Riots Communities and Victims Panel Final Report

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Monday 28th May 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lady Sherlock for introducing this debate so coherently and for her work on this report.

I want to talk about stress and frustration with systems, which may lead to anger, disillusionment and reaction. We see it in schools and on the streets of some countries today. It is interesting that in the riots most of those involved were of job-seeking age. Punishment may well be an obvious reaction to disturbances, but causes of bad behaviour may need to be explored and punishment made appropriate—for example, restorative justice or community sentencing, as referred to earlier. I am amazed that those two things are not applied more consistently.

I want to reflect on a series of meetings held during the previous parliamentary Session by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children, which I have the honour of chairing. The meetings were on the impact of recession on young people. The report on those meetings will be launched in June, but I well remember some of the chilling messages that came across from those working with children, from research, and from children themselves. It is clear from our meetings that the recession was causing cuts to services and stress in families. Children themselves spoke of stress in relation to social class, parental employment and changing household income. Any Government seeking to address the needs of young people must address those key issues and crisis points.

Early intervention is still the key to well-being, academic and social success, and the social mobility and intervention mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler. Frank Field’s report on child poverty and life chances recommended indicators at age three and five to monitor development indicators. Will we do that? Graham Allen’s report suggested that unless government intervened early, the result will be cycles of poor outcomes. He suggested that the cost of 150 babies having positive early intervention may be the same as the cost of keeping three boys in a secure unit for a year, two of whom will go on to reoffend.

Tim Loughton, a very engaged Minister for Children, talked at one meeting about reforms to child protection and early intervention. I know that he has visited several interesting and effective services—for example, the multiagency safeguarding hub in Haringey. There are other examples of good practice in the youth service, children’s centres and schools. I hope that we work on that good practice and share it.

Intervention has to be seamless and co-ordinated throughout a child’s life and family experiences. It is not so much intervention but what a healthy society provides consistently for its people. It involves health services, education, welfare and, in particular, vulnerable children. I saw little evidence in recent Bills in your Lordships’ House of a particular sympathy for struggling families. I am suggesting that frustration is contagious and damaging. The more that inequality in society is seen to exist, the more hardship people will feel and the more difficult it will be to prevent stress, anger and frustration.