Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Storey and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Monday 4th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 78, which relates to Clause 4, which inserts, under the heading “Educational achievement of previously looked after children”, a new section into the Children Act 1989 in order to provide information and advice to previously looked-after young people and their parents.

In particular, my amendment affects subsection (3) of the new section, which provides local authorities with a power to do,

“anything else that they consider appropriate”,

to promote the educational achievement of these young people. This is potentially radical wording—whether that is intentional I am not sure—but, as I said at Second Reading, that ambition is very welcome. It is not quite on a par with the power to innovate described in Clauses 15 to 19 but I certainly think that it acts in that direction.

Without wanting to presage the debate that will take place around that part of the Bill, it is already clear that noble Lords will demand that any such powers to innovate will need to be very carefully designed to avoid negative and unintended consequences. It is that spirit which informs this amendment. I am concerned that the subsection does not include the necessary safeguards to avoid negative and unintended consequences for some young people.

Local authorities have a number of duties to several categories of vulnerable children—not simply looked-after children but, for example, children with special educational needs and disabilities. Even as we move towards an academy-led system, local authorities retain direct responsibility for placing children with special educational needs and disabilities who have educational health and care plans. I am sorry for the continued jargon. My worry is that as currently constituted, the subsection gives local authorities permission to provide extraordinary support to previously looked-after children, which is of course welcome on one level, but even if that is at the cost of pupils with SEND, for example, who are much more numerous and may have more challenging needs.

My amendment would add a simple caveat to make it clear that local authorities must take into account the impact of their actions on other children for whom they have a responsibility when considering how to raise attainment for previously looked-after children. I am perfectly willing to accept that it may be unnecessary if I can get the reassurances that I seek from Ministers that it is not intended or that other safeguards exist, perhaps in other legislation.

I turn quickly to Amendment 86, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey. I strongly support the sentiment on the delivery of high-quality PSHE in schools. That is what we do through our character programme in the Floreat schools that I set up. I am also involved in the “Developing Healthy Minds in Teenagers” programme, which is trying to do something similar in secondary schools. I very much support the spirit of the amendment but I am concerned that it might tip us into a statutory PSHE curriculum which, as the noble Baroness knows, I am not ready to support because, as Ofsted has said, PSHE teaching in too many schools is not yet good enough. We need to fix that problem before considering whether it should become a statutory subject.

[Lord Storey]

I shall speak to Amendment 86. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, has been a worthy champion of PSHE ever since I joined the House of Lords. I thought that the battle was over when in reply to her question the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, said that yes, she thought that it was important that all schools taught PSHE. I raised my hand in the air thinking, “Great, we’ve got that”.

I was interested in the comment of the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy. There is always this debate about whether we have to slim down the curriculum. It is said, “We don’t want to have statutory PSHE; we want schools—academies—to have freedoms”. Yes, I can subscribe to some of that but children are more important than them just having freedoms for curriculum development. There are really important things that need to be taught to all children and we have just heard a catalogue of them. It is hugely important that children have sex and relationship education and that they have financial education, and so on and so forth. I was fascinated by the noble Lord’s comments about the sort of work that he does in his schools. I pay tribute to that, but it should be for all schools.

I am not sure whether saying, “Let’s get the PSHE model right before we make it statutory” is the right approach. It should be the other way round. We should be saying that we will make it statutory for all schools—including free schools as well, incidentally, which I notice that the amendment does not mention—and then we make the resources, drive and determination to make that happen. That is probably one of the most important things that we can do for all children, but particularly for vulnerable and looked-after children.