Children and Families Bill

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, we all agree that the Children and Families Bill is an important and welcome piece of legislation. As I always say, childhood lasts a lifetime, so I congratulate the Government on looking after the needs and well-being of children to give them a solid foundation and a stable future. However, even good Bills can be improved, and there are a number of extra commitments that the Government could make that would extend the Bill’s reach even more.

I have been working closely with the NSPCC and Barnardo’s and declare an interest as a vice-president of the latter. They are both convinced that the Government should use this Bill as an opportunity to provide even more support for young people, including children suffering from sickle-cell disorder, young carers and those leaving the care system, who are among the most vulnerable in our society.

The NSPCC and Barnardo’s have also raised some key points which have caused them grave concerns on adoption and family justice. They do not support the removal of due consideration of a child’s religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural background when placing children for adoption. Adoption between races adds another dimension to the adoption experience which cannot be ignored. Existing evidence points towards ethnic background being a significant factor because if a child experiences racism, they may feel isolated and unable to share it with anyone. A child being visibly different from family members may also result in them having a sense of not belonging or feeling unable to identify with their family. I believe we would be in dangerous territory should we remove consideration of this factor altogether from legislation because do we really understand the impact of these changes and the message they send out? I believe it must be considered by a court or an adoption agency when they are coming to a decision relating to the adoption of a child. Parents need to be able to understand the identity of the child they are adopting, so this should be included in the child’s welfare checklist along with religion, culture and language, as recommended by the House of Lords Select Committee on adoption. We need to encourage more people from culturally diverse backgrounds to adopt.

Much of Clause 3 is perfectly reasonable. It allows the Secretary of State to take action against local authorities which are failing in their duties to recruit adopters by removing these powers from them, but this must be done in a fair way. After all, there is an adoption crisis in the country. Children’s charities and the Local Government Association have concerns about the fact that the Bill allows the Secretary of State to remove responsibility for adopter recruitment from all local authorities. This could lead to a catastrophe in the adoption system because there is no guarantee that external providers would be able or willing to take on these services immediately, and any delays across the system would severely damage the chances of some of the country’s most vulnerable children being adopted. It will not solve the problem but will make matters worse.

Moving on to family justice, there are huge concerns that the 26-week time limit could make evidence-based interventions that take longer than the specified time limit more difficult, so we must ensure that there is sufficient time for the appropriate assessments to take place. Programmes such as the NSPCC’s infant and family team inform professionals, help court decisions on whether maltreated children can be reunited with their birth family or should be placed for adoption with their foster family as well as assist parents in addressing problems, but all this requires 12 to 15 months before a final recommendation is made. Although the Bill provides for eight-week extensions, continually adding them causes uncertainly for all, so we must ensure that this policy does not bring any unintended consequences that impact negatively upon the best outcome for children.

Finally I ask the Government to give serious consideration to the addition of a new clause to cover the children’s performance licensing regulations, which are seriously outdated and bear no reflection on the modern day. This was discussed during the Report stage of this Bill in the Commons, and I hope it will be taken up enthusiastically by this House as it addresses children’s well-being.

At the meeting last month of the APPG for children, media and the arts, which I chair, there was a presentation by Pact, which represents independent film and television producers. I declare an interest as an independent producer, and I speak from personal experience on this issue. Pact raised the concerns of those in the broadcasting industry, including the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV, which were present at the meeting. They strongly believe that the current legislation, which dates back to the 1960s when there were only three television channels, needs to be reformed and that there is great urgency to modernise the child performance regime. There is huge uncertainty on the rules for child performers on popular shows such as “Britain’s Got Talent” and for observational documentaries where child licences are not needed and the well-being of children is left up to production companies which in turn are unsure about the full extent of their responsibilities.

The current system places greater emphasis on bureaucracy and form-filling than on the needs, rights and welfare of the child, so the rules need to be enhanced and updated in order fully to protect children in today’s media environment, including online production, and to put adequate protections in place to ensure their health and well-being at all times. Local education authorities retain a significant amount of discretion on whether to license a child performance, leading to a postcode lottery across the UK. This needs to be addressed. There needs to be consistency. Oddly, there are greater restrictions around children participating in film and television production than in theatre. Although there are Ofcom guidelines for broadcasters, legislation for everyone involved in the employment of children in all fields of entertainment is being proposed to avoid widespread confusion.

Child physiologists have called for legislation ensuring children are protected from all aspects of a rapidly changing media world, which many children and young people want to be part of as they find it enthralling and alluring. The National Network for Children in Employment and Entertainment—the NNCEE—the majority of members of which are local authority officers, has stated that it would like to see a simple, future-proofed framework that offers equal opportunity to all children while ensuring they are properly safeguarded and, most importantly, have trained and qualified chaperones. Sarah Thane’s report and the Government’s consultation last year were warmly welcomed by the broadcasting and production industry, and those in the media industry are extremely disappointed that the Government have decided not to take forward these proposals for reform, having mainly taken the local authorities’ opinion into consideration on this issue. It is imperative that this decision is reversed, so I hope that the Government heed the warnings from this wide range of organisations—the BBC, Channel 4, ITV, Pact and NNCEE—as well as schools and child physiologists and give this proposal full consideration to show they truly value children’s welfare and long-term well-being and therefore add a new clause to this important Bill. Let us not end up regretting missing a once-in-a-generation opportunity.