Child Development

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I, too, thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester for introducing this debate, although I did not always agree with his analysis—but that is what the debate is about. I do not bring any particular expertise to this debate, other than the fact that I have been a parent for what seems a large chunk of my life, and now also a grandparent. When I look back on it, it seems that I came from a somewhat dysfunctional family. I retain an interest in education, because I am still a school governor at my local primary school. One thing that impelled me to enter into this debate was a conversation I had following a school governors’ meeting, when we walked around the school, looked at a lot of good improvements made in the playground area, and talked about the school’s achievements and tasks that were still to be done. This school had an outstanding Ofsted assessment a year before last, so we are making progress. However, the head teacher’s comment to me was, “The problem is that the damage is done before we get them”. That was just an aside, but it really had an impact on me and made me think that I would enter into this debate even if I offered only that comment. It is an important comment.

A problem with entering this debate at this stage is that a lot of the best points have already been made. The noble Lord, Lord Sacks, focused on asking why we do not have parenting as part of the citizenship curriculum. He said that it was an important skill and that we all enter it as amateurs—and those of us in this Chamber who have been parents know how true that is. When you are confronted with that little screaming bundle of joy, when the child has come home from hospital or the midwife has departed, you wonder what you are going to do next. So I hope that the Minister will think about that particular idea.

It has been a good and rounded debate, but when the right reverend Prelate said that the last Government just threw money at the problem I thought that it was a less than fair comment. We actually did a lot more than that—and I am not saying that everything that we did was right or that every pound spent was absolutely rightly directed. My noble friend Lord McFall set the record straight when he talked about the progress that had been made on child poverty.

I, too, congratulate the House of Lords Library—there is a mine of information in its notes. There is a comment from the Children’s Society, authors of the Good Childhood Report, that:

“Children from the poorest 20% of households in England have much lower wellbeing than average”.

Of course, throwing money at it will not be the answer, but neither will it help children’s development if they live in poverty. We know that this is a multi-faceted problem and that it has to be addressed in a variety of ways.

I listened carefully to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who always has something interesting to say. Far be it from me to disparage the holy state of matrimony—I enjoyed it so much that I embraced it twice—but we know that a large proportion of people in this country are not going to get married and do not want to; they have a principled reason. So even if we do as he suggested, it will address only part of the problem, and then there will be a vast array of single parents or parents going through multiple relationships, some good, some bad and some extremely damaging.

This has been an absolutely fascinating debate. My noble friend Lady King talked about investing in failure. It costs us an enormous amount of money if we do not get it right in the early years. I was also very sympathetic to what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said about the early years services and the impact of drugs and alcohol and ante and post-natal depression. We know that the earlier that we address those problems the better.

I end by reiterating the point made by my noble friend Lady King. I welcome some of the Government’s actions. The pupil premium is having a positive impact in our schools, and I welcome the free nursery education, but not at the expense of other schemes. That is the bit that worries me, the bit that my noble friend brought to the Minister’s attention. I give credit to the Government for encouraging Graham Allen to produce an independent report. However, he said himself that although the free nursery scheme was a good idea, funding it by taking cash out of other preventive social programmes “flew in the face” of ministerial promises and could lead to disproportionate cuts in services.