Children in Care

Debate between Baroness Berridge and Lord Howarth of Newport

Thursday 30th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, Transforming Care activity oversees such situations to ensure that there are not unnecessary in-patient admissions and that quality of experience while people are in-patients is maintained, subject of course to safety and the need to self-isolate. The chief executive of NHS England wrote to NHS trusts yesterday to say that care and treatment reviews should carry on and should be on a digital platform. I shall write to the noble Baroness regarding her request for statistics.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, aside from the recklessness of deregulating the children’s care sector at a time when need is sharply rising, is it not a constitutional abuse for the Government to have used the emergency coronavirus legislation to make a major and highly controversial policy change of a nature which was previously explicitly rejected by Parliament in 2017 and to do so by way of statutory instrument without proper consultation—as my noble friend Lady Massey said; I understand that the Children’s Commissioner for England, with her statutory responsibilities, was informed but not consulted—and without parliamentary scrutiny?

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, I can assure noble Lords that this is a minimal change to the procedural requirements in relation to children’s social care. The Coronavirus Act has not been used in this regard; we did not take powers under that Act because it was clear that the secondary legislation could be amended to ensure that there was limited use of the extensive powers granted by Parliament in the emergency legislation. The legislation is under review. The regulations will fall on 25 September if they are not renewed by Parliament. There is scrutiny in the Commons as well as in the Lords in relation to the new regulations.

Educational Settings

Debate between Baroness Berridge and Lord Howarth of Newport

Thursday 19th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, there is no panic in relation to this. As the Statement said, the spike of the virus is increasing at a faster pace than had been anticipated. If it had been possible to introduce this later, coinciding with the school holidays, obviously that would have been ideal, but that is not the situation that we have. We have a disease that we are trying to protect the public from and that is our absolute priority. We are aware, as I say, of all the issues in relation to having a model that will give students a fair and just qualification but which is not based on their having sat an exam.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, as a former Schools Minister and Minister for Higher Education, I can begin to imagine the immense pressures under which officials and Ministers labour as they seek to find practical solutions to the myriad difficulties that become apparent in this crisis. I thank the Minister for her candour in her responses. My question to her is about the Government’s plans for communication. She has kindly said that she will write to my noble friend Lord Watson; I am sure she has more ambitious plans for communication than that. Can I urge the Government to err on the side of excess in their communications? Will she, for example, ensure that we receive emails containing detailed answers to all the questions that noble Lords today have put and to the other questions that are being asked across the country, so that all of us can assist the department in this very important challenge of communication?

[Baroness Berridge]

Yes, I have reassured noble Lords that communication is going out daily from the department to head teachers, as it has been since early March. However, as noble Lords have requested it, in looking for the will of the House I will write to all noble Lords to answer in one fell swoop all the questions they have raised.