Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 4th April 2017 Lords Chamber

I thank the Minister for bringing forward this provision and am pleased that this is going to be an affirmative process.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I wonder if I might speak given that I was named—but not shamed—in the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and I thank him for his tribute. I feel that I must speak on what is quite an historic occasion. I am one of those people in your Lordships’ House who has spent many years trying to get the issue of personal, social and health education, including relationships and sex education, into the curriculum, and the word “compulsory” is music to my ears. I give the amendments a huge welcome and I think that the Government have been brave in putting them before us today. At last we can see real progress on this.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, is right to say that these issues have been around in Parliament for the past 20 years. I recall my noble friend Lord Knight speaking in 2010 at a teachers’ conference at which he received a standing ovation when he said that PSHE would be made compulsory by the Labour Party. Sadly the issue was washed away in the wash-up and it never happened, but I shall never forget my noble friend’s standing ovation.

Until now, despite vocal support from children and young people, parents, teachers and other professional bodies, the words “must” and “make provision” have not been applied to these aspects of education; that is, forming and maintaining relationships and how they may affect physical and mental health. Nor have schools been required to make policy statements in relation to the education provided and to make them available to parents or other persons. The noble Lord, Lord Nash, mentioned many organisations, to which we are all grateful for their consistent support for this area of education. Children—it is they who are important here —will have the right to learn about issues that they are concerned about. They will have the right to learn about, for example, the danger of online pornography, abuse and how to protect themselves. But that is not the only thing: they will have the right to learn that most relationships are, in fact, fulfilling, happy and make sense to have.

Regarding the religious aspect, the best sex education teacher I ever met when I was an adviser was a nun. She said to me on issues such as abortion and homosexuality, “I do teach these things. What I do is put forward the Roman Catholic view of what these mean to the Church and to myself, but I do talk about them and feel that I can talk about them because I have put the viewpoint of my Church. It does not prevent me helping children to understand what such issues are about”. I deeply respect that person for what she said to me.

Here I pay particular tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Nash. I remember a conversation with him when he was first made a Minister. I realised then that he understood the importance of enabling children to receive education in school to help them understand themselves, their behaviours and attitudes, and their own rights and responsibilities. I thank him for the legislation that is now before us. I am sure that he had a huge impact on making it happen.

I of course have concerns about delivery. I realise that amendments from colleagues are totally understandable, but we have to get on with delivery. Of course teachers will need to be trained and they will need resources. I wonder how the many excellent resources on PSHE, character education, citizenship and so on will be rationalised and brought together to form a holistic approach. Maybe schools will do it themselves. I do not know. I share Stonewall’s concern; maybe the Minister can respond to this. Do the Government agree that the new legislation and guidance must comply with the Equality Act and will therefore require all schools, including those with a faith character, to provide education on LGBT issues? In Amendment 12, to be inserted after Clause 32, is the sentence,

“the education is appropriate having regard to the age and the religious background of the pupils”,

intended to ensure the faith schools can teach LGBT issues while still respecting the faith ethos of a school? I go back to my nun.

I am delighted that issues relating to sex education and PSHE are now being discussed in this Chamber openly and with respect. I again congratulate the Minister on his influence.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, my Amendment 12B is in this group. Today is a day of great celebration for me because ever since I came into your Lordships’ House, I, along with the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Gould, who is not in her place, have campaigned across party for this. I thank the Minister most sincerely for making it a reality for children. They have wanted it and demanded it; I hope they will now get it at a very high quality. The fact that it will be mandatory will mean that teachers will train specifically to give them the skills to deliver this sensitively and with an understanding of the young people.

My amendment would remove subsection (2)(d). It is simply to probe the Government’s intentions. The subsection says:

“The regulations must include provision … about the circumstances in which a pupil (or a pupil below a specified age) is to be excused from receiving relationships and sex education or specified elements of that education”.

Education: Nursery and Early Years

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord is extremely accurate in this, and I know he has great experience in this area from his career in the primary school sector. Of course the early years workforce is the sector’s greatest asset in ensuring that we continue to maintain such a high standard, with 93% of providers rated good or outstanding, in the future. The proportion of staff in group-based providers with a level 6 qualification, degree level or higher, is 10%; and 79% of staff in group-based providers and 69% of child minders have at least a level 3 qualification. Earlier this month we published the workforce strategy, which outlines a range of activities to help employers attract, retain and develop high-quality staff.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that, and I am pleased that he mentioned the development of staff in his reply. I wonder if he could be more precise. Surely he will agree with me that the quality of service in education of any kind depends on the quality of the staff. Can he say something further about the notion of the qualified status of nursery school teachers and what the Government are doing to develop it?

Schools: Funding Formula

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the Education Policy Institute report on the new funding formula for schools which indicates that primary schools may lose funding equivalent to two teachers and secondary schools may lose funding equivalent to six teachers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, through our careful management of the economy, we have protected the core schools budget in real terms. In 2017-18, schools will have more funding than ever—over £40 billion—set to rise to £42 billion by 2020. The IFS analysis shows that per pupil funding in 2020 will be over 50% higher in real terms than in 2000. While we know schools are facing pressures, we know that there is scope for schools to become more efficient and we are supporting them to achieve this.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that interesting reply. Could he say whether he recognises the concerns of teachers at schools with more disadvantaged pupils, who are more likely to suffer than others under this funding formula? Could he predict what the future for those schools might be?

[Lord Nash]

I think that the EPI, to which the noble Baroness refers, supports our national funding formula and agrees that we should proceed with it, and it confirms that we will be focusing money on the disadvantaged.

Social Mobility

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, one of my heroes, for introducing this debate in such a wide-ranging way. I have also enjoyed the contributions from other Members of the House, including the excellent maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Couttie.

This Government, like Governments before them, expressed the wish to improve the lot of children who do not achieve all that they might. I suggest that that success has been limited due to complex factors. Many of these factors in the UK mitigate against those children who are deprived in some way. Many parental options are limited to those in the upper and middle classes. A worrying fact pointed out by the OECD report last year and echoed by the Office for National Statistics said that the UK has the worst performance of intergenerational earnings mobility compared with other OECD countries.

I want to touch on what denies and what facilitates progress. To start at the beginning, the Early Intervention Foundation has provided much valuable research on the importance of brain development in the early years, the need for language stimulation, and for books and toys. This points to the need for positive parental care action, but parenting classes are thin on the ground and mainly absent in any school curriculum. We are neglecting the most important job of all: parenting. Early years education, discussed admirably by my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley, is not about testing, as she said. It is about developing self-esteem, self-confidence, resilience and curiosity, as well as intellectual confidence. These are the bases for success, good relationships and mental health. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, would agree with that.

Childcare is shown to have positive effects if it is of high quality. A Select Committee carried out an inquiry into affordable childcare last year. I was delighted to be involved in its work. We took valuable evidence from a number of sources. The Government’s extended childcare offer will provide more support for many working parents. However, local provision varies in quality. We found that, too frequently, the most deprived areas have the poorest quality of childcare. There is not enough flexibility in the system, which can be difficult to negotiate for parents. What are the Government doing about this?

The Select Committee on Social Mobility, chaired by my noble friend Lady Corston, produced an excellent report on social mobility in this Session. It states that factors that may influence social mobility include coming from a poorer background, low educational attainment, family background, gender, ethnicity, health, special educational needs, disability, and where a child grows up. Comparisons have been made between the north of England and London, where the excellent London Challenge, established by the Labour Government, transformed the lives of many children. This was a well-designed and targeted intervention. The Sure Start programme, sadly being dismantled by this Government, was another successful initiative. On the other hand, we have the troubled families initiative, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, costing over £1 billion with disappointing results. Why? I agree on the importance of families. I say yes to initiatives and innovation, but they need to be based on firm evidence, consultation, appropriate targets and good monitoring, and, as the noble Lord said, the need to integrate.

On secondary education and grammar schools, why the Government wish to return to a flawed, divisive system I cannot imagine. I went to a grammar school. I was a working-class girl there. At that grammar school, only a fraction of the top stream went on to higher education. I know that that was a long time ago.

There was a debate on grammar schools in your Lordships’ House on 13 October. Grammar schools do not work for everyone. Those not selected, or those in lower streams of grammar schools, may feel that they have failed. What a waste. As my noble friend Lady Andrews pointed out in her riveting speech in that debate, the idea that grammar schools promote social mobility is a nonsense. I quote her:

“The fact that the heyday of the grammar schools between 1950 and 1970 coincided with significant social mobility driven by economic and technological change is just that—a coincidence”.—[Official Report, 13/10/16; col. 2014.]

We must not go backwards. We should explore what positive models work in other countries and what progress has been made in our own country. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, who I see has disappeared in a puff of smoke, inspired the university technical colleges. He said that he could not be here today; he was, but he has gone. He told me yesterday that in July 2016, 1,292 students from these colleges left with excellent results and only five were not in education, employment or training. This is from a comprehensive intake.

Good schools promote holistic education and life skills: the arts, sport, programmes of social development and so on. I agree entirely with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. They are not full of stress in pupils and teachers, as well documented by many researchers. They are models of social mobility. Unfortunately, I see no coherent plan for the education and development of young people in this country. I have pleaded before for an overall strategy for youth in this country, embracing education, health, sport, the arts and social skills. What I see at the moment resembles a kaleidoscope, constantly being shaken to change the place of the pieces. The patterns, by chance, settle down into different formations, but they are fragile and confined. Attempts at improving social mobility need better planning, cross-disciplinary action involving parents and children, and a dedicated strategy. Does the Minister agree?

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Grand Committee

I re-emphasise the key role and effectiveness of PAs, particularly the quality of their relationship with care leavers which underpins real change in practice. Talk to care leavers and they will stress this—and just how important the stability of PA support and better access to them is—rather than, as one care leaver said to me, just being able to “grab time with them”, as so often happens. I beg to move.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 98A in this group in my name. This is about the universal credit standard allowance for single claimants under the age of 25, for care leavers and lone parents. It ties in with much of what my noble friend has just said.

I thank the Family Rights Group for its advice on this amendment, which is rather complex, but clear. Under the current system of income support and income-based jobseeker’s allowance, the rate of personal allowance payable to a claimant depends on the claimant’s age and whether the claimant has children. Those under 25 year-olds who are not parents receive a lower rate of personal allowance than those aged over 25. A lone parent aged 18 or over will receive the same higher rate of personal allowance that those aged over 25 are entitled to. Lone parents receive a sum of £73.10 per week, which equates to £316.77 a month.

Under universal credit, the Government have introduced different rates of standard allowance for single claimants regardless of whether they are a parent, depending on whether the claimant is aged under or over 25. Therefore, in universal credit, the standard allowance for a single parent under 25 years of age is £251.77 per month, almost £65 less per month or nearly £780 less over the course of a year than lone parents of that age receive under the current regime.

Many young parents under the age of 25 who are care leavers are entirely reliant on welfare benefits and tax credits to support themselves and their children. The reduced rate of universal credit is likely to push this group of parents, who are already vulnerable, into severe financial hardship and debt. That may result in their having to move home, away from the formal support networks and services that are an integral part of their own pathway plans as well as the plans in place to support them in caring safely for their children. If their ability to meet their children’s needs is compromised, that risks children being denied the chance of being raised by their parents, thus impacting on the child and the parent’s right to respect for family life. It could also increase the number of children in care, which would not be in the best interests of children and would lead to a considerably greater cost to the Government.

The payment of a lower personal allowance undermines those provisions that aim to support care leavers, including those provided for in the Bill. It undermines the Government’s commitment under the leaving care strategy to ensure,

“that care leavers are adequately supported financially in their transition from care to adulthood to enable young people leaving care to have the same opportunities to fulfil their potential as their peers”.

These are important considerations and I hope that the Government will look on them favourably and give some explanation as to the discrepancies.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I will speak to Amendment 47 in this group. Many noble Lords will recognise that adolescence is a difficult time for many young people. Anna Freud, the founder of the Anna Freud Institute, wrote three times on adolescence. Her final paper was entitled Adolescence as a Developmental Disturbance. Adolescence—the transition from childhood to adulthood—can often be a difficult time, but if one is a child in care, has experienced trauma before entering care and then may well have experienced further trauma on entering care—the process of being taken into care is traumatic in itself—one may find oneself with a protracted adolescence. Anna Freud describes the process of adolescence as the detachment of a child from their parent and the gradual process of moving to become an independent adult individual. I paraphrase, but that is roughly how she would describe adolescence.

The important thing to keep in mind here is that adolescence is about the detachment from the parent. The child has a close attachment to the parent; adolescence sunders that relationship. When we talk about continuing support of such young people up to the age of 25 by local authorities, it is very important to recognise that the developmental drive for those young people is to push themselves away from their corporate parent, the local authority, particularly because of their early experience. Just like any other good parent, the corporate parent, the local authority, has to make very clear to their child or young person: “We are here for you. You may not like us—you may hate us or despise us; that is normal for adolescents—but we are still here for you, we still care for you and we still want to see you and support you. We are here for you when you need us”. That is what I hope the amendment covers. It puts more of an onus than the Bill currently does on local authorities to say to those young people: “We want to support you. This is the offer we have for you”, and, for instance, to send Christmas cards and postcards, to do everything in their power to keep in touch and to treat them, in this regard, just as they would younger people aged under 21.

I recall Ashley Williamson, a care leaver I have known for a while. He did not get back into contact with his personal adviser until he was perhaps 20. He was just on the edge of losing the right to a personal adviser, but very fortunately he got back in contact. It made a huge difference to his life, because he and his personal adviser clicked. She supported him to get stable housing for himself. Following that, his life improved and he became a very effective lobbyist in Parliament, coming to parliamentary groups to talk about what needs to be done for care leavers and expressing concerns about the sexual abuse and exploitation of young people in care.

We have heard eloquent words about the treatment of young mothers, in particular, coming out of care. I remind your Lordships that young people and teenagers in care are far more likely to become pregnant than those in the general population. Very sadly, the number of children taken away from young people who have grown up in care is also far higher as a proportion than in the general population. If anything can be done to ensure that the financial environment for those families is as beneficial and supportive as possible, that would be a very good thing, as I hope your Lordships will agree. We need to do all we can to support these families. We know from the statistics that they are highly vulnerable, so the measures described here are very welcome and I hope the Minister can give a positive response.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

I support Amendments 52, 53 and 74A. I was most grateful for the Minister’s encouraging reply on the previous group, which is relevant to this discussion, and for his sympathetic stance towards this. The current discussions about the pressures on local authorities, and the huge and diverse burdens they carry, might be one further reason why the onus should be put more firmly on them in primary legislation. Also, I am a little puzzled why one would wish to treat over-21 year-olds any differently to under-21 year-olds. My puzzlement is that if we are agreed that we should in this Bill make sure that over-21 year-olds receive the same entitlements that under-21 year-olds leaving care have had up till now, why should we not treat them in exactly the same way? I would appreciate some help with that question. If we can, and there is no legal impediment to do so, would we not want to give them exactly the same offer as that for under-21 year-olds?

On the personal adviser role, which was also discussed, I recognise absolutely the wisdom of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, in talking about some flexibility in how that role is provided. One of the great successes in policy in this area in reason years has been the introduction by the coalition Government of Staying Put. More and more young people are now choosing to stay with their foster carers past the age of 18. We heard eloquently from the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, about the importance of relationships and the continuity of them. Thanks to Staying Put and the Government’s work, more and more children are choosing to stay, from a position where in the past we were not able to encourage them to do that or make it possible. Enabling foster parents to become their young person’s personal adviser may be a very good and appropriate thing. This is someone they already have a relationship with.

My concern is that there also needs to be rigidity in certain ways. My concern about the whole issue of children found in social care is that we have allowed too much flexibility in the social work profession. Until very recently, it was not a requirement that social workers should have a degree to practise what they do. Indeed, later parts of the Bill address this very fact of the overflexibility and a lack of specification of what social workers should do. This personal adviser role is important as well. Reports from right-wing think tanks such as the Centre for Social Justice highlighted the failure to have a consistent personal adviser workforce. There needs to be both flexibility and rigidity in the system. I suggest that there can be assessments and processes to decide whether it is appropriate to devolve responsibility to a foster carer or some extended family, or whether to keep it with a personal adviser. However, we need some rigidity.

It is very much an Anglo-Saxon approach to have a flexible workforce and it has many advantages to it, while the continentals face great challenges because they have a rather rigid way of approaching their workforce. I would argue that for vulnerable children, there have been advantages in the continentals’ rigid approach. It is well documented that they have far higher requirements for social workers. In staff at children’s homes, they have pedagogues who normally have a degree-level qualification and have had very substantial training, which I would argue is very appropriate to working in residential care. I recognise the noble Baroness’s concerns but I share the concerns around the Committee that the personal adviser role needs to be more clearly spelt out and specified. I hope that the Minister can help us with that in his response.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I want to say a word about personal advisers. The first thing we have to look at is who these children are and what their needs are. I have heard recently in the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children and in the European Union sub-committee which is discussing a report on unaccompanied asylum seekers just how vulnerable these children are—and how, in that vulnerability, they may find it difficult to make decisions and have the confidence to choose or request a personal adviser. Their relationships have suffered so much by their experiences that they may not trust anybody. We need to look at the children first. They may of course not wish to have a personal adviser, while some of them may not know exactly what they want so might try out various support systems before they decide. Personal advisers should not be available on request but should be there automatically for those children who are so vulnerable.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Wills, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, for tabling this group of amendments. Let me begin with those amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, which would replace “former relevant child” with “care leaver” throughout Clause 3. I understand that the noble Lord’s intention is to apply provisions to all care leavers. I offer reassurance that the issue is already addressed in existing legislation. Different groups of care leavers and looked-after children are defined in legislation and I will set out how Clause 3 applies to them.

“Eligible children” are looked-after children aged 16 to 17 who are subject to the care planning process and the regular review that this brings. They are entitled to receive advice and support from a local authority personal adviser. “Relevant children” are aged 16 to 17 and have ceased to be looked after. They too are entitled to receive support and advice from a personal adviser. “Former relevant children” currently receive support from a local authority personal adviser up to the age of 21. If they pursue education or training they can retain that support until they are 25. Clause 3 will now address the gap and provide a personal adviser to all “former relevant children” up to the age of 25, where they want one. Whether they are in education will no longer be a qualifying factor.

In Amendment 52 the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, propose that personal adviser support should be provided whether requested or not. I have already spoken at some length on an earlier group about the practical issues involved in providing support up to age 25 even if care leavers no longer want a service. I will therefore not repeat the arguments.

The noble Lord, Lord Wills, referred to my reflecting on certain matters in relation to the role of personal advisers. I was going to come to this later in group 6, in relation to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, but I will deal with it now.

We want to learn from those areas where the personal adviser service is provided effectively and make sure that that becomes the standard of support that care leavers across the country can expect. We also need to make sure that the purpose of the role is clear, that the right people are recruited to take on the role and that they have the right opportunities to learn and develop so that they can better respond to new challenges that care leavers face. That is why we are reviewing the personal adviser role. The first phase of that review is already under way. My officials are carrying out a series of eight deep-dive reviews to local authorities. They are meeting with leaving care managers, personal advisers and care leavers so they can better understand: first, what support personal advisers currently provide; secondly, which issues care leavers most need support on; and, thirdly, how personal advisers provide the mentoring and befriending support which can be so critical to care leavers’ well-being and which we know they value so highly.

The second phase of the review will build on and be informed by the first phase, but will focus on wider issues such as: whether we have done enough to articulate the key purpose of the personal adviser role, as currently articulated in secondary legislation in the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010; how we can best raise the status of the role; and what opportunities exist for personal advisers to access continuing professional development. In conducting this review, I would like to offer reassurance that we will consult all relevant parties. I will also ensure that noble Lords have the opportunity to comment and contribute.

On Amendment 60, I can provide reassurance that local authorities will continue to develop and review pathway plans. As corporate parents, they will do this irrespective of other partners and the support that they bring. Local authority-appointed personal advisers will work with the care leavers to review plans on a regular basis. Local authorities are already required by law to manage these obligations as the corporate parent. Amendment 72 is unnecessary, as the functions of the personal adviser role are set out not in statute but in secondary legislation—the Care Leavers (England) Regulations 2010 and the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010. If any changes are made to the functions of personal advisers, an amending statutory instrument would need to be laid before Parliament, which would provide an opportunity, through the negative resolution procedure, to make any objections if needed.

To turn to Amendment 74, let me clarify why the Bill extends the role of the virtual school head to children who leave care through adoption, child arrangements or special guardianship orders but not to older children. In practice, virtual school heads and designated teachers do not suddenly turn a blind eye to the children in care whom they have been looking out for and supporting just because they have reached the age of 18. The arrangements in place will continue up to the time they leave school unless, of course, their circumstances have changed. In many local authorities, the virtual head plays a role in relation to care leavers. For example, in Hertfordshire, the virtual school head has included within it the post of a personal adviser for students at university. For care leavers, the main support in relation to education is from the personal adviser.

For older care leavers, a range of alternative support is already in place. Pathway plans for care leavers should include information about support for education and career aspirations. Care leavers are also a priority for the 16 to 19 bursary, worth £1,200 annually, and they receive a one-off bursary of £2,000 if they progress to higher education. I hope that this provides noble Lords with sufficient reassurance not to press their amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, those of you who have heard me speak on previous Bills will know that this is something that I keep coming back to. It comes out of working with kinship carers and learning of some of their experiences, but is particularly about the needs of care leavers as young parents. One tragedy is that far too many young women who have been in the care system become young parents themselves. I and other colleagues here tried to do something about that when we were in government. We introduced various programmes that did an enormous amount both to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies and to care for and support young people significantly when that happened.

We know the reality from the social justice commission: that about one in 10 girls leaving care aged between 16 and 21 are either single parents when they leave or very quickly afterwards become single parents. I ended up specialising in adolescent girls when I was working in Newcastle all those moons ago—most of them will now be grandmothers, or great-grandmothers. I remember one young woman in particular, who had been in care all the time since she was a baby. By the time she had a baby herself, I had finished, but she rang me absolutely delighted to tell me that she was now pregnant. She was 16, and everybody knew that she would have enormous difficulty in caring for that child. But she needed something to love—it was as awful and plain as that. Now I work with women with complex needs, many of whom have come through the care system and certainly come through abuse, and so on. Many of them have child after child, who are taken into care. Nobody works with them because they have removed the child, so they go and get pregnant again and that child ends up in care. We simply should not see this.

It goes back to what I talked about the other day in Committee: that we need to do much more work with parents when the child is taken into care. These amendments are essentially about recognising that those leaving care—many of them are still children—and who are pregnant or have a young child demand a specific responsibility on our part, even if they have left care. I remind the Minister that the staying-on provisions do not relate to children who have technically just gone home to their parents or who are in residential care, but they are still children leaving care. As I say, they do not get the additional time or support that we were all so pleased about in the staying-on relationships, which essentially relate to children in foster care.

All these amendments really say is that this is a specific category to which the Government will have to pay attention. It can become a vicious circle if we are not careful. We know that they will need additional support in parenting, although that is not to say that some of them will not in the long term make good parents. As the Minister who introduced the family nurse partnership, I know that even the most vulnerable teenage parents can, with the right sort of support, become good parents. The amendments address the fact that, if you are a child who has spent significant periods in care, you will need extra support. That is sort of self-evident but it is not taken into account in the Bill, and I ask the Minister to take specific account of it.

I have not tabled an amendment on this aspect, but these clauses also deal with adoption support being extended to special guardians who are raising looked-after children. I am really pleased about that but why have the Government not extended that support to special guardians per se? Kinship carers in particular often step in to make sure that the kids do not go into care or become looked-after children. As I have said—too many times, I feel—kinship carers frequently do that not because they have sought to become a carer but because they do not want their daughter’s or sister’s children to go into the system. They end up having quite good outcomes even though they are impoverished, frequently.

I meet kinship carers in the north-east—because we have a higher proportion of kinship carers than in most regions of the country—who have gone through things that you and I would absolutely not want to do to look after the children. They get no support at all. They are not going to get the mental health support for the children or the other support that the children frequently need because they are special guardians, but their child has not technically been in care or looked after. It tells you how old I am when I keep saying “in care” instead of “looked after”, does it not, but because that is not the case, they are not going to get that additional support. I have not put an amendment down about it at this stage but I will come back to it. I want to make sure that the Government think about these sorts of things a little more. In the Bill, we are in the business—I hope—of trying to make sure that we create less vulnerability and less cost to the public purse. I believe that in the long term, addressing these amendments and my question will assist that objective.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Armstrong, particularly on Amendment 61A, but also in what she said about kinship care. I know that the outcomes of children in kinship care are better, in health and academically, than other forms of care. I also know that there are vicious circles which, unless there is intervention, go on being vicious circles generation after generation. The Family Rights Group report on the young parents project has out significant things about young people who are young parents and care leavers. We know that these young parents have multiple challenges—there is also a figure that one in 10 care leavers aged 16 to 21 have a child taken into care—but they are alienated by negative experience of state services. They are judged by their youth and background and have suffered abuse often,

“being in care, mental health problems, exclusion from school and/or involvement in youth justice”,

and so on. The support given often ignores their roles as parents or helps them to safely raise and keep a child. They often have less developed support networks, as compared to older parents, and fewer established systems in place as they move into adulthood. Despite their vulnerability, the particular needs and circumstances of young parents who are care leavers—whose children are not subject to child protection inquiries—are not sufficiently identified. They need a clear pathway plan, which includes all that a pathway plan should include, and certain sorts of information should be drawn upon in formulating these pathway plans.

My Amendments 98AA and 98AB are long and fairly self-evident. They repeat many concerns already expressed about the importance of pathway plans or assessments of need. One other thing that is important in pathway plans is the co-ordination of plans, and of assessments in relation to them, along with the setting up of advice, assistance and support. Again, I would state that these young people are extremely vulnerable, as my noble friend said, and need all the support that we can give. She also said that giving support early can avoid pain to them and also cost to the state, if we avoid these vicious circles that we all know exist.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, these amendments, in the name of myself and my noble friend Lord Hunt, are to the clause relating to educational achievement. It is surely self-evident that educational achievement is absolutely crucial to the hopes of young people in or leaving care in building a life that offers opportunities to raise their own family and pursue a career. So everything that can be done should be done to maximise those educational opportunities.

Amendment 77 would expand the provision that states that the advice and information should be available to the child’s parents for the purpose of promoting the child’s educational achievements. The term “parent” is unnecessarily narrow because, by definition, many of the young people we are talking about will not have parents. Perhaps the Minister will come back and say that it is a legal term and it is not necessary, but children could be with foster carers, they could be under special guardianship orders or they could be in care homes. The main point is to make sure that they are provided with the necessary advice that they need and to which they are entitled.

Could the Minister clarify whether the provision of information about education is to be provided to the child’s parents alone? It is obvious, as I have said before, that it has to be broader than that. There is not a lot more to say on that amendment, and I hope that I can get a fairly straight response.

On Amendment 79, there is an issue here with simply saying that a local authority,

“must appoint at least one person for the purpose of discharging the duty imposed by subsection (1)”.

I hope that it would be more than one person—but even if it is only one person it is important to ensure that that person, whoever he or she may be, allocates not just the resources but the time to do the job properly. There are many examples in schools, obviously at a more local level—for instance, the special educational needs co-ordinator. In my experience, that person is in some cases just the person who is willing to come forward and take it on; they may or may not have the training initially—they may be the only person willing to do it, on top of his or her other duties. On a bigger scale, within a local authority, it is important that the person who is appointed to look after the educational achievements of children in care is not just given another duty to add to his or her job description and is expected to do that within the time available to them. Can the Minister clarify that the people given the job will be able to do that?

It has already emerged as a recurring theme, even in the two Committee days that we have had on this Bill, that more and more duties are being given to local authorities. In some cases, that is quite appropriate, if they have been properly resourced. I shall not rehearse the arguments about the stresses and strains on the finances of local authorities, because everyone is only too well aware of that but if more and more duties are laid on them, local authorities must have commensurate resources transferred to them to enable them to carry out the duties properly. I accept that that is a small aspect, but it is an important part of the Bill. As I said earlier, the educational achievements of looked-after children and children leaving care is crucial to their adult lives. I ask the Minister for those kinds of assurances and whether we can look with confidence at this part of the Bill, so that the person appointed to fill the post will have the ability, time and resources to do the job properly. I beg to move.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 86, which seeks to ensure that formerly looked-after children receive in their school,

“appropriate education in personal, social, health and economic skills, and citizenship”.

I find it really not that surprising that so many noble Lords have referred today to issues such as relationships, financial education, independent living, self-confidence and self-esteem. The amendment just backs up the need for us to consider those really very essential skills. All children should receive such personal development and economic education, as well as citizenship skills. Amendment 86 seeks to take account of the trauma and vulnerability that some children have experienced. Again, I include migrant children, although I am very aware that other children will have experienced varying degrees of loss, trauma and pain.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, first, I apologise for Amendment 28A. That is my fault because, having been asked to table the amendment in something of a hurry—I endorse very much what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said about this all coming rather quickly—I am afraid I did not read through the list of amendments sufficiently carefully. Nor, I have to say, did the Public Bill Office, which happily tabled it. I have apologised to the Minister’s Bill team for the fact that two identical amendments have been tabled. However, I would like to speak briefly to it.

Various groups of children, such as those under the age of 18 or children who are leavers from care, may need legal advice. One such group are English children caught up in their parents’ unhappy divorce or separation proceedings, where they, or one parent—usually the mother—may be the victim of very serious domestic abuse. Currently, there is absolutely no legal aid in private law family proceedings. The judge or magistrates have to try to find out what is going on. A report, the name of which escapes me, talks about this great concern in relation to the private and public law sectors. On the nub of those two areas, some children who are the victims of what is going on in the family are not discovered, so their problems come up in the private law sector where their parents are not entitled to legal aid and there may or may not be good CAFCASS support because CAFCASS may or may not be asked to become involved until a very late stage. The welfare of such children is paramount under the Children Act, yet at the moment they are unlikely to get proper representation in proceedings where their parents have no representation and where their manifest needs may be overlooked because the judge or the magistrates do not have the information that is needed. That is one group who need this legal representation for children and young people.

As many Members of this House know, I spend a lot of my time involved in combating child trafficking. The children involved in this are a very special group. Generally, they come from overseas and many lack much, if not all, English. They may or may not go through the national referral mechanism. Some of them emerge on the streets of London and other places. They very much need all the help they can get. One of the things they need is legal representation to fight their way through the absolute maze of the various aspects that may hit them. Immigration is the most important but is by no means the only one. They need someone to help them. They need an independent trafficking advocate, who we have talked about. The Minister in the Commons has said that that issue is being looked at again with further pilots. However, these children also need legal representation.

I remind the Minister that the Government have now said that they will look after some at least of the 26,000 or 28,000 unaccompanied children who are stuck somewhere in Europe, although they do not seem to have begun to implement this policy. There has now been a promise to have some of them in this country. They perhaps more than almost anyone else will need the help of lawyers. This is therefore a very important amendment. I commend it to the Committee.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, these are extremely important amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and, by default, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I too want to talk about child migrants and children who are trafficked. I am not a lawyer but I know that there are lawyers in the Room, so I hope that they will be able to reinforce these issues if I am right about them. It seems to me that child victims of trafficking from abroad are often left entirely on their own to navigate the immigration system, the criminal and family justice systems and the national referral mechanism mentioned by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, without the support of anyone with parental responsibility for them. There seems to be no further announcement on the second pilot for independent child trafficking advocates, so I would like to know what is happening there.

UNICEF has pointed out that for children who have been trafficked there are apparently no monitoring systems to track outcomes for them once they leave care. Therefore, it is difficult to review cases and analyse long-term outcomes. Recent evidence presented to the Refugee Children’s Consortium suggests that there is not enough access to legal advice in a child’s care plan. There should be an active duty to promote this access for these children, who are extremely vulnerable.

Currently, the guidance on unaccompanied asylum-seeking children sets out that social workers should understand how to access specialist immigration legal advice. However, this advice is often sought too late for children. Further, it is important that children in local authority care are able to access legal advice on other areas of law. Children can require a broad spectrum of legal intervention to ensure that their best interests are represented: for example, to stay in education, to access support for their special educational needs or to gain compensation from a perpetrator.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s concluding observations on the UK Government’s fifth report noted that some children in care do not feel listened to and that unaccompanied migrant and asylum-seeking children may not receive independent legal advice. Figures gathered by the Children’s Society show that almost all unaccompanied children’s immigration cases would be out of the scope for legal aid. This is not a satisfactory picture, and I would like reassurance from the Minister that it will be looked at. We may well need to bring it back at a later stage of the Bill.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for raising concerns about the legal aspects of children and care leavers, and in particular for extending that to children who have come here as refugees, and perhaps as unaccompanied minors. There has been a commitment from the Government that 20,000 such children will be accepted into this country by 2020. I know that my local authority in West Yorkshire has already been asked to accept 70 such children.

The difficulty that has been raised is one that we all ought to be aware of: we are in danger of creating two tiers of care leavers. On the one hand, there are those who are rightly included in this Bill, and we all praise the direction of travel. We are rightly saying that local authorities and corporate parents generally ought to take greater responsibility for those care leavers up to the age of 25. Therefore, in this Bill we are saying that young people aged 18 are not yet fully prepared and need help in the transition to adulthood. On the other hand, however, in the Immigration Act, which was debated in the last Session, the decision was made that, unless their asylum application is successful, young people aged 18, who have had some of the most harrowing experiences that any of us can imagine, not only will not receive any further care and support but will be sent back to their country of origin.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

10: Clause 1, page 1, line 10, after “health” insert “(including mental health)”

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, in the last hour or so we have heard a lot of talk about prevention, and the Minister latterly talked about life chances. My amendments today cover both prevention and life chances, and I wish to speak to Amendments 10, 16, 22 and 80A in this group.

Amendment 10 calls for mental health to be included in the definition of health. Amendment 16 comes in the part of the Bill on the best interests of children and supports the development of high aspirations in promoting “social and emotional” outcomes. Amendment 22 comes within the guidance for staff members for looked-after pupils and would reinstate issues for child welfare that were in the Children Act 1989. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, about this; I do not know where that Act has gone but it had such a lot of good things in it and was complete. I shall talk later on about the importance of taking into account certain things in that Act, such as age, gender, vulnerability and so on. Amendment 80A would add the category of,

“returning home to the care of a parent”,

to those looked-after children who have ceased to be looked after by the local authority.

Amendments in this group tabled by other noble Lords come in between my amendments and are to do with respecting the background of children and promoting well-being, prevention and life chances. I leave it to the capable hands of other noble Lords to talk about those issues.

Amendment 10 is about mental health. I remember that at Second Reading the issue of mental health came up over and over again. I want to emphasise the importance of attending to mental health here. The Royal College of Nursing, together with other notable organisations, has pointed out that the mental health needs are higher in looked-after children—I think one would expect that. Mental health must be addressed in the early years by carers, social workers and schools so that it does not deteriorate as children age.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

Before the noble Baroness withdraws her amendment, I want to say how very pleased I was to hear that Dr Peter Fonagy, director of the Anna Freud Centre, an institution with such an illustrious history in the treatment of abused children, is being appointed to run a working group looking at how mental health professionals can better work with children in care. The Minister might consider taking to Dr Fonagy, at the beginning of his research, the concern about children’s homes. In his report in the 1990s, Choosing with Care, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, highlighted the fact that best and widespread practice on the continent had psychiatrists or relevant mental health professionals working in partnership with staff in children’s homes, as much to support staff as in meeting the mental health needs of these children. Only about half of our children’s homes have a connection with mental health professionals in that way.

This issue is so important. Although there has been progress in terms of the qualifications of staff in children’s homes, still we have a long way to go. They need the best mental health professionals supporting them. I would be most grateful if the Minister could flag that up to Dr Fonagy.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that very complete response. This has been a varied group of amendments and the debate has raised issues that I know the Government will take on board.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, raised a very interesting issue about what goes into the Bill. I agree with her, of course. It seems to me that some of the issues raised today would be very easy to slot into the Bill. However, we need more discourse, perhaps with outside agencies, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, suggested, to condense other issues that might be reinforced in the Bill.

I am very glad to hear that there will be a review of mental health and looked-after children. The three issues that came out very strongly for me were mental health, prevention and assessment, the last of which was brought up by the noble Baronesses, Lady Tyler, Lady Walmsley and Lady Benjamin.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, for his support. We have talked about this before. To respond very quickly to him, I think character education does link with personal, social and health education. I do not care what you call it but it is important, although I will not accept the name “grit” education, because it is very American and it sounds like a film. As far as I am concerned, that is out, but we can talk about that some other time. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, and others mentioned CAMHS. CAMHS has borne the brunt of funding cuts since 2010 and cannot be relied on to do all the work that we expect of it.

I return to the very interesting remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, on kinship care. I suggest to the Minister that this may be an area where we would benefit from a discussion with the Kinship Care Alliance because those of us who are old enough to have been here for a while—there are one or two familiar faces present—will remember that over the last 10 years, or possibly longer, the issue of kinship care has come up in three or four Bills but we have never resolved it. We have never resolved what kinship carers need or how they should be recompensed for the service they provide. They save the state millions of pounds but they still often live in poverty with no support. I hope we can crack this issue with this Bill and achieve some sensible way forward on this.

I hope the Minister accepts that this is an important issue. My comments are linked with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, said because we tried with one such Bill to have a person appointed in every local authority who would support kinship carers and the relevant children. Sometimes children cannot be happy and healthy unless their carers are happy and healthy. Many kinship carers are not happy and healthy but are struggling under tremendous financial, physical and mental burdens. That is another issue to which we may well come back, but in the meantime I thank noble Lords for their contributions and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 10 withdrawn.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to discuss children’s social work. I admire those professionals in social work and education who dedicate themselves to their key and ever more complex tasks and who feel pressures of many kinds. There are, of course, implications for them in this Bill. I hope that the Minister can today reassure the House that there will be adequate resources, including training, to sustain the intentions of the Bill. What are the financial implications, for example? Does anyone know?

I congratulate whoever wrote the Explanatory Notes to the Bill. They are excellent: concise, clear and informative. Congratulations, too, to the voluntary sector and others for their thoughtful briefings. I will comment on the principle of corporate parenting, which I am glad to see in the Bill but which I think needs more clarification. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, has raised the issue of kinship carers. The Bill raises complex issues for these carers, and I ask the Minister if he will meet the Kinship Care Alliance to explore them. Kinship carers deserve clear and supported status.

I shall talk about education for 16 to 18 year-olds and refer to the importance of early years education. I shall take as my benchmark for good principles and practice the experience of young migrants, including those who are unaccompanied. Such children, I am glad to say, are automatically children in care. They have extreme needs. I have learned a great deal from being on the EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee, which is currently engaged in an inquiry into unaccompanied minors. It has powerfully raised the importance of good practice in social care and education.

Clause 1 is all about corporate parenting principles. The Children Act 1989 spelled out such principles in relation to children in need. In this Act, children who had suffered harm and suffering were included, as were age, sex and background. Also included were vulnerability, religious persuasion, racial origin and linguistic background. I suggest that we look at those principles again: I think they need consideration.

Social care applies across the whole spectrum of children, but to immigrant children, who have suffered unspeakable trauma, it is even more significant. They have, as one of those giving evidence to our committee said, been focused during their journey on survival. By the time they get to their destination country, they are entirely depleted and have to face a whole set of new challenges. Many children have terrible journeys in life without travelling. I certainly want to expand Clauses 1 and 2 to include a strong emphasis on mental health and language skills. A report from the Children’s Rights Alliance last year stated powerfully that,

“the mental health of children is worsening”.

Clause 2 requires local authorities in England to publish information about support and services offered to care leavers to help them prepare for adulthood and independent living. This is fine provided that the young people have the confidence and skills to use the services and if they have the support of a mentor, personal adviser or responsible member of staff in the school they have come from. It is good to see that such support people are to be designated in social services and in schools. I note that an adviser in a local authority for young people aged 21 and under 25 must be requested. Again, young people may need not just information, but the skill and confidence to make such a request. Assessment is key. A forward plan for the child is key. Monitoring of the child’s progress is key. All this requires consistent and highly trained staff with the time and the requisite support. Will this be guaranteed?

The EU committee inquiring into unaccompanied migrant children showed how vital it is for a child to relate quickly to education and community support, including language teaching. During interviews with a group of unaccompanied young migrant people this came out strongly. I asked one young man from Afghanistan what had helped him to integrate. He said, “Cricket”. I think he was a spin bowler.

Clauses 4, 5 and 6 discuss education. I remain concerned by what is meant by educational achievement. I recall that we discussed this during the passage of the Academies Bill under “coasting schools”. Some definition of coasting, which would presumably include what we mean by achievement, was promised after consultation. Has this consultation happened? If so, what were the results?

For vulnerable, damaged children in particular, but also for every child, education must be not only about academic achievement but about developing self-confidence and communication skills, and encouragement to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Advice and information, as set out in the Bill, is simply not enough. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, that early years education is crucial and we know that the most vulnerable children are likely to receive the worst care. There may be a role here for “virtual heads” to be responsible for two, three and four year-olds to promote achievement.

I remember a short debate on life chances, instigated by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, in your Lordships’ House a few weeks ago—I was delighted to see him speaking today. From the Benches opposite, the noble Lord, Lord Holmes talked about sport—his example was boxing—as contributing to,

“self-belief, self-discipline and self-worth”.—[Official Report, 11/5/16; col. 1753.]

The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, talked in that debate about the importance of soft skills, such as confidence and social skills. I would add relationships, self-esteem, communications skills, resilience, health skills, including sexual health, and economic skills. Such skills are essential in education, not only for their own sakes, but to enhance academic learning. They are important for every child, especially children who have suffered chaos and distress.

There is a great deal of good practice in schools. I see it and hear about it. Its impact is visible and I remain mystified as to why the Government do not pull all this together and insist that all schools offer such important education which is vital for all children. The Government stated recently—last week, I think—that their guidance on keeping children safe will state that governing bodies,

“should ensure children are taught about safeguarding, including online, through teaching and learning opportunities”.

Surely this could be extended to include those soft skills to enable children to protect themselves and have positive relationships.

There are particular complications around 16 to 18 year-old migrant children and other vulnerable children. I give the example of Kent. Local authorities are legally liable for providing education for children and young people in care. However, for 16 to 18 year- olds, there is no statutory obligation on colleges or training providers to offer places to Kent County Council. The situation, they say, is getting worse due to academisation, as academies have no link with the local authority. Colleges are sometimes reluctant to accept vulnerable children because this would mess up their indicators for attainment.

I know that others have spoken and will speak about Clauses 15 to 19, so I will be brief. These are worrying clauses with potentially negative outcomes. They could mean that local authorities or trusts can, on application, be exempt from all the legislation and processes set up to protect children. The encouragement to innovate and provide different ways of working should surely not allow us to throw away the hard-won work on child protection. I hope that clarification on these clauses will be forthcoming.

I know that noble Lords will consider this Bill very carefully. In collaboration with our wonderful children’s sector, we have always supported the welfare of children. I am confident that we can improve the Bill and I look forward to further discussions.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I follow the analogy of my noble friend Lord Griffiths in relation to gardening and the blooms of education with, of course, the accompanying thorns, and the need for delicate care rather than frog-marching. Last week, I attended a debate on life chances in your Lordships’ Chamber, which was eloquently introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer. Many noble Lords spoke movingly about the importance of various factors in improving life chances, such as parenting, where and how families live, skills, opportunity and education. I shall speak about the importance of education in improving life chances.

Education was important for me and was important, apparently, for many colleagues in this House, yet I see a paradox in the Government’s education reforms since 2010. All politicians have the best interests of children at heart. However, even a Conservative Back-Bencher recently stated that the Government have “gone bonkers” in trying to rush through academisation—that dreadful word. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, gave a more elegant, but still critical, response. In a recent article, my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley spoke of the growing number of failing academies, resulting in fragmentation, incoherence and confusion. I regret the lack of consultation and the lack of hard evidence that academies are a panacea to improve school performance—I think that this has been realised. Some academies are of course excellent; some are not.

There is a terrible muddle about much of education—here come the thorns—and I think that parents and teachers are tired of it. I am uneasy about several things: the confused picture on early years care and education; school admission policies; the overtesting of young children; the mistaken belief that pupils will do better the more that they are trained to pass exams; teacher recruitment; the north/south divide in school attainment; and the lack of cohesion in education and training for 16 to 24 year-olds. It seems to me that the Government would do well to take stock and develop a coherent and consistent policy across government for children and young people, from birth to 24. Young people and children do not come in bits; they have different talents and interests, they move through different phases of life and different influences, including education, health, social care, economic status, and so on. As the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said earlier, they need holistic consideration.

The school admissions policy is full of holes. It is divisive and unfair. I hope that the Government will look at the LSE’s recommendations: that school admissions policy should be, by law, easy to understand; that local authorities should be involved in the whole process; that an independent body should handle admissions; and that banding assessments should be revised.

Regarding learning and achievement, the principal of a college in Cambridgeshire said recently on the White Paper for education that,

“reference to children’s learning is sparse”,

and that:

“The essence of schooling, its complexity and richness, appears to have been overlooked. Schools aren’t factories for results”.

These are powerful words. In the debate on life chances last week, many noble Lords spoke of a broad and balanced education that encourages inquiry and independent learning. Sport and the arts—the importance of which has been discussed already—citizenship, self-confidence, self-esteem, and the ability to form good relationships are not only worth while in themselves but also encourage good academic performance. Time and again, however, the Government have backed away from making this aspect of education statutory.

I welcome the Government’s commitments to fundamental reform of the alternative provision for excluded pupils and to technical education, which brings me to my next point. The House of Lords Select Committee on Social Mobility recently published its report, which begins by saying that 53% of young people do not follow the traditional academic route into work and are significantly overlooked by the education system. I hope that its eight recommendations will be noted. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, who put much emphasis on careers and advice.

My final point is that variations in achievements are stark between the north and south of England, as pointed out by the IPPR North report and alluded to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. Liberating the potential of all people must start early and requires early investment in future success across all areas of the country. This means focusing on children’s and young people’s achievements and life chances.

The Government must recognise that consultation and collaboration are vital in education—with teachers, parents, academics, school governors, the voluntary sector and pupils. I repeat my plea that a policy for the life chances of all children and young people should be made vital and apparent and discussed regularly in Parliament. Our young people, parents and teachers deserve respect and consideration, not bureaucratic and inflexible hammering, and I hope the Government will listen.

Education and Adoption Bill

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the correspondence which he so generously sent to all noble Lords participating in discussion on the Bill. I have sympathy with all the amendments in this group. Certainly, coasting—whatever that may mean—should apply to all schools. I look forward to the Minister’s response to Amendment 24. There is a danger of general confusion over the concepts of a failing school, a school causing concern and coasting schools. Any school can, of course, be in one or all of these categories. But that aside, I agree that regulations defining coasting must be approved by both Houses of Parliament.

We have not yet teased out a definition of coasting. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, suggested additions to this definition and we talked about it in Committee. I realise that a consultation on the term “coasting” is taking place. I am not looking for a list of things that should be included in coasting, but issues such as those raised by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, should be taken account of, and I hope that they will be.

Perhaps I may again ask the Minister about the consultation. Who is being consulted? Does it include parents and pupils? When will the final definition of “coasting” appear in regulations? I hope it will be in the near future. Supposing one or both Houses of Parliament rejects the definition? Under what powers will we debate this?

[Lord Northbourne (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 15 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington. The Government’s definition of “coasting”, which I have studied very carefully, seems to focus almost entirely on academic achievement, or failure to achieve academically. Is academic achievement the only thing we are looking for from our schools? I think not. Some schools have a very large number of children who do not have much potential for academic achievement. Having been a governor of two such schools, I am very conscious of the important work that those schools can do in supporting those children and preparing them for the challenges of adult life—not least the challenge of being a parent, which so often is their lot.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I support this group of amendments. On Amendment 16A, I always thought it curious that schools applying for academy status must consult, but those issued with an academy order do not need to. To move on, I hope that the Government will accept the amendments on the need to consult. I remember, as I have said, being a parent and governor in London at the time of comprehensivisation. Yes, it was sometimes bloody. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, mentioned trauma. It was traumatic: there were banners in the streets and protests. But finally, having consulted parents, everything settled down. It did not take all that long. The time allowed for consultation can be defined; it does not have to go on for ever.

It is disrespectful and dangerous not to consult parents. Consultation with parents brings them more onside with what is going on and makes them more likely to support the school that their children will enter.

Amendment 15C is interesting and important, but I am reminded of the Minister’s remarks on coasting towards the end of his speech on the first group of amendments, and of one of his letters—I think to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas—which stated:

“Where a school has the capacity to improve sufficiently, we will give it the time and space to do so”.

The Minister refers there to the very important principle of having the possibility to think again, hesitate and perhaps seek further advice and information. I apply this to the Secretary of State. If the Secretary of State may—rather than must—intervene in the issuing of an academy order, that gives him or her an opportunity to look at the situation again. Looking again is often a very good thing.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I agree with many of the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, about the role of parents. It may have been 30 years ago that we had the disgraceful intimidation and political machinations in the consultation over grant-maintained schools. However, as I said at Second Reading, if you look at the anti-academies websites and those of many of the other activists who want to stop academies, you will see the same sentiments, tactics, and calls for strike action and action against this measure, so I am afraid that that spirit is still out there in the world. However, the new leadership of the Labour Party may stamp it out, and I look forward to that.

Of course, parents have a role. I do not want to repeat what I said at Second Reading as this is Report, but we need to watch this legislation. My local authority was very grateful to receive a visit from the Prime Minister on Monday, who praised the quality of our children’s services. Many local authorities perform well, and it is a pity that those authorities are not given more space. I am concerned about bureaucracy in connection with the regional schools commissioners but we must address the Bill and the amendments that are before us. The worst amendment in this group is—perhaps not surprisingly—the one that has attracted the interest of the Liberal Democrat Benches, namely Amendment 16A. I would be very disappointed if colleagues on the other side of the House united to support it. The amendment is concerned with schools that are causing concern where children are being failed and where intervention is needed. It proposes that we should delay intervention while someone consults the very governors of the school who have failed the pupils at that school. Those governors are referred to in proposed new subsection (2)(c) of the amendment. Are we in the House of Lords going to state in an Act of Parliament that the very people who have failed children must be consulted before something can be done? I cannot believe that we would support that.

It may well be that the “relevant local authority” referred to in Amendment 16A has failed, and that its performance is causing Ofsted concern. Why, then, should we insist that it be consulted when a school’s children need to be helped, or, indeed, that the teachers at the school should be consulted, as proposed in new subsection (2)(b) of the amendment? It has to be said, although it is harsh, that the teachers at the school may be some of the people whose performance has caused the problems. Therefore, I would be astonished if the Labour Party, which at least pays lip service to supporting academies—I am never quite sure whether the Liberal Democrats support them or not, but most of the time they seem not to do so—were to line up with the Liberal Democrats and say that we must have an elaborate consultation involving the very people who failed children in the first place.

This amendment also refers to,

“the minimum length of time that must be allowed”.

At the very least we should have the maximum time allowed—I suggest no days for pursuing or consulting a governing body that has failed children.

Schools: Special Measures

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I would be delighted to meet to discuss that. We are committed to spreading education excellence everywhere. The Schools Causing Concern guidance makes it clear that local authorities should continue to act as champions of education excellence in the schools they maintain.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

If it is the Government’s ambition, as David Cameron stated recently, to make,

“local authorities running schools a thing of the past”,

how will local knowledge about schools and their communities be gathered and how will other local authority services be harnessed to benefit schools?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness quite rightly refers to this Government’s ambition to give every school the opportunity to become an academy. Local knowledge is prevalent on the regional schools commissioners’ head teacher boards. Four members are elected by their peers, and many other boards have a balance of head teachers spread across the region. Regional schools commissioners and local authorities are co-operating well in relation to the schools in their areas.