year. Parents need to consider that, in choosing to smoke, they will find it difficult to explain to the children why they in turn should not smoke. The NHS has shown that children who grow up with a parent or family member who smokes are three times as likely to start smoking themselves. As we can see, the issue has implications for public health and our society in general, and ignoring it would mean ignoring the poll in 2009 which found that a majority of adults in England were in favour of banning smoking in cars, with 74% opposed to smoking in cars with children. The message is clear: if we really care about our children and want to improve their health and social mobility, this is a step that we can take.

I can look back, as no doubt all of us can, at moments in our social policies where there has been resistance from some quarters, whether it be from government or a powerful lobby, but the will of people has always come out. Noble Lords may remember the row about seatbelts: “Ooh, you can’t have the nanny state making people wear seatbelts”. In the end we had the courage to fight for that, and we cut the number of deaths in traffic accidents considerably. There was even a fuss about making people riding motorbikes wear crash helmets; there was a feeling that, “We shouldn’t do that. The nanny state is interfering by telling people that they must wear a helmet”. It is quite right that they should wear helmets. More recently, we have had the issue of smoking in public places. As a Government, we have a duty and a responsibility to do this.

Governments of all political persuasions have to think very carefully and be led by evidence, not by emotion or lobbying. I understand that the issue of plain packaging for tobacco products is something that the Government were committed to but they wanted to see quite clearly that the policy that was agreed, particularly in Australia, brought results. It is now clear that that policy is having an impact, and I hope that the Government, having initially said, “Let us wait and see”, might now say, “Come on, this is an opportunity to move forward”. I look forward to the Minister responding to the pressure from your Lordships here.

On children in cars, I would prefer that we agree the amendment in its entirety, but if we cannot do that, we could think about taking the first step by having public information, as we used to do. We could provide adverts and publicity material so that parents could see what needs to be done. But if we really want to be progressive and move forward, we should support these amendments.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Storey]

I thank my noble friend for that.

I now turn to the graduated approach. We have come a long way in special educational needs, have we not? Schools must have SENCOs and a written policy. That is all to be applauded. The code of conduct clearly says that there has to be a qualified teacher working at the school, and that a newly appointed SENCO must be a qualified teacher and have the appropriate qualifications. Of course, we have SENCOs in schools who do not have those qualifications and we may need at some stage to visit that issue. The SENCO is important. You can have all the policies in the world but the SENCO makes them happen.

When we were talking about this—and I have experience of school action, school action plus and IEPs—I was quite alarmed. I said, “Man the barricades”. But the code of practice is a realistic response. It is clear in all sorts of ways. It states, on initial identification:

“As part of a graduated approach to tackling need … reviews of progress should be held once a term”.

Maybe that “should” should be “must”. It continues by stating that,

“there should be a plan that focuses on what outcomes are expected and the support that the school, college and any relevant agencies will provide”.

I applaud the document and I am more relaxed about the issue.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Low, that I thought that IEPs were a real step forward, but my experience of them is that in many cases, sadly, they have become paper-writing exercises and increase the bureaucracy. What is needed is a much more focused and realistic approach, which is why I like the fact that the code states that the teacher has to meet the parents once a term and discuss the progress that has been made, presumably outside the normal parents’ evening.

I am slightly relaxed about the concern about school action and school action plus. What is in a name? It is not about a name. It is about an approach, an ethos, a culture and a doing mentality. I am sure that the progress we are making on that will help towards it.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

We could talk about both these amendments all night. I just want to say two sentences. First, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey. It is not about the name but about what will happen in the process on the ground in relation to that amendment. Returning to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. We need to focus on the very narrow issue of ensuring that this process can be taken forward. Quite frankly, the Labour Government should have got this into their apprenticeship legislation when they brought it forward in the previous Parliament. If the Minister cannot do what the noble Lord suggests, I hope he will take this away, look at it and come back on Report. That is the simplest way, and it is achievable.

Education Bill

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, used the right words—“common sense”. I cannot understand this. As a parent and as a teacher, I have no objection to same-day detentions. As has been said, if there is to be a sanction or punishment often it is best that it is done straight away. However, the notion that young people, children and students are kept behind at school without their parents or their carers knowing does not seem right and proper.

If a school organises an after-school activity, whether it be football, netball, swimming or whatever, parents give their permission for their children to take part in those activities, understanding that their children will have to make other arrangements to come home. Why cannot that be done for same-day detentions? All we are suggesting, which is eminently sensible and supported by all the unions bar one—of the unions supporting it, even the National Association of Head Teachers thinks that it is right and proper that parents are notified—is that when a same-day detention is held the parent is contacted, not through a message left on a voicemail, an e-mail or a text but actually contacted. If they cannot be contacted, the same-day detention would have to be held the next day. That is the right and proper common-sense approach.

I have had various e-mails today saying that it would be a breach of the law if the child was not safeguarded and so on, but in all this guidance, about which no doubt we will hear in a moment, I cannot find an understanding that the parent comes first—that the parent matters. I hope that in the guidance it is made absolutely clear how we will protect the well-being and safeguarding of children.

We have spoken about rural areas and the school bus, but in urban areas—in my own city—children often have to travel two miles across the city to go to school. On dark nights they are placed in a very vulnerable situation. If the parents know their child is being kept behind, they can make arrangements.

I hope the Minister will understand the real sense of concern about this issue and give an assurance that the guidelines will clearly spell out what we are asking.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I recognised that there would be a number of reasoned arguments and I stand with my colleagues who made them. I took a rather different way on this. During the summer I consulted a number of friends and my family—it was a random experiment—and it became absolutely clear that they did not believe that I was telling the truth when I said that it was the Government’s plan that when their child was going to be detained they would not be told. They said, “You are making it up”. That was the first response.

The second response from rural parents—I work and have friends in London but I live in a rural area—was, “But there is only one bus. They cannot be detained without notice because if they do not get on the bus they do not get home at all”. We have to remember that not every poor parent in a rural area has a car; they depend on that transport. There are no other bus services or taxis; you catch the school bus or you do not get home. The third response was the sheer indignation that this was “my” child, not owned by anyone else.

The common thread through all that was that the parents were quite keen for the child to be disciplined at school. There was no disagreement that the child should not receive their discipline, that detention might be the right answer, or that the closer it was to the incident the better little Jonny would learn from it. The disagreement was that parents had to know that their child was going to be detained so that they could ensure the protection of their child and were not worried out of their minds. I hope noble Lords will forgive my anecdotal bit of research but it was pretty consistent with the reasoned arguments that we have heard this evening.

Education Bill

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I was not going to speak in this debate, but so many important comments have been made that I feel that I want to add my few words.

I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that this is about safeguarding both the child and the teaching staff. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that we need to engender trust in a school. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, reminded me about his report on discipline, which I remember quite well. I remember having to write an essay on it—so he is to blame.

The problems of discipline in schools are not just to do with pupils. They are to do with that group of people we were talking about in a very positive way: parents, and—dare I say it?—the legal profession. You can just imagine a situation that happens daily: that of a teacher, say in primary school, who in innocence says “Come on, hand over that game you’ve got in your pocket”, stupidly goes to reach for it, and the next thing is that there is a legal action. So all that trust has evaporated.

The guidance has to be very clearly laid down. Pupils should not have mobile phones in classrooms—and this is hugely important. It is very dangerous, for all the reasons that we have heard. Of everything that has been said, that is probably the most important, because it is not just about grooming children, but about other pupils bullying each other through mobile phones.

So why on earth schools are allowing children to have mobile phones in schools, I do not understand. In small schools, they can be handed into the school office or, as has been suggested, go in a locker. I hope the guidance is very clear. It is about ensuring the protection and the safeguarding of the pupil, as much as the safeguarding of the teacher.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak, but it was in hearing the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, talk about clarity, that reminded me that I had had a letter from someone in a school. Your Lordships will understand why I quote it:

“Please could you register my welcome overall of the trust put in teachers and school leaders to manage behaviour more effectively in schools and colleges. However, I am concerned that the measures taken to improve the authority of teachers are being seen as threats to the child and to the member of staff concerned. Searches should be allowed by staff and good practice ensures that a teacher will ask for a witness for the search”.

It shows that the common sense that the ministry is trying to encourage exists in schools, but that there is a lack of clarity. The real need is for clear guidance, and indeed the amendment put down by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, would help people to understand. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, who said that there are so many things that are believed in schools that are not actually the law or statute.

This has been a wonderful Second Reading debate, I have to say. I have thoroughly enjoyed some of the speeches, and not having had an opportunity to get to the actual Second Reading, I am now taking my opportunity, too. We have to remind ourselves that not everything was wonderful in the past, and that there are some things that are significantly better. One thing that is significantly better is child safeguarding. We abandon anything that continues to safeguard children, as the noble Baroness was saying with regard to Barnardo’s, at our risk.

I am not an educationalist but I suspect that my pedigree in safeguarding is probably as good as anyone in this House. I encourage the Minister to think carefully before abandoning those controls where it is quite clear that teachers have the common sense to think that they need a witness. But it is not always the teachers who end up doing these things. I have known of caretakers being asked to “take that mobile phone off young Jones”. It is about people who would have other motives for touching a child.

I also believe that no male adult should handle a young woman aged 12 or 13, and certainly not without a witness. If you talk to young girls, they say that they feel that that is an assault on their dignity and it is something that goes with them. I encourage the Minister to think carefully about ensuring that we have either the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley—to confirm to the Front Bench, I am suggesting one of the amendments—or extremely clear guidance for teachers so that they know that they do not search in unsafe situations.

Education Bill

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Monday 4th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

I know what effort heads and teachers make when children are reinstated into schools in difficult circumstances, so I am very pro what is going on; they work very hard. Does the noble Baroness not accept that the child who finds that their case has been upheld but is still told that they are not able to go back to their school would see this as a total injustice? As many of these children are struggling anyway, this simply reinforces their feeling that society is simply not just, so why should they conform and join in with it?

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I want to talk about Amendment 47, and then make some general comments on the other amendments. Amendment 47 is clear and concise: it is about the £4,000 fine, which is a blanket fine for all schools. For some schools, that might not seem a lot of money; for others, it is a considerable amount. For a small school—a rural village or a small urban school—it is a significant sum. In my area, there is a secondary school with 10 forms of entry. Next to that is a small Roman Catholic primary school with 101 pupils on roll, I think, and £4,000 equates to that school’s entire literacy and numeracy budget. Down the road, there is a small maintained school, for which £4,000 equates to its entire special needs budget. For a large secondary school, £4,000 is perhaps its promotion budget. We might need to link the sum in a fair and equitable way. On this occasion, one size does not fit all.

I turn to some comments made during the debate. I declare an interest as a head teacher of 25 years. I have never excluded a pupil at all. Why? First, we forget that the important thing is not the end of the process but all the things that you put in place beforehand. As I think I said last week, if you have a robust behaviour management policy, you will involve parents at every stage, and the parents are the greatest way of ensuring that a pupil does not have to be excluded from school.

Having said that, my wife is a secondary teacher in a large inner-city school and I have seen teachers’ careers destroyed by disruptive behaviour. We are not talking about teachers who should not be in the classroom but, because of the circumstances—because of poor leadership, because the other issues have not been put in place—their lives as teachers can be wrecked, as indeed can those of the pupils.

Some of you may recall that I said two things last week. I agreed with a noble Lord opposite who said that any exclusion is a tragedy. I also said, however, that teachers have a right to teach and pupils have a right to learn. Pupils also have a right to ensure that a system is fair and just and they are the first to know if something is not fair. In any school it is the pupils who say, “Hey, sir, that’s not fair” or “Hey, miss, why are we doing this?”. If we have an exclusion policy which is not fair and just, pupils will be the first to see that and that is why I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Walmsley.