Children and Families Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

I support Amendments 9 and 10. When the noble and learned Baroness was talking, I remembered that when she was meeting children—she shared with the House some of their moving comments—I was in the next room meeting the carers, mostly social workers. When we talked about contact generally, not just with siblings, several of them said that the problem lay in adopters not wanting to know, preferring to see their children as part of the new family and wanting to leave the past behind. Therefore I take very seriously the point that she and other noble Lords have made about the importance of having this in the legislation. Guidance has not been enough and I do not see that it will be enough.

In support of Amendment 10, in Committee the noble Baroness, Lady Young, gave such an important explanation of the need to know one’s identity that, without wanting to embarrass her, I feel it should be framed. It said a lot about the specific issue about which I was concerned, about descendants of adopted people and, as she has just mentioned, the need of older adults to know about their heritage and background. What she has said seems in line with adoption practice and with Amendment 1, which we have agreed. It is an important way to move practice forward though statute.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for putting down these amendments and for their commitment in this area. We focus here on three areas that greatly impact on the lives of children in care and care leavers. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for his thanks to my noble and honourable colleagues. Noble Lords will note that my honourable friend the Minister for Children and Families is at the Bar of the House. We appreciate his presence.

I start with the important issue of children who return home from care, addressed by the amendment of the noble Earl. I thank him for his acknowledgement that support for those returning home is a key priority for the Government. We agree that much greater attention is required to ensure that both the statutory framework and local practice are improved significantly. We are working closely with an expert group, including organisations such as the NSPCC, which are making an invaluable contribution to this work. I hope noble Lords will be reassured that we are strengthening the statutory framework for voluntarily accommodated children since we believe this is particularly weak. We are exploring whether the current statutory framework needs to be strengthened for other children who return home, including those who were previously on a care order and 16 and 17 year-old care leavers. We are also working to improve practice for all children who return home, whatever their legal status while they are in care or when they return home.

The noble Earl raised the issue of children on interim care orders. We are aware that the Alliance for Children in Care and Care Leavers has raised concerns about children who return home following an interim care order, and whether the new proposals to strengthen the statutory framework will apply to this group. We shall continue to work with the expert group and others to explore how to ensure that we improve the statutory framework where necessary for all children regardless of legal status. I hope he finds that reassuring.

The noble Earl and other noble Lords asked about personal budgets. The current statutory framework provides sufficient flexibility for local authorities to provide personal budgets if they think this is the best way to meet a family’s needs. We do not think that it would be appropriate to assume that this will be necessary in all circumstances. Therefore, we believe that decisions about financial support and how this is provided should be taken on a case-by-case basis. I hope that he is reassured that it is possible to give that kind of support.

I can assure the noble Earl that we shall continue to work with the NSPCC and other voluntary sector organisations through our expert working group as we develop and implement our programme of work. We should be delighted to meet him to discuss matters further. We know there is a long way to go, but we are committed to ensuring that all children receive the support they need to return home to their families where this is the right way to secure permanence for them. I hope that in due course the noble Earl will be content to withdraw his amendment.

Amendment 9 on sibling contact was introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and is supported by other noble Lords. We are in complete agreement that contact between siblings is of great importance to children in care. I hear what my noble friend Lady Hamwee and others have said on this. We take this very seriously. We believe that the concerns that noble Lords have raised are an issue of practice and are best tackled through strengthening statutory guidance, improving local authority practice and monitoring impact through Ofsted reports. I noted the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, when we were discussing this in the round table about the difficulty that existed in taking this forward before.

We are therefore making our expectations of local authorities clearer in statutory guidance. Noble Lords will be well aware that statutory guidance is not merely advice; local authorities must comply with statutory guidance unless there are exceptional reasons which justify a departure. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked how we will ensure that this makes a difference, which is the crux, and which was highlighted by her noble friend in earlier discussions. We will need to monitor the impact of our revised guidance and our planned programme of work in the short and long term. The noble Baroness is right about that. It must make a difference. The revised Ofsted inspection framework includes specific wording on sibling contact and will be an area that it will look at in its inspections of children’s services. We will use its reports to highlight areas of good practice and address areas of poor practice where the need arises.

Influenced by our discussions in Committee, we have produced a revised draft of our statutory guidance which emphasises the key points raised by noble Lords. We very much appreciate the experience that they fed in in Committee. These changes include a specific requirement for the care plan to set out arrangements for the promotion and maintenance of contact with siblings and for consideration to be given to whether staying-put arrangements may be beneficial to maintaining sibling contact when an older child leaves care. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for her thanks to us for incorporating these points.

We appreciate the comments from our discussion at the round table last week. They were very helpful. We appreciate that there is further work to do. We are very keen to involve noble Lords who are interested in taking this work forward in coming weeks to ensure that the guidance is as clear and robust as it can be. Clearly the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, with her formidable experience as a former Children’s Minister, which she manifested at our discussions the other day, would be very important to that.

We want to make sure that the changes we make to the statutory guidance as a whole encompass all the necessary changes and that we have had sufficient time to consult sector partners, consider our wording properly and check its consistency with our other guidance. Taking this into account, we will progress with publishing this guidance as soon as possible in the new year.

When the guidance is published, we will work through independent reviewing officers and others to improve local practice. The revised Ofsted inspection framework includes specific wording on sibling contact, so we will monitor Ofsted reports on the impact that we are having.

I hope that noble Lords will recognise that we share their very real concerns and will work with us to take forward practice most effectively and that therefore the noble Earl will be willing to withdraw his amendment in due course.

Amendment 10 was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. It is on access to records for care leavers. Having considered the issue further following the debate in Committee, we recognise that we need to improve the statutory guidance in this area. We thank the noble Baroness for her involvement in this. She gave her time very generously in facilitating meetings with officials and voluntary organisations. They have been very helpful for the department as we have drafted our new guidance. We would like to thank the voluntary organisations—the Care Leavers’ Association, BAAF and Barnardo’s—which took part in the meetings, for sharing their knowledge and expertise in this area. We especially thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for making sure that all these groups were brought together so that we could hear the case that they needed to make.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I have to say to my noble friend that in 2012 I was not entirely persuaded by a similar amendment. I made supportive comments but wondered whether it was right to be pushing it at that stage—indeed, the noble Lord did not do so. I have changed my mind. I realised that time moves on and the fact that I am not going to repeat a number of points that have been made does not mean that I do not agree with them; I agree with them very much indeed.

It is difficult enough for trafficked adults—or, indeed, other adults who come up against the state—to deal with multiple agencies. For a traumatised child it is unbelievably more difficult. The distrust of state authorities has been mentioned and it seems that retrafficking happens because very often the trafficked child knows only his or her traffickers. They have been taught to trust the traffickers, who have said, “If there is a problem, here is the phone number. You contact us”. Of course that leads to the child leaving whatever care they are in, going back to the traffickers and being retrafficked.

Consistency and constancy have been mentioned. I want to talk about authority, whereby a guardian has authority not just to hear but to speak for the child—to contribute to the discussions and to have to be listened to by the others who are taking part in discussions and moving towards decisions. That legal recognition is particularly important, for instance, in dealing with immigration officers who are handling a child’s asylum case, in the national referral mechanism, and in instructing a solicitor. I say that from my experience; I have not dealt with anyone who has been trafficked but as a solicitor taking instructions you have to hear the instructions from the person who is entitled to give them. I have been in this situation with clients in many different fields where I am told, “That’s what so-and-so wants”. I need to know it from that person. You cannot assume it unless the person with clear authority gives the instruction. So the statutory power, the statutory authority, and the legal status are very significant.

Finally, I want to make a rather hard-headed point. You have to support victims and survivors of this sort of situation to enable them to be good witnesses when giving evidence. Unless we can achieve that, it will be that much harder to get convictions. My hard-headed point is that it is in the interests of attacking this despicable trade that I also support this amendment.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, this debate has made very clear the commitment across the House to improving the support received by trafficked children. My noble friend Lord McColl has made a very powerful case once again. We recognise that not enough has been done and that we must do more. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord McColl, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and others for their determination to ensure that trafficked children, who are so very vulnerable, are properly protected. Noble Lords have made their concern extremely clear. We agree that these children are indeed among the most vulnerable and it is clear from what noble Lords and others have said that they are not being supported as they should be, so how is this best achieved?

We remain concerned that the introduction of guardians for trafficked children, alongside those persons who should already be working in the interests of the child, is not the most effective way to tackle the local problems that are clearly manifest here. Where local systems are not working as they should be to support the best interests of trafficked children, we need to address the causes of those problems. Others with extensive experience of the needs of trafficked children agree. Children and Families Across Borders, an organisation with considerable expertise in this area, has told us that introducing guardians would not improve the inadequate service that some trafficked children receive. Instead, they believe that a clear commitment to, and strong focus on, professional development by local government employers and others is required. This would help to improve practice and ensure that social workers understand the particular needs faced by trafficked children in their care. It is not clear that appointing another individual to speak for a looked-after child or to help them navigate the care system is the answer. Central to the role of a social worker is ensuring that the child’s best interests are protected. If that is not happening then that failure should be addressed. Introducing guardians could actually result in making things worse, with other professionals thinking they do not need to concern themselves as much about a trafficked child because their guardian is looking after them.

I note that my noble friend Lord McColl mentioned the variability of support and the best practice that can be seen among some social workers. He pointed to other cases of very poor practice and we fully agree that these must be tackled. We recognise that local authority performance with regard to trafficked children is clearly inconsistent. To address this inconsistency, we have proposed new regulations so that, when a trafficked child comes into the care system, the crucial information that they have been trafficked must be recorded on care plans. Under these new regulations, local authorities would be required, in planning and reviewing care for a trafficked child, to consider the specific and complex needs that may result from the experience of having been trafficked. This requirement would also extend to pathway planning for a trafficked child when they cease to be looked after. Social workers should support trafficked children to access mainstream and specialist services and this should include accompanying them to meetings with other professionals, as my noble friend Lord McColl highlighted. We will make this clear in the proposed new statutory guidance. To underpin the proposed new regulations regarding trafficked children, we have, as I say, drafted new statutory guidance. This sets out our expectations of how local authorities should go about providing the required support and we would welcome noble Lords’ views on how to make this draft guidance stronger. As noble Lords will be well aware, statutory guidance is of course not merely advice that local authorities can choose to ignore as they please. They must comply with statutory guidance unless there are exceptional reasons that justify a departure.

When they first enter care, trafficked children are particularly vulnerable, as noble Lords have made clear. They might not initially recognise that they are victims of a crime, or might believe that their best interests lie with their traffickers. The first hours and days are crucial in protecting a trafficked child from going missing. The new statutory guidance describes some of the steps that local authorities should take to protect against this risk, such as temporarily removing their phones to ensure that they are not in contact with those who can do them harm, providing 24-hour supervision, or employing previously trafficked children to assure the victim that they are safest in local authority care. The guidance provides a clear definition of a trafficked child and describes steps that should be taken when a child is identified as having been trafficked. This vital role is one that local authorities, with partners including the Home Office and police, fulfil—or should fulfil—as part of their child protection duties.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, talked about missing children. Some of the things that I have just said are intended to try to stop those children going missing. However, we have also put specific advice in our revised guidance on trafficked children, including how to prevent them going missing and how to support them when they are found.

Children who have been trafficked into this country from overseas may require specialist support in dealing with immigration questions or proceedings, as noble Lords have made plain. The amendment says that guardians will assist the child to access legal representation, appointing and instructing a solicitor where necessary, and my noble friend Lady Hamwee picked up the issue of legal representation. However, independent reviewing officers should already ensure that any child in their care has access to the appropriate legal support. In our new statutory guidance, we will now go further and require that such support should be provided by a suitably qualified solicitor or immigration adviser. Any immigration advice or legal support would be in addition to the child’s right, as a looked-after child, to independent advocacy.

Part of making children feel safe when they have been trafficked from overseas is ensuring that they understand their situation and the support provided to them. Our new statutory guidance will require that, where interpreters are required, they should be trained to understand the particular risks faced by trafficked children. Helping children to overcome cultural or language barriers so that they can express their wishes and feelings is a role that is already carried out by independent advocates. The new statutory guidance notes the importance of commissioning specialist advocacy services to provide this support.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, brought up the discussion that we had in Committee about Scotland. I was very interested in the fact that Scotland has guardians, and that is why I asked how it had worked out. She probably knows that the Scottish guardianship system is much smaller than would be required in England because it covers just 80 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Scottish guardians essentially fulfil the role played by independent advocates in the English system but with specialist immigration skills. Our proposed statutory guidance requires that, where a trafficked child requires specialist immigration advice, it should, as I said, be provided by a solicitor or adviser with the relevant competences.

I thank the JCHR for its letter, to which I shall be responding, and for its engagement in this matter. It highlighted several aspects of the Scottish model for consideration in England, as the noble Baroness noted, including provision of support in relation to the asylum and immigration process, support services and future planning, helping children to develop wider social networks, and ensuring that children’s views are heard in all proceedings that affect them. These are, indeed, very important, and that is why each of them is addressed in our new guidance. It is also why, where local practice is good, those aspects are already provided through the existing care system without recourse to the additional role of guardian for trafficked children. Of course, we take very seriously the letter that the JCHR has written and, as I said, I shall be writing in response.

There was quite an emphasis in Committee and, to some extent, in the discussions this evening on stability of care. We agree that these children need stability and continuity. The new statutory guidance would require local authorities to prioritise trafficked children so as to provide the greatest likelihood of their building a sustained relationship with their social worker. These are the most vulnerable children and they are precisely those for whom social workers must do most in providing understanding and support.

I have described here only a portion of our proposed new guidance, which covers a range of issues to ensure that trafficked children receive the right care and support. We would welcome suggestions from noble Lords on whether the guidance should include other issues. It is hugely important that we get the support for these children right, and we very much look forward to continuing discussions with noble Lords about how best to do that. We recently sent both the draft regulations and the guidance to noble Lords and they are available on our website. In particular, we would like to discuss with my noble friend Lord McColl, and with any other noble Lord who might wish to join in, the opportunities offered by the regulations. I am delighted that we have in the diary a meeting with my noble friend Lord McColl later this week. Our discussions are clearly very important for this group of children.

When officials shared the drafts of the guidance with representatives of the Children’s Society, the Refugee Council, and Children and Families Across Borders, they all found much to welcome in the guidance. I hope that noble Lords will find the same when they read the drafts and that they provide a sound basis for further discussion when we meet shortly. I therefore hope that my noble friend will be willing to withdraw his amendment.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

I wonder if I could ask the noble Baroness what she meant by regulations. She has been talking about statutory guidance, but she also said regulations. Does she mean statutory instruments?

[Baroness Northover]

From authorities far higher than me, the answer seems to be yes—regulations.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

Could the noble Baroness also confirm that discussions or consultations about the guidance have taken place with Children and Families Across Borders, because I understand that they were not terribly happy about the discussions that they had been having with the Government on this issue, and that as an organisation they have been passed from pillar to post? I would like confirmation that they have been properly consulted on their views.

[Baroness Northover]

My understanding is that they have indeed been consulted, and that consultation will no doubt continue, because it is extremely important that we get this right. The noble Baroness is right to highlight it. I will of course look into this further, and if they have got concerns we invite them to engage with us, because all of us want to get this right.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate, especially the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and everyone else who has been working on this subject. I am afraid the response is very disappointing indeed, and it does very little to help these poor trafficked children. The guidance does not provide for a child trafficking guardian, and I would therefore like to test the opinion of the House.

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20:31

Division 2

Ayes: 130

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Labour: 99
Crossbench: 19
Independent: 3
Bishops: 2
Liberal Democrat: 2
Conservative: 2
Democratic Unionist Party: 1

Noes: 145

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Conservative: 98
Liberal Democrat: 40
Crossbench: 3
Independent: 2

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, we are looking forward to discussing this further with my noble friend Lord McColl and with other noble Lords.

Consideration on Report adjourned.