Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]

Angela Rayner Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Before I call the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), I will point out what is demonstrably obvious: more than 10 Members wish to speak. The programme motion that the House has passed—it is not a matter for the Chair—is extremely tight, but I want Back Benchers to be heard. The Minister has set out the Government’s position and the hon. Lady will set out the Opposition’s position, but Back Benchers must be heard.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Let me reiterate that point and say how disappointing it is that the Government have allocated just 90 minutes to discuss all the issues relating to the welfare of the most vulnerable children, particularly when Back Benchers on both sides of the House contributed so much to the Bill.

[Edward Timpson]

I am sorry to have to rise again, Mr Speaker, but I should point out that the programme motion was agreed across the House, so it should not be a surprise to the Opposition.

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the Minister for that point, but there was dialogue about that before we came to the House, so he knows exactly where we stand.

I thank the Minister for his comments about my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck). She cannot be here today because she is on compassionate leave, but she put in a tremendous amount of work to take the Bill through the Committee. I will try to be brief and will put a limit on the interventions that I take.

First, and most importantly, I want to make it clear that we will support new clause 14, tabled by the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen). My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields and I were happy to add our names to it and will add our votes to any Division on it. It is similar to our new clause 12, so I would like the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire to clarify whether “capacity” in her amendment has the same intention as it does in ours: an assessment of the extra numbers that a council would take. New clause 13 complements those new clauses by ensuring that the Minister reflects those numbers in the national strategy. The Government have committed to provide that, but new clause 13 puts it on a statutory footing. It also provides for progress updates in the meantime, and I understand that some of those who should have received quarterly updates from the Government have yet to receive them. If the Minister is not prepared to accept the new clause, I hope that he will commit to come back with an update. However, I reserve my right to press our amendments to a vote if the Minister does not address those concerns.

Given the time available, I will not rehearse the issues at length, but I echo the points made in recent days by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). I hope that we will hear from them in today’s debate. Our care for child refugees says something about us as a country. I hope that we take a lead from the example set in the debate in the other place and can hold our heads up high at the end of today.

I turn now to our amendments about vulnerable children already in our care, who should not be overlooked in this debate. New clause 3 requires local authorities to allow children in care reasonable contact with their siblings, and I welcome the Minister’s commitment to future dialogue on that. New clause 4 has arisen because, quite simply, we have been sending our most vulnerable looked after children to Scotland due to the lack of specialist provision closer to their homes, families, schools, and local services. New clause 4 gives Ministers two years to sort out secure accommodation in England and Wales, so that any future secure placements in Scotland are made through choice, not constraint.

Section 25 of the Children Act 1989 was changed in Committee so that children looked after by English or Welsh local authorities can be detained in secure accommodation in Scotland. As the Minister said, that was a recognition that it is already happening. Vulnerable children are being sent to a different country, with different legal and education systems, because we have failed to provide for them close to their homes and communities. Changes in Committee also removed the requirement to obtain the consent of the parents and the child. Is it right not to get a child’s consent before they are moved to Scotland? They will also lose their right to independent periodic review, and I have yet to hear a convincing argument from the Minister as to why. The High Court suggested a joint review by the Law Commission, which would surely be better than a fix behind closed doors, and I hope the Minister will consider it.

We offer our support to the hon. Members on both sides who tabled new clause 7, a version of which my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields tabled in Committee. I hope the Minister will indicate that he will take up the issue through statutory guidance if he cannot accept the new clause.

New clause 8 would establish a clear statutory duty on local authorities to secure sufficient, suitable accommodation for all care leavers up to age 21. I am sure that I do not need to tell the Minister why that is important, but Government figures show that too many care leavers are in unsuitable or unknown accommodation. All of us who are parents of young adults are aware of the modern challenges they face and of the fact that they need support beyond their teenage years. In Committee, the Minister referred to the care leavers accommodation and support framework developed by Barnardo’s and St Basil’s, but funding for that ends next month. He referred to care leavers as a priority group for social housing, but that is not the same as a legal duty and does not mean that it happens in practice. If he cannot accept new clause 8, perhaps he will agree to meet to discuss how we can achieve its basic aim.

New clause 10 seeks to reduce to four weeks the maximum level of sanctioning for care leavers on universal credit. The Minister will be aware of the shockingly high rate of sanctioning experienced by care leavers and will know that care leavers are three times more likely to receive a sanction than a member of the general population. They are also less likely to challenge sanctions, but they are more likely to have them overturned. When a care leaver sits down with a work coach for the first time, will the Minster tell us what steps he is taking to ensure that their status is known and that they are treated accordingly? The Children’s Society told me that they worked with a care leaver who was sanctioned over Christmas and had to choose between feeding himself or his pregnant girlfriend. That is not the behaviour of a good corporate parent, and I hope we can hear more about what the Minister will do about that.

In line with other elements of the Bill, new clause 11 seeks to promote the financial stability of care leavers up to the age of 25. It would support care leavers into work and apprenticeships and would protect their finances when living in private rented accommodation. Young people under the age of 25 receive a lower rate of universal credit, but care leavers tend to take on more responsibility earlier. New clause 11 would extend the higher rate to care leavers under the age of 25. At about £780 a year, the difference for a low income individual would be significant. Care leavers will receive a £2,000 bursary when entering higher education, but they are not entitled to an equivalent when engaging in apprenticeships. Given the Government’s emphasis on skills, I hope they will consider such a measure.

Care leavers in private rented accommodation also experience a cut of some £50 a week to their housing benefit when they turn 22. The Minister has asked the Children’s Society for case studies, which it has provided to the Department. Perhaps the Minister could respond.

We estimate the cost of the new clause to be some £32.9 million, which is not a significant sum of money when we consider the ultimate cost to the state of failing properly to support care leavers. The Bill provides an opportunity for the Government to take responsibility for some of the financial difficulties experienced by care leavers, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

New clause 20 calls for an annual review of care leavers’ access to education and for the Government to produce a report of the impact of that access. If my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) presses her amendments to a vote, we will support her.

The Department’s own statistics show that only 6% of care leavers go to university, compared with 38% of all young people. Almost a third of children in care leave school with no GCSEs or GNVQs. That is not their failure but ours. I urge everyone in the Chamber today to reflect on that. We are failing these children and young adults, and it is our duty to turn those numbers around.

Finally, one issue on which we can congratulate all concerned is the progress we have made on sex and relationships education. A great deal of work has gone into getting to this stage, for which I thank my Front-Bench colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow, for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), in whose names new clause 1 stands.

I also acknowledge the work of the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes). I will support the amendment that they and the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) have tabled to new clause 15. I hope the Minister will be able to address the point without division, in either sense of the word.

[Caroline Lucas]

Does the hon. Lady agree that, on the question of the right contained in new clause 15 for parents to withdraw their children from sex education lessons, we need to ask challenging questions on whether it can ever be right to deny a child their entitlement to vital education through good, age-appropriate information, not least because we know how important that is to keeping them safe?

[Angela Rayner]

I take on board the hon. Lady’s point. There has to be balance, and there has been considerable movement in that direction. I pay tribute to the Government for moving on that issue. Hopefully we can tease that out as we go through the finer details.

However, I seek clarification from the Minister on certain points of new clause 15. First, the coalition Government withdrew funding for the personal, social and health and economic education continuing professional development programme. That policy made it much more difficult for teachers to access the necessary training, thus lowering quality. Will the Government commit to any new resources for teacher training and continuing professional development, to ensure that relationships and sex education provision is of high quality?

I reiterate the earlier contributions to this debate that, at first glance, there is no explicit mention of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in new clause 15. We have evidence from Stonewall and others that excluding LGBT children and the issues they encounter daily from existing relationships and sex education has a damaging impact on their health, wellbeing and attainment at school. Do the Government commit to ensuring that the new statutory guidance is inclusive of LGBT issues in an age-appropriate way? Will the Government consult expert organisations in doing so?

We know that the nature of relationships and sex education will change, which means changes to statutory guidance.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Gentleman had loads of time to seek to intervene when the Minister was speaking.

Will the Government convene an expert group to ensure that, as the statutory guidance is updated, it covers the broad depth of topics required in RSE? Which organisations will be part of that group? On that issue at least, the House has spoken and the Government have listened. I urge the Government to do the same again on the other amendments before the House today. Many of the most vulnerable children depend on us, and we must not let them down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner]

I echo the thanks given by the Minister, particularly to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), who cannot be with us today. She did a tremendous amount of work on the Bill. I also thank the Committee members who contributed to the Bill and all Members from across the House who have made it a much better Bill. I commend the Government on the work they have done towards finding consensus within the House on the Bill. I also thank all the organisations that have contributed to the Bill throughout its passage.

We have had a fantastic debate. I am disappointed that we have not managed to add new clause 14 to the Bill, but I hope the Minister was listening in particular to the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) when she talked about the model of good housekeeping in the amendment we voted on. I hope the Minister will look at that and see how we can make progress on it in later stages.

[Lady Hermon]

I voted in support of new clause 14. I should like to say again on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland and those in my constituency that we want to be able to welcome refugee children just as much as England, Wales and especially Scotland, which has already done so much. If the Minister is going to look at this issue, will he also remember that the people of Northern Ireland would like to have been included in new clause 14? The new clause was lost, but I know that the Minister has taken note of it.

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the hon. Lady for reminding us of the great contribution that Northern Ireland makes to this place.

I echo the Minister’s points about the progress that has been made on relationships and sex education and on PSHE. This is a tremendous step forward, although there is still work to be done. Many of the Select Committee members who have taken part in the debates today have done a tremendous amount of work on this, and I commend them for that. I also welcome the Minister’s earlier contribution on new clause 3, which dealt with sibling contact. That is going to make a massive difference to vulnerable people. On new clause 7, we know that a cycle of deprivation can be created among vulnerable children, who can grow up to become vulnerable adults. If nothing else, we should be trying to break those cycles. That is where the cross-party efforts in this place to achieve a true meritocracy come in.

I want to mention clauses 32 to 39, the so-called innovation clauses. There was huge resistance to those measures from care leavers, adult survivors of abuse, social workers, academics, children’s rights campaigners and charities. The Together for Children coalition has 53 organisations, more than 160 individual experts and 108,000 signatures from concerned members of the public. On top of this, organisations as diverse as the Magistrates Association, the Law Society, the Family Law Bar Association, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the GMB trade union, which represents foster carers, as well as some of our oldest children’s charities, including Action for Children and the NSPCC, warned of the grave dangers to our country’s most vulnerable children and young people of allowing councils to opt out of their statutory duties. I therefore commend the Minister and the Secretary of State for accepting those arguments and removing the relevant chapters from the Bill.

On new clause 17, we have some concerns about the way in which the Secretary of State will decide to discharge her duties with respect to the registrar, and specifically about the extent to which Social Work England will be able to exercise the necessary independence with respect to accrediting the courses leading to registered social worker status. I hope the Minister will take note of those concerns.

I should like to end by echoing the comments of many Members throughout the passage of the Bill about the great unsung heroes who work in our children’s services. The Minister has rightly said that social workers make an important positive contribution to our communities. I must add that my niece is a social work manager who looks after children, and she does a tremendous job, as do every single one of the workers in that field. They are at the forefront of helping children, families and disabled and older adults who are distressed, in difficulty and perhaps in danger. Most of their work goes unseen, without recognition or celebration, but they deserve our thanks for the major contribution that they make every single day.