Children and Families Bill

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that I hope that this is not the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to debate the progress of childcare issues for the future. I have been in the House for 13 years and have lived through a series of different Bills. Each Bill has brought progress and movement forward, just as this Bill will. However, it leaves huge gaps which, I hope, will be looked at in the future. Rather like the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, I think it is great but it is not Utopia.

The Bill has a very good heart that has three major heartbeats. Placing decision-making for children at the centre of policy is something that the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children has asked Ministers to do for a long time. We shall continue to press Ministers to do that. Listening to children is also central. However, it is only for some children because there are circumstances outlined in the Bill under which young children, if they are particularly disabled, are excluded from being heard in relation to some of the wishes they may have about services. I know from working with children that you can hear quite clearly what they have to say from a very young age. The most important heartbeat is about working together. It was very heartening to see the logos of three different departments at the top of a letter from Ministers. I only hope that that indication of working together will continue throughout what we are trying to do here, because there is so much to be done.

I begin by asking the Minister about the strategic thinking for the whole context of children’s planning. I have a dreadful cold, so if I suddenly stop it is because my voice has gone. I am very concerned about the issues facing those who are in the front line, working with troubled families. By troubled families I do not mean the technicality that people seem to mean, but all families with troubles. This work requires real maturity, knowledge and skill. It requires an understanding of child development and family dynamics, and how they interact with culture as a whole and with a child’s environment. For social workers, independent reviewing officers, under-fives workers and many others, including teachers who are engaged in this work, there is a very high personal cost. There is sometimes a very high cost indeed in terms of the possibility of career difficulties.

We all know that local authorities are coping well in tough times. They have exciting new methods of delivery, but it is clear for all to see that with the next round of cuts, authorities will be on the verge of not coping. I wonder what the Government will do to ensure that children’s services are protected. It takes only one mistake to end a child’s life or a worker’s career. As someone who has lived through three childcare inquiries—which I am sure is not a confession I should make too easily—I know the impact this can have on an individual. I heard about high case loads when I sat on the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation, which was chaired by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I know about people with workloads that led to mistakes and then to their being blamed. As a community, at some point we must do something to ensure that those services are safe.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, mentioned the splitting of funding for the 16-25 age group between education and social care. I declare an interest as a trustee of Livability, a charity which among other services provides colleges for severely disabled young people. The split in funding between education and social care, which occurred a couple of years ago, is already having a real and perverse effect. When those funding packages were joined together they made sure of provision for young people who are severely disabled. These are not the kind of children whom the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, talked about, those with the capacity to integrate into schools, but those who need personal care and nursing care as well as education.

That split means that any organisation working in this field must now go through extraordinary negotiations regarding both education and care. For many charities delivery is now becoming far too complex and expensive, with a significant loss in placements. Even if the Government try to develop a plan that integrates healthcare and education for this group of young people, I fear that the services will no longer be there. I know that there are charities other than my own which are thinking of closing these establishments, because it is just too difficult to continue the planning.

I do not want to spend too much of my time discussing links between healthcare and education, because the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, already mentioned the amendment put forward by the Health Conditions in Schools Alliance. The alliance represents the needs of a million children with special conditions. The noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, very eloquently described her own experiences in that area. I am a trustee of Little Hearts Matter, a charity which looks after children who have half a heart. I know from personal experience how very difficult it often is for parents to have their children’s needs heard when they are in school.

The Bill includes a duty for local authorities to appoint an officer who will promote the,

“educational achievement of children looked after by local authorities”.

Why can we not somehow add some requirement that they also care for children with special needs? We must ensure that they are not overburdened, but a little lateral thinking is not beyond the bounds of possibility.

I am not going to spend a lot of time on Part 1 of the Bill, although I shall take part of it in detail. As I mentioned, I sat on the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation, and I want quickly to make one point about this. The political emphasis on adoption has led to a missed opportunity to provide services across the care system, as adoption will not be suitable for a variety of children. Guardianship and long-term fostering have been shown to provide equally successful outcomes. As we said in our report,

“all routes to permanence merit equal attention and investment.”

That is also true when a child has a good enough family of their own, which simply needs support.

Time has run out, so in conclusion I want to say a word about parental involvement. The Government have specifically said that ensuring the involvement of both parents in the upbringing of their children does not mean 50:50 splits. The reference to shared parenting in the Bill has been removed, for which I personally am grateful. When considering certain private law applications the court is required to presume that the child’s welfare will be furthered by the involvement of both parents in the child’s life, unless it can be demonstrated otherwise. The devil is in the detail of that sentence,

“unless it can be demonstrated otherwise”.

I have spent eight years as chair and deputy chair of CAFCASS, and I know what dangerous parents look like. They are not always easily identifiable. We must have great care about anything that undermines the paramount importance of the welfare of the child.