Equality of Opportunity for Young People
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Grender said so powerfully in her excellent opening speech, it has long been considered a given that each generation would have a better quality of life than the one before it. According to the Intergenerational Commission, more than half the individuals in every age group believe that each successive generation should have a higher standard of living, but we live at a time where this is no longer the case. Since the recession, young people have overwhelmingly faced worse outcomes than did their parents.
As well as facing mounting inequality between the generations, as we have already heard, young people now face great inequality within their generation. According to the Social Mobility Commission’s recent State of the Nation report, as already referenced, social mobility has been stagnant for the past four years and,
“Inequality is … entrenched in Britain … from birth to work … Those from better off backgrounds are almost 80 per cent more likely to be in a professional job than their working class peers”.
This entirely echoes the findings of the recent report Closing the Regional Attainment Gap produced by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility—of which I have the pleasure to be the co-chair—which showed that, without policy changes, we are more than 40 years away from closing the gap between the educational attainment of disadvantaged children and that of their more affluent peers, with that gap varying wildly across the country.
The failure of successive Governments to tackle the underlying causes of such unequal life chances was laid bare in a hard-hitting report from the IFS, published this week, which exposed the ever-widening inequalities in pay, health and opportunity in the UK which are undermining trust in democracy.
As a member—and the original proposer—of the Lords Select Committee on Intergenerational Fairness and Provision, which published its report just after Easter, I was struck by the evidence that we heard about the number of challenges faced by many of our young people. The picture that our report paints is deeply worrying, with too many young people facing barriers at every turn. The report demonstrates starkly that our post-16 education and training system does not provide those in further education with anything like equal opportunities. Too many young people are being held back by schooling which does not prepare them for a rapidly changing labour market and a considerably longer working life. Once they move into the workforce, young people are disproportionately faced with insecure employment, low pay with few prospects of progression and little prospect of owning their own home.
It is perhaps, therefore, no wonder that young people’s well-being has fallen dramatically. The Intergenerational Foundation’s 2018 index found that young people’s overall well-being fell by a whopping 10% over the last two decades. The message here is clear: we need to improve young people’s opportunities or risk damaging their mental health and well-being—a subject covered comprehensively in the excellent debate in this Chamber this morning.
When it comes to education, the paths that young people take are not equal. Further education and vocational training provide a vast range of opportunities; they are fantastic resources for those who do not wish to pursue other, more academic routes. Yet our report found that further education and vocational training have been chronically underfunded. That means that students taking this route are simply not getting a fair slice of the cake when it comes to educational resources. That is why the report included a recommendation to rebalance public spending to put higher education and further education on a more equal footing. For this to happen, the Government must reverse the cuts to further education. Will these deeply unfair funding mechanisms be looked at in the forthcoming spending review?
We also need to ensure that young people receive an education which equips them for the real world. It is worrying that many young people feel they are leaving school without the life skills they need to function as adults. For example, there is no statutory requirement to teach young people about housing in their PSHE lessons. However, the young apprentices in our contact group who gave evidence to the Select Committee as part of its work told us that their key concerns were housing and homelessness. They told us that they did not know enough about how renting worked or what their options were if they had trouble affording housing. How are young people supposed to navigate the complexities of renting and housing if we are not giving them the knowledge and skills to do so? This is why our report also recommended that the Government should increase housing and financial education in PSHE lessons.
Once young people leave education, the barriers to opportunities do not end. Instead, as the House has already heard in this debate, too many young people are faced with insecure employment. Indeed, the proportion of individuals who are self-employed, on zero-hours contracts or involved in the gig economy has rapidly risen among young people. Many companies propagate a myth of self-employment to avoid providing their workers with the rights and protections they are entitled to. By denying young workers access to vital employee benefits, insecure employment can have a huge impact on their financial stability. As recommended in the Select Committee report, it is vital that the Government act to ensure that there is a default presumption of worker status when people are employed. This will help tackle companies rebranding their young employees as “freelance contractors” to deny them the worker’s rights and employee benefits to which they are entitled.
Not only are many young people in insecure employment, but they are also not getting paid fairly. According to the Financial Conduct Authority, in 2017 real earnings for those in their 20s were 5% lower than they had been in 2008. Poor pay not only has negative consequences for young people’s well-being; it also has serious consequences for their relationships and family life. This is starkly demonstrated by the results of a 2018 YouGov survey of young workers between 21 and 30 years old. It found that over one-fifth of the respondents had put off starting a family because of a shortage of money. Another quarter had put off changing careers and over 40% had had to ask their family or friends for financial help due to a shortage of money.
An exacerbating factor is that young people are spending a rapidly rising proportion of what they do earn on housing. Our report on intergenerational fairness highlighted that young people born between 1981 and 2000 spend one-and-a-half times more on housing at the age of 25 compared to previous generations. That might be acceptable if young people were getting housing which is one and a half times better than previous generations. Instead, we were shown evidence that they get less floor space and longer commutes. As my noble friend Lord Shipley has already said, a recent estimate by the Resolution Foundation suggested that one-third of millennials could still be renting privately at the age of 65. This is a really major shift in how society is living.
Tackling the issues raised in this very good debate this afternoon will take sustained government action and political will. Solutions do exist, we have heard many of them this afternoon and I totally endorse the excellent package of proposals set out by my noble friend Lady Grender. Let us just hope that the Government are listening.
Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I declare an interest as vice-president of the charity Relate and president of the National Children’s Bureau. I also thank the Sex Education Forum for circulating an absolutely excellent briefing.
I warmly welcome these regulations, which are a huge step in the right direction. It is such an important area. We know—all the survey evidence tells us—that the vast majority of parents want schools to teach relationships and sex education but to do it well. Anyone who has been involved in this area will tell you that effective relationship and sex education is a partnership between parents and schools; parental involvement is integral to the new guidance, and I warmly welcome that.
For me, it is hugely significant that this guidance is on RSE: relationships and sex education. For many years, when I was more involved in this area at a more operational level, it was always called SRE: sex and relationships education. You might think that that is a tiny difference and terribly pedantic, but it is not. At that time it was always called sex education, and people would always start to get terribly exercised and worked up about it. The fact that we are now talking about relationships first and then sex within relationships is hugely important, and I want to explain why.
It is absolutely critical that relationship education, when taught well, should be able to promote safe, equal, inclusive, enjoyable, fulfilling relationships, and should be taught in a way that fosters gender and LGBT equality. Sadly, some children are not seeing models and examples of safe, inclusive and healthy relationships at home, so it is absolutely vital, as other noble Lords said, that children understand what is and is not acceptable with regard to how they are treated by other family members, particularly if there is inappropriate touching or abuse, so that they know that they can say, “No, that’s not acceptable”, and know who they can go to for help and support. I also feel that it is extremely important that safe and healthy relationships are explained in terms of adult relationships, because again, sadly, some children witness abusive adult relationships within the home and do not understand that that is not acceptable either, too often themselves entering abusive relationships in their teenage and adult years. That is why this fundamental teaching of the importance of healthy and safe relationships is so very important—and important to much wider aspects of public policy.
I will briefly make two other points. As other noble Lords said, the way that relationship and sex education is taught is absolutely fundamental. Good teaching is important. Indeed, I saw in a recent poll that 80% of parents think that RSE teachers should be properly trained to teach it, and I am sure that we all agree with that. When I used to talk to teachers who delivered what was then called sex education in the classroom they would often say that they felt quite embarrassed teaching it, they did not feel properly supported, and did not have the proper materials. They did not have the confidence to do it, but were almost being told that they had to go out there and do it. The schools I saw and spoke to that did it most successfully, as often acknowledged in Ofsted reports, were schools where the teacher was working in partnership with external, usually voluntary sector organisations that had experts very well taught in relationship education. Can the Minister confirm whether the £6 million fund for supporting relationship and sex education which we have heard about can be used to help teachers to understand how best to work with external experts who can be invited in to deliver aspects of the curriculum? That is an important way in which all this really good guidance can be taken forward and implemented.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, it is my pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and I fully endorse everything she said about the context of relationships being at the heart of all this. I welcome the discussion and the framework. The Church of England, as the biggest single education provider in the country, has been among the parties engaged in the consultation, for which we are deeply grateful.
As human beings, we are relational. Relationships with others, and indeed with God, matter. They are primarily formed rather than taught. Our parents, siblings, wider family and friends shape our ability to relate from our first breaths. Our love for God shapes how we relate to people. We do well to remember that any relationships education can only ever be rooted in our experience of relationships, both good and bad; yet education is required.
Given the rapid and drastic change to society in what has been almost two decades since the existing legislation was introduced, I am enthusiastic about updating the policy. When that guidance was written, fewer than 10% of households were connected to the internet and connection speeds were snail-like.
The guidelines are to be commended in their placing of RSE and health education in the context of wider personal development of character, virtues and values. Conversations about relationships will be empowered by discussions of honesty, courage and humility. Sex education is crucially paired in this framework with conversations about relationships: an incredibly important shift in how the curriculum is constructed. I understand that much of the response has been against existing resources that may flex the guidance too far. There has been a great misunderstanding of the requirements of the new framework, but many of those misunderstandings and concerns are rooted in at least some truth.
I am pleased that schools must take into account the faith background of pupils and work in collaboration with parents in drawing up their policies, and that they must consult parents on the planning of sex education and the resources used. It is worth noting in this debate that the Church of England has been in close contact with our Muslim friends, who share a number of our concerns.
I am also glad that sex education will be optional in primary school. However, I am deeply concerned that the same cannot be said of relationships education. Psychologists, ethicists and paediatricians often debate at what age and developmental stage it is appropriate to be exploring early concepts of relationality and sexuality. For example, girls continue to hit puberty earlier and earlier, while the average age of boys maturing remains more constant. How are schools to come to a conclusion about how and when they teach on such issues, and how will such decisions and resources then be adequately monitored? This is particularly important in the light of the comments made by other noble Lords about the importance of teachers being well trained, well prepared and able to teach the subject well.
Development is not uniform, and parents should be able to determine what is appropriate for their children, especially during vulnerable ages. Why cannot parents’ decisions regarding what is appropriate for their children be respected?
The relationships curriculum highlights the unique space that families occupy in our society, often acting as a nurturing space for children. It teaches children to respect the diversity of families. Although its motives are honourable, I do not believe it lives up to its own standard in respecting the diversity of parental concern. In other deeply necessary spaces, the framework fails to give sufficient guidance. It is imperative that children are taught from a young age of their bodily autonomy so that they may be able to identify unsafe touch. How will such safeguarding teaching, which is necessary, be widely taught without extending into sex education, which the parents may have opted out of?
I support the emphasis that my noble friend Lady Massey placed on ensuring that the voice of children and young people is listened to carefully in future in reviewing the outworking of the guidance. The voice of children and young people themselves needs to be placed alongside the voice of the parents. The Minister may have seen my right reverend friend the Bishop of Ely’s comment piece in the TES welcoming the new guidance in his role as lead bishop for education. Our concern is that the views of others, especially respecting the beliefs of people of faith—and, indeed, some of no faith—about parental responsibilities and rights, are not simply brushed aside. The lines between relationships and sex education are far more blurred than is recognised, so I ask that great care is taken to monitor that this does not lead to inappropriate sex education being offered at an early age in the name of relationships education.
I conclude by returning to my opening point. Relationships are primarily formed, not taught. The family is the key place where this happens: schools only follow this. Let us together agree that we should not presume that what we debate today will offer all the answers that our children and young people need.
Social Mobility: Regional Attainment Gap
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Tyler of Enfield
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to respond to the report Closing the Regional Attainment Gap published on 21 February by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and declare an interest as co-chair of the APPG on Social Mobility.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, the Government welcome the report, and its focus on the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers. The gap has narrowed by around 9.5% since 2011. We continue to prioritise social mobility by investing on average £2.4 billion a year in the pupil premium to support the most disadvantaged pupils. We are targeting extra support on areas facing low educational outcomes, particularly through the opportunity area and Opportunity North East programmes.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield
I thank the Minister for his Answer. The APPG report paints a stark picture of the regional attainment gap between pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and their more affluent counterparts, and shows how areas of low social mobility will worsen unless action is taken. The report recommends redesigning the pupil premium as a social mobility premium, which schools could use to spend on extra pay or other forms of support for teachers in deprived areas. What steps are the Government going to take in these areas?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I first acknowledge the tireless work that the noble Baroness does in this incredibly important area of social mobility. To answer her specific question, the funding provided through the pupil premium means that there is funding available to support local priorities such as recruitment, retention and development of teachers. Further to this, we recently published the teacher recruitment and retention strategy, which reiterates our ambition to shift incentives so that more good teachers work in schools with more disadvantaged intakes.
Children: Welfare, Life Chances and Social Mobility
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for securing this vital debate. Early intervention has the potential to drastically improve the social mobility of disadvantaged children. We are at a time in our country’s history where social inequality is being felt very keenly. The Sutton Trust has found the proportion of people believing that we have truly equal opportunities in this country has decreased very substantially since 2008. We need to be building a society in which opportunities are more equally distributed and all are socially mobile. It is a goal that would improve not only the health and well-being of individuals but the economy as a whole. According to the Sutton Trust, raising the UK’s social mobility to the average level in western Europe would boost the economy by 2%.
As we have already heard, early intervention really does matter for social mobility. It matters because these disparities, between the most disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers, emerge before the first day of primary school. More worryingly, when not addressed, they affect a child’s social mobility throughout their adult life. It was back in 2012, when the All-Party Group on Social Mobility, of which I am co-chair, in its report 7 Key Truths about Social Mobility, noted that the greatest leverage point for social mobility is between the ages of zero and three. During this time, children are developing in all sorts of ways; not only are they learning key verbal and vocabulary skills, but also developing incredibly important emotional well-being and resilience skills which will shape the rest of their life. A child with a poor vocabulary at the age of five is twice as likely to be unemployed aged 34.
I could go on, but I hope I have really emphasised the point that early intervention and social mobility go hand in hand. What happens in the classroom is undeniably very important, but so is what happens before. Parenting and the home environment play a huge role in driving inequalities in a child’s early cognitive development. Parenting has often been viewed by politicians and policymakers as no-go territory. I firmly believe that a successful strategy to early intervention must take into account the home environment. That is why, in 2015, the All-Party Group on Social Mobility held an inquiry into parenting and social mobility, and it recommended both the development and implementation of a national parenting support campaign. That would be designed to help support and empower parents, not preach to them, and fully recognise that the vast majority are trying to do the very best job they can, but need some support.
Given all of this, it is unfortunate that the current policy and fiscal landscape has shifted from a focus on preventive schemes. An obvious example is the closure of children’s centres, which we have already heard about. In 2009, there were over 1,000 centres open nationwide and in previous years they have been vital in providing early intervention and preventing poor childhood outcomes, not only for the children but for the parents themselves. Sometimes that support began even before the child was born. But since 2009, over a third of these centres have closed and those which have not have often broadened their age range and shifted away from early intervention towards high-need families.
This shift in focus has been echoed in other areas of children’s services, particularly children’s social care, where there has been a clear move away from working with families who need some help to being able to work with only very high-risk families who are reaching crisis point. This picture was painted in stark relief in the All-Party Group for Children’s recent report, Storing up Trouble: A Postcode Lottery of Children’s Social Care. When the Minister responds, I would be grateful if he could indicate when the Government will be in a position to reply to the recommendations in that report.
The reasons for this shift are pretty obvious: financial pressures, which are huge, are having a major effect. Cuts to children’s services have come at a time of unprecedented demand, forcing many local authorities to deliver children’s services which can focus only on that smaller number of very high-risk cases. Since 2010, over £2.4 billion has been cut from central government funding for local authority children’s services, and local authorities now face an estimated £3 billion funding gap by 2025. Important as it is, however, funding is not the only issue; quality is incredibly important as well. While I very much welcome the Government’s commitment to early years education and childcare, it is a real concern that one-third of staff involved in group-based childcare lack English or maths GCSEs. We really need to have the staff involved in this important work moving towards qualified teacher status, wherever possible.
What can be done with this rather unhappy picture that I have painted? We need key improvements in the areas of funding, focus and strategy. I am currently much involved in finalising the All-Party Group on Social Mobility’s report which looks at tackling the regional attainment gap. We will shortly publish our report, so watch this space. I can assure your Lordships that we will have a fair amount to say about the importance of early intervention, particularly the need for a reinvigorated national strategy for children’s centres, and much to say about how children’s centres are funded and the need for Ofsted to be involved in inspecting them.
I call on the Government to use the upcoming spending review to address the ever-growing funding gap for children’s services. Any financial settlement must incentivise local authorities to invest in early help. That is why I support calls for a new, cross-government taskforce on intervention to feed into the spending review. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Social Workers Regulations 2018
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these important regulations. As he mentioned, they stem from the Children and Social Work Act, but he may not be aware, because at the time he was not a Member of your Lordships’ House, that there was considerable resistance from Peers on all sides of the House to the concept of introducing a new regulator separate from the Health and Care Professions Council. Ultimately, although the retention of the social work profession within the HCPC could not be achieved, as a result of pressure by Opposition and Cross-Bench Peers, it was agreed that Social Work England would be a non-departmental public body—as the Minister just stated, a separate legal entity operating at arm’s length from government.
The appointments of the chief executive of Social Work England and of the noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford, who I am very pleased to see in his place, as chair of Social Work England is a definite plus as both of them have practised as social workers. It will be of some consolation to social workers who often feel rather embattled despite the great work that they do. It is certainly encouraging that the chair is already out and about talking to those whose confidence he will need to build. It is not yet known who will comprise the board of the new body, but hopefully there will be a reasonable presence of social workers and service users to bring practical experience to the shaping of board decisions.
These regulations are generally non-contentious, and we share the view of the British Association of Social Workers, which is committed to the need for statutory regulation of social workers and social work for public protection and accountability, and to ensuring that the value and importance of the profession is recognised and that high standards are maintained.
During the debates on the Children and Social Work Bill, noble Lords on these Benches argued for effective regulation and an independent regulator. As I have said, to some extent that was achieved, although reintroducing the control of the Secretary of State causes us continuing concerns, particularly in respect of Section 3(4), which effectively provides that if the Secretary of State objects to the rules coming into force, the regulator must modify them in light of the objection. We reiterate the need for the regulator to have maximum independence from the Secretary of State, yet here the control of the Secretary of State over the regulator seems to have been reintroduced through the back door. The Minister may well say that that is not the intention, and he may well be accurate in that assertion, but it leaves open that possibility further down the line when all of us have gone on to pursue other interests.
On the new regulator’s sole control of continuous professional development, we also share the concerns of the British Association of Social Workers that there is apparently no requirement to consult or involve the more than 80 universities which deliver social work pre-qualification and post-qualification education and training. Nor will consultation involve employers, service-user groups or the professional association for social workers. Perhaps the Minister can explain why all that expertise should remain untapped.
When these regulations were considered in another place yesterday, my Front-Bench colleague Tracy Brabin MP, standing in for the shadow Minister for Children and Families, Emma Lewell-Buck MP, who was indisposed, asked the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families a total of 16 questions. As far as I can ascertain from reading the Minister’s reply in today’s Hansard, no more than one of her questions received an answer. So I shall reiterate those points and request that the Minister arrange to write to me in respect of any that he is unable to answer today.
The regulations lack detail, which makes it difficult to scrutinise some aspects of them effectively. The new regulator is required to make at least 90 rules and there could be extensive debate on the most appropriate rule in each case. Can the Minister tell noble Lords the proposed timescale for framing those new rules? He said that he expects Social Work England to come fully into being in 2019, but that is a pretty wide timescale. Regulation 3(2)(a) states that the regulator needs to carry out a public consultation before making the rules. That is certainly to be welcomed, but it carries a get-out clause, stating that the regulator does not have to carry out a consultation if it,
“considers that the content of the proposed rules is such that it would be inappropriate or disproportionate to do so”.
That sounds entirely subjective, leaving it open to whim at best, or misuse at worst.
A majority of respondents to the Government’s consultation thought that oversight should apply to all the rules. So can the Minister say which of the 90 rules he anticipates the loophole being applied to, and what reassurances can he offer to support the view I am sure he will take that the loophole will not be misused by the regulator? He talked of regulatory failure a few moments ago. I am certain that would be a very rare occurrence, but it would be helpful to have the Minister’s indication of the situations in which it might arise.
Turning to part 2 of the regulations, we also seek clarification on how the representatives referenced in Regulation 3(2)(b) will be chosen. It states that the regulator will choose,
“any group of persons who the regulator considers are likely to be affected by the proposed rules”.
Although the inclusion of social workers is welcome, together with employers of social workers, users of the services of registered social workers and those involved in social work training, we have concerns as to how those individuals will be chosen. Those rules will affect social workers across the UK, so what is the process by which those individuals will be chosen? Will there, for instance, be representations from all the nations and regions? How will the numbers be distributed among various job roles?
We welcome the fact that the Government bowed to pressure and abandoned the idea of making Social Work England an executive agency of the Department for Education, but questions remain about the Secretary of State’s role because control seems to have been reintroduced. Under Regulation 3(4)(b) the Secretary of State has the power to object to rules. It is disappointing that the Secretary of State will be given the final say on all the rules despite the efforts of many in your Lordships’ House to ensure that the regulator is, as far as possible, independent.
In Part 3 of the regulations, on the content of the register of social workers, Regulation 9(3) states:
“The regulator may record any other information in the register it considers appropriate”.
Given that the basic necessary details about social workers will already have been collected, what other information is likely to be necessary?
We also share the concerns of the British Association of Social Workers that there is provision for deregistration on health conditions, which are undefined. Because the regulations are not specific enough, it is not difficult to envisage that provision being misused. In paragraph 7 of the Explanatory Notes, the Secretary of State states that he believes the regulations are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, but will the Minister say if either he or the Secretary of State have considered whether Regulation 9(3) is compliant with the Equality Act 2010? What protections can the Minister point to against possible misuse?
With others in the sector, I am pleased that Regulation 20 makes provision for sector-wide professional development. As the Minister himself conceded, there is a need for the transitional arrangements to be put in place to protect both social workers and the public whom they serve. The trade union Unison has a plan for the transition from the Health and Care Professions Council to Social Work England, outlining how a service-level agreement between the HCPC and Social Work England would ensure a smooth transition period in which the HCPC retained responsibility for fitness-to-practise cases for an interim period of two to five years. That would give Social Work England time to establish its own fitness-to-practise process, while allowing for meaningful consultation with trade unions and staff in both organisations to draw up a structured plan to ensure the smoothest possible transition. Pointing to the apparent lack of any such arrangements is not a criticism of Social Work England, but we believe they would provide a safety net for all—most importantly, for the public. Do Ministers plan to consult Unison and take advantage of its experience regarding the transition period? Crucially, what assurances can the Minister give that social workers, employers and the public will be protected in the interim period?
In general, our initial opposition to it notwithstanding, Labour is now in a position to say that we welcome Social Work England coming into being and want it to be as successful as it possibly can. Apart from the relatively minor issues that I have highlighted, we do not have a problem with the majority of the rules that Social Work England is creating. However, like many in the sector, we have concerns that its timescale is overambitious, given that, although the chair and chief executive are in post, the board and executive team are not. Even allowing for the good will that is behind the creation of Social Work England, what confidence can the Minister offer noble Lords that it can be successfully established within such a short timescale?
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I too thank the Minister for introducing the regulations. I draw noble Lords’ attention to my interests in the register, particularly my role until recently as chair of CAFCASS.
I strongly support the creation of Social Work England as a profession-specific regulator with real in-depth understanding of social work and its potential to transform lives, particularly those of the most vulnerable. I very much hope that Social Work England will be able to work as an effective, modern and collaborative regulator, working closely with social work employers, educators and, yes, service users as well, which is important. Statutory regulation of social workers is very important. It is necessary so that the public feel protected. It helps to enhance the status of the profession, to ensure high standards and to ensure that the work that social workers do is truly valued in a way that, I am afraid, too often it is not at the moment.
The devil, as ever, is in the detail, so I want to make a couple of general points and a couple of specific ones. I am aware from talking to colleagues in the sector that a number of concerns have been raised during the consultation process. It must be said that it was not a particularly long consultation, but I know that there were pre-consultation events as well. I want to highlight something that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned: the role of the Secretary of State. As I am sure that noble Lords who took part in our debates during the passage of the Children and Social Work Act 2017 will remember, they were heated and important debates about what was an appropriate role for the Secretary of State in social work regulation. As has already been alluded to, the upshot of that was the creation of a body separate from government so that the regulator had an appropriate degree of independence from the Secretary of State.
Manifesto to Strengthen Families
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, since the coalition and this Government took office, we have focused on the more disadvantaged families. For example, the troubled families programme is budgeted to spend £920 million helping nearly 290,000 families in most need. What is interesting is that the number of children defined as children in need has declined by 14% after they have been involved in this programme for 12 months.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
Will the Minister say what specific steps the Government propose to take to support the mental health and well-being of children affected by high-conflict parental separation, particularly those who have experienced or witnessed domestic violence and abuse?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, this Government have committed £1.4 billion to the mental health of families and children. We know that this is extremely important. Parental conflict is three times more likely to occur in poorer families than in those who are better off. This is why we are focusing on this area.
Children: Mental Health Assessments
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts(7 years ago)
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Baroness Tyler of Enfield
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the remarks by Lord Nash on 23 November 2016 (HL Deb, col 1947), what progress they have made with testing new approaches to mental health assessments for looked-after children which were due to commence in April or May this year.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, the pilots were delayed by the general election but will start next year. Delay has enabled the design to effectively address the problems identified by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and the Education Select Committee. In particular, we have taken forward recommendations of the expert working group on the mental health of children in care, which the Government commissioned to look at how to improve mental health and well-being support for looked-after children. We are currently identifying an organisation to support implementation.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
I thank the Minister for his Answer and will not dwell on my disappointment that it has taken so long to get the pilots off the ground. It will now be important to understand how these pilots will fit with the new trailblazers announced in the Green Paper to trial new mental health support teams working with schools. Does the Minister agree with me that it would make sense for at least one area to trial both the new children-in-care assessment pilots and the new mental health support teams to see how they best fit together?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, we will work with our delivery partner to identify pilot sites, and there will be an up-front commitment to help meet any needs that are identified during the assessment process. One advantage of the delay is that we now have the mental health Green Paper, and we are trying to dovetail as much of the work from that into these pilots as we can.
Social Mobility Commission
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts(7 years ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I have already complimented Mr Milburn on the great work that he has done with his commissioners over the last five years. We are determined to keep the Social Mobility Commission. If the Government were not interested in social mobility then perhaps we could do as the noble Lord suggests and shut it down, but that is not the intention. We want a strong and vocal commission to hold us to account. I know we fully intend to appoint a new board in the next few months.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, the Social Mobility Commission’s report State of the Nation 2017, published earlier this month, paints a very stark picture of a country with many deep divisions—economic, social and geographical— and makes a heartfelt plea for the Government to publish an overall strategy for tackling them as well as a detailed action plan to respond to the specific recommendations in the report, a number of which are aimed directly at the Government. When do the Government intend to respond to the report?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I can confirm that we will be publishing a social mobility action plan shortly; I cannot give an exact date but it will be soon. It might also be worth mentioning some of the achievements of the last seven years because I think people can get rather downhearted by the whole issue of social mobility. It is important to remember that today we have 3 million more people in work; 950,000 fewer workless households; 600,000 fewer people in absolute poverty; 100,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty; and 300,000 fewer working-age adults in absolute poverty. Lastly, 600,000 fewer children are living in workless families than in 2010.