Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Longfield Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Lords Chamber

I meet many people in prison who have no visits from family or friends, so they do not benefit from the strong rehabilitative effect of positive relationships, particularly with people on the outside. A quarter of all prisoners are care leavers. Emerging evidence, such as that from Lifelong Links, strongly suggests that family and other significant relationships are major protective factors against risky behaviours that could land many with an experience of local authority care in prison. For many, if no one is there, they make the fairly rational decision that they have nothing to lose. Having someone means they have something to lose. If family group decision-making is to go into statute, we need to build on it with a commitment to making approaches such as Lifelong Links available.

[Baroness Longfield (Lab)]

I support the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Armstrong. I appreciate having this opportunity to discuss in more detail family group decision-making. I welcome the measures in the Bill that seek to offer families the chance to build solutions together that can secure their children’s welfare and give them agency.

I am pleased that we are seeing support across the House for family group decision-making; that is a very positive start. My interest in supporting these amendments is about ensuring that the process is strong enough to drive and deliver the outcomes that we all want to see, so that children have better outcomes and more can safely stay with families. We have heard about that at length because of the evidence surrounding it.

I declare an interest as the executive chair of the Centre for Young Lives; I also share an office building with foundations of which my noble friend Lady Armstrong is a trustee. My experience with this, and my relationship with those organisations, goes back decades. Over that time, I have been convinced of the benefits of family group conferencing, having spoken to and worked with professionals, families and children who have gone through that process. When I first found out about it, I did not approach it as a professional who knew about that area of practice. Instead, I spoke to family members who found themselves in a situation that was spiralling out of control; they did not feel that they had any agency to provide support for family members. They had come across family group conferencing as something that their local authority had already been testing, and through it they found themselves at the centre of shaping an outcome that was much more favourable to them and their siblings.

With the amendments, we are looking at moving from a decision-making meeting that might fall foul of box-ticking tendencies, to a process that has strength and an understanding of the need for experienced leadership, trained co-ordinators and a wider network beyond the family. Some people might think that that is strange, but we all define our support networks very differently, and our wider networks can have a very strong impact on our life. As has been said, these amendments have a child-centric approach that has, as a default, the need to include children in the process.

My experience with families that have been through this, and indeed with others in the family, is that it has been transformational at a time when families often find themselves without any agency in a process that they feel is going only one way. If you have this as part of the recognised local authority system, it can be understood by families and by professionals. It is not just a whim of the director of children’s services at the time; it can be baked into the wider process of family support. It is of course so important to link this very closely with early intervention.

There are two things I wanted to say in addition. First, this will really strengthen that protection for children. This speaks to the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, talked about: most families whose children end up in care are actually in a position of adversity. The Leeds Relational Practice Centre estimates that 90% of children are in care because of family adversity. This speaks to supporting those families, and it is right to do so. Secondly, it is not a soft option. This is challenging work for everyone involved, and the bars are high.

Finally, I too have been speaking to directors of children’s services. Most are very enthusiastic about family group conferencing and completely enthusiastic about the ambitions and intent of the Bill. I have a list of those directors of children’s services, and of the 82% of local authorities who now have family group conferencing as part of what they do. Sometimes, that is done in a small way that can be built upon, but there is a long list of authorities with a huge track record of making this work and the evidence to show that it brings better outcomes for children and families.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I have attached my name to Amendment 14, already very ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer. I want to widen the political breadth of support for the family group decision-making process by strongly offering the Green Party’s support.

Amendment 14 differs from the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, which refers just to 16 and 17 year-olds. It is more expansive than the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, in that it stresses the need to make every effort to ascertain the child’s wishes and feelings and give due consideration to them.

However, it is worth noting that all the amendments in this group and the associated amendments reflect, as others have said, briefings from the Children’s Charities Coalition and the Family Rights Group, which are saying, as other noble Lords have said, that the Government are going in the right direction but the Bill needs to be strengthened and made clearer, which is what this amendment and others seek to do.

In backing this amendment, I am reflecting statements I have been making in your Lordships’ House and amendments I have been tabling and signing, going back a considerable distance to the Health and Social Care Act and the Mental Health Bill. They are about listening to children and ensuring they have agency.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred to the survey showing that almost three-quarters of children—some 73%—feel that they are not listened to by politicians. We know there is a mental health crisis, particularly among our young people. Psychologists tell us that, as is clear to us from a common-sense perspective, not having a sense of agency or feeling as if you have control or are being listened to is damaging to your mental health.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s report from 2023 raised concerns about the significant barriers to the meaningful engagement of children in decision-making in the UK, particularly the seldom heard and marginalised group of children we are speaking about here, who are likely to be involved in family group decision-making processes. We have to ensure that people are listened to and feel that they have agency. This amendment takes us in the right direction in a constructive way, and I hope we will hear from the Minister that we will at least be taking steps in this direction.