Education

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

I beg to move,

That the draft Special Educational Needs (Personal Budgets) Regulations 2014, which were laid before this House on 9 April, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.

The regulations are the first to be laid under section 49 and—it gives me great pleasure to say—under part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014. As I think we can all agree across the House, the 2014 Act has the potential to make a massive improvement to the lives of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

The regulations will introduce the option of a personal budget for education, health and care plan holders from September 2014. The SEN pathfinders have shown that personal budgets can make a real difference to children and young people; indeed, according to some parents on the pathfinder programme, they can be life-changing. However, the introduction of personal budgets is complex, and hon. Members may want some reassurances about their introduction in September, especially in relation to the testing of direct payments for SEN provision.

If personal budgets are to work, parents must be given clear, up-front information about their availability, as well as advice and support on requesting, taking up and managing a personal budget, including on direct payments. Personal budgets must be embedded in the education, health and care planning process, rather than seen simply as an addition to the system. Their introduction from September, as part of the wider reforms, means that councils are developing personal budgets as a coherent element of the system, rather than just a mere bolt-on. I must stress that, building on the experience of the pathfinders, our approach to implementation will be one of evolution, rather than the proverbial revolution.

The draft code of practice, which was laid before Parliament on 11 June and is subject to debate in its own right, is abundantly clear on that important underlying principle of successful implementation. Subject to the will of Parliament, the code of practice will, along with regulations covering the local offer and EHC plans, set out a flexible framework for implementation, while providing a clear expectation of what councils must have in place in September 2014 and of how it should evolve over time as joint commissioning arrangements and local offers mature.

To turn to the substance of the regulations, they contain many of the provisions that we have previously debated as part of the pilot scheme for direct payments for SEN provision. They give parents and young people the right to ask for a personal budget when an EHC plan is being prepared, or during a statutory review of an existing plan. Parents must be given up-front information about personal budgets, including the information that will be required in, and consulted on as part of the local offer.

We have maintained the considerations in relation to value for money and the impact on other service users—an issue that has been of concern in debates in this House and the other place. We have repeated the requirement for the permission of a school or college and added early-years settings where a direct payment is being used on their premises. I understand that there are concerns that that could be a get-out clause and a barrier to inclusion, especially in further education. However, we have seen no such evidence from the pathfinders. It is only right that institutions have the final say on who can work on their premises. I can, however, reassure hon. Members that we will keep a careful eye on that aspect of our reforms.

Finally, I want to return to my earlier theme of the complexity of implementation. I draw the House’s attention to the comprehensive package of support that is in place to help councils meet this important challenge. An ever-increasing array of materials, including practical advice, case studies, checklists and frameworks for implementation, is available on the SEN pathfinder website. All those materials have been developed with expert support from local authorities, their partners, and voluntary and community sector groups that work in the area, including those that represent parents.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Last year, the Minister kindly met me and representatives of CLIC Sargent to consider the position of children who suffer from cancer. Will he assure Members that there will be the necessary flexibility—this is the key issue—to deal with children with varying abilities and concerns?

[Mr Timpson]

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman absolutely on that point. The meeting that we had last year informed not only the legislation, but the underlying code of practice, which is now in draft form. The whole point of personal budgets is to embed flexibility and personalisation in the support that is available to parents, and to put them much more in control of the choices to ensure that they and their children get the relevant support when they need it. I hope that he will take time to look at the code of practice. I know that CLIC Sargent, which works closely with the Department, has done so. I am grateful for the work that he and that charity have done.

Our SEN advisers are visiting councils the length and breadth of the country to establish what more local areas may need and, when necessary, are making referrals to our pathfinder champion support team and the newly appointed national champions for personal budgets.

That package will be complemented by a thematic evaluation of personal budgets and integrated resourcing, which will be undertaken by SQW, the evaluator of the pathfinder programme, and will be published this summer. The research will re-examine the progress that has been made by pathfinder and non-pathfinder areas to identify good practice and lessons learned to inform the development of less advanced areas.

To conclude, with the framework for implementation set out in the regulations, the code of practice and the support that we are providing with our partners, I am confident that we have an approach that will, in the coming years, make a huge difference to the lives of children and young people. I hope that hon. Members will give it their support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Timpson]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) for his comments and questions on the regulations, as well as his support for the principle of personal budgets and direct payments. I recall that when we last debated this issue in a Committee Room upstairs he had a host of relevant and pertinent questions, so I would have been disappointed if he had not had a further raft of questions to pose on this important issue in his usual manner. I shall try to answer as many of his questions as I can, and if I fail to cover any of them in detail I will write to him with a further and better answer, as I did after the last debate.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the evaluation of the implementation of these reforms and specifically about how children will be involved in the decision-making about personal budgets and more generally. Throughout the whole process, we have been at pains to involve children in the formulation of the new legislation, both through the EPiC group—Equality, Participation, Influence, Change—which works within the Department, and more widely through the Council for Disabled Children, which is a strategic partner. That relationship will continue. We are also ensuring that Ofsted is involved in looking carefully at how the reforms are bedding in. It will provide us with an evaluation that will form a good evidence base to determine whether the reforms are having the impact that we all want to see.

In relation to the financial implications and the burdens on local authorities imposed by the reforms—of personal budgets in particular—we have done an assessment, as we always do. That is why a £70 million reform grant has been made in this financial year, and I announced last week a subsequent £43 million for implementation in the first year. It is also worth noting that there is not necessarily a direct correlation between personal budgets and additional costs. In fact, the evaluation of personal health budgets in the pilot that was undertaken found them to be more cost-effective in delivering services. I am confident that the reforms will not only help to deliver better services, but will alleviate some of the financial pressures on local authorities.

The hon. Gentleman asked about joint commissioning and whether I could point to any exemplary work that showed that it was starting to make a difference to families. I encourage him to look at what is happening in Wigan, which has made excellent progress. It has demonstrated substantial change to its arrangements, and joint commissioning is at the heart of the work it is doing. It has subsequently seen an improvement in the services available to parents and children.

The hon. Gentleman asked about how parents will be made aware of the availability of personal budgets, and that is an important point. It is why I wrote to parents through the various networks available to give them as much information as possible about what will happen in September. We are also working closely with schools, which are often the first port of call and the daily contact that parents have with the special educational needs system, so that they are informing parents now about what they can expect to happen in September and the role that personal budgets can play.

The hon. Gentleman asked how we can ensure that we have a person-centred approach and what practical support we are providing to make sure that that is the case. Above all, I would direct him to the £30 million that we are providing to recruit and train some 1,800 independent supporters. They will not be from the local authority or health providers, and are the one aspect that parents have consistently told us are the most helpful addition to the support they receive as they enter the SEN system, both at the point of assessment and in the further work required to ensure that children achieve the desired outcomes.

The hon. Gentleman also asked how organisations that are not currently involved in the delivery of services can make themselves known to potential users of personal budgets. That is, of course, the whole basis of the local offer that will be brought into being through consultation with parents and children, and should be a showcase of what is available in special educational needs services in a local area. I would expect that to include all those organisations that have the capacity to help to deliver some of the services that personal budgets and direct payments are designed to obtain.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the experience in Essex. I recall that when we last debated this issue he mentioned the experience in Solihull. I hope the fact that he has now moved on to Essex suggests that I have satisfied him that Solihull is ready for these changes. In fact, we have done a readiness survey of all 152 local authorities to satisfy ourselves that they are ready to go come September, not only on personal budgets but more widely across the reforms that we are bringing in. Some 90% of local authorities have said that they are confident that they are ready, but I am seeing some personally to satisfy myself that they have managed to deal with some of the issues that remain so that they are up to speed come 1 September.

I said at the start that this is a complex issue, and I think that point was behind some of the hon. Gentleman’s questions. It will create dilemmas for some of the funding streams and the disaggregation of finances. We are aware of those possibilities and we will keep a close eye on how they develop, not only through Ofsted but with the CDC and the evaluation that we have done, up to now, with SQW. I am confident that we are in a good position to ensure that personal budgets play a key role in delivering much better services for children and young people with special educational needs. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support in principle for the steps that we are taking, and I will keep a keen eye on how these important changes are delivered on 1 September for many young people. I am sure that they will benefit from the Government’s work.

Question put and agreed to.

Children with Epilepsy (Children and Families Act 2014)

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

May I begin in the traditional and in this case very pertinent way, by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) for once again initiating an important debate about the wide subject of special educational needs and the specific area of those many children and young people who have some form of epilepsy? This is not the first debate of this kind that we have had, and it is good that he reminds us that as we move on from the statute book to the implementation of the Children and Families Act 2014, we should keep our focus very much on what this means to the families and children whom we hope to benefit from the reforms.

Like my hon. Friend, I understand the importance of supporting pupils with medical conditions such as epilepsy, and it is imperative that the right support is put in place quickly and effectively. I will try to cover as many of the points that he made as possible, and I will of course endeavour to make sure he has a full and proper response in writing to those that I do not.

I should like to start by restating our ambition that every child with SEN, or who has a disability or a medical condition that impedes their ability to learn, including those with epilepsy, receives the support they need, so they can achieve well in school and go on to find employment and lead happy and fulfilled lives. The special needs reforms in the 2014 Act are deliberately focused on joining up help across education, health and social care, so that children receive the help that they need when they need it throughout their education. Parents and children will be involved in decisions about the support they receive much more closely than hitherto, so that they have a genuine say in what they want to achieve and how they will achieve it.

Epilepsy is just one of the many medical conditions for which pupils require support, to help them progress properly through school, and it is right to acknowledge the excellent work that most of our schools do to provide the support that their pupils need. However, there can be no excuse for the poor practice that evidence suggests exists in some schools.

Under the Equality Act 2010, schools have clear duties not to directly or indirectly discriminate against children and young people with disabilities. Government guidance on the Act clearly identifies long-term health conditions, such as epilepsy, as being among the impairments from which a disability can arise, and they are therefore covered by this duty. As such, this form of discrimination is simply not acceptable.

As my hon. Friend skilfully argued, however, pupils with epilepsy often face significant challenges and difficulties not just in school, but in all aspects of their lives, and I also recognise that these challenges can be exacerbated because of a lack of understanding of the condition by others.

I remember a family holiday from about 30 years ago when we had with us a school friend of my sister who had epilepsy, unbeknown to me. During our holiday, this child, who sadly and tragically died this year, suffered an epileptic fit. As a young boy, I was shocked by what I saw happen in front of my eyes, but, having had had it explained to me, it has left me in good stead for the rest of my life, in terms of understanding the cause, effect and manifestation of epilepsy and the surrounding context for someone who has it. That was pure chance, and many people, whether pupils or even teachers at school, do not have that experience and cannot draw from it.

As my hon. Friend said, that is one reason why we introduced a new duty for school governing bodies to make arrangements to support pupils with medical conditions and to have regard to guidance, so that they get the support they need at their time of need. Our aim in putting that duty in the 2014 Act was to send out a clear message that poor practice will not be tolerated and that conditions such as epilepsy must be properly recognised. Pupils with medical conditions deserve to be supported properly in schools and to have the same chances as everyone else to succeed in whatever they choose to do.

The new statutory guidance on supporting pupils with medical conditions acknowledges the negative social and emotional implications associated with medical conditions such as epilepsy. That is why there is a clear expectation for a child’s social and emotional needs to be taken into account when considering the support that they require. This guidance, which comes into force in September, is deliberately child-focused, recognising that medical conditions will present differently in different children. Epilepsy is a case in point; no two children with epilepsy will have identical needs, and it is therefore right, as my hon. Friend said, that each case is treated individually, based on the needs of each child.

That is why we have also made it clear in the guidance that the school’s policy should cover the role of individual health care plans and clearly state who is responsible for their development. The plans will help to ensure that school staff know how to support pupils in lessons, how to help them with administering medication and what to do in an emergency. They will be drawn up in collaboration between the school, the parents and the pupil—that is important—and the most relevant health care professional, such as the epilepsy specialist nurse. I am pleased that we have developed the new statutory guidance in such close collaboration with a wide range of interested parties. Young Epilepsy, as a member of the Health Conditions in Schools Alliance, was actively involved in that work and added substantial value to the guidance, for which we are extremely grateful.

In identifying children and young people who need additional support and adjustments, whether because they have a health condition, a disability or special educational needs, the key is that professionals should look at the particular needs of the individual and seek to co-ordinate support, so all these needs are addressed coherently. Children with epilepsy will not necessarily have SEN. What is set out in a child’s individual health care plan might be enough to ensure that he or she has access to differentiated, high-quality teaching. However, where a child has SEN, the new nought-to-25 SEND—special educational needs and disability—code of practice sets out how schools should work with parents to identify underlying issues, including health needs, and reflect those in the support given and the outcomes we all want to see achieved. Where a child or young person has an education, health and care plan, the code sets out a thorough process—again, with parents centrally involved—for putting in place a comprehensive plan covering the full range of a child’s needs; obviously, that can include support provided by specialist services.

These plans are also supported by the strategic arrangements in the 2014 Act. The joint commissioning duties require education, care and health services to come together to commission services for children and young people with SEN and disabilities. Wider provision is also covered, including through a consideration of how to integrate education, health and care provision to provide that most effectively, in line with wider duties. As my hon. Friend will also be aware, the new local offer will set out details of all the services for children and young people with SEN and disabilities in a local authority area and how to access them. We expect that that will reflect the full range of services, including those for children and young people with epilepsy, and those offered by the voluntary and community sector.

On initial teacher training, I fully understand the case my hon. Friend makes, and it is always tempting to look to ITT as a solution in respect of the desire to see every teacher well versed in the practice of dealing with many of these conditions. Teaching standards include duties on schools to ensure that their staff understand how to deal with children’s special educational needs. We can also look at reviews into initial teacher training to satisfy ourselves that they are going far enough.

My hon. Friend will know that there have been a number of evaluations of pathfinders in 31 local authority areas. We now have pathfinder champions who are helping those non-pathfinder areas to learn from the evaluation of the progress that they have made. We have excellent examples of families who feel that the culture has shifted. For the first time, they have been able to sit in a room with someone from education, someone from health and someone from social care, and they have been asked what they think should happen, rather than it being told to them.

The special educational needs reform grant of £70 million has gone to local authorities. We have done a local authority readiness test to see how each local authority is performing in preparation for the changes in September. Ofsted is doing some thematic work to look at how some of the reforms will bed in over the next months and years, and I hope to see progress in time towards a more cohesive inspection regime of special educational need provision across all the different services. Ofsted is starting to consider that that is the best way forward for children’s services, and there is a good case for looking more carefully at how education, health and social care inspection can be brought together, so that it looks at the experience of the child and the family, rather than at the individual services.

The independent supporters are, in many ways, the key workers about whom my hon. Friend was talking. The £30 million will pay for 1,800 independent supporters who will be drawn predominantly from the charitable sector. I encourage organisations such as Young Epilepsy, which want to get involved, to contact the Council for Disabled Children, which is helping us to recruit those independent supporters. It works out at about 12 in each local authority area. We know from speaking to parents right across the country that one of the things that they value more than anything else is to have someone who is not from the local authority, the school or one of the health providers to provide them with that genuine independent support to navigate them through what can sometimes be seen as a very convoluted system—a system that we are trying to make clearer and easier to access. It is very much an investment in service delivery, as my hon. Friend says, and the £30 million will be invested over the next two years. To monitor its progress, we will work closely with our strategic partner, the Council for Disabled Children, to make sure that it is having the impact that we all want to see.

Over and above that, I will be saying more tomorrow about how we will ensure that the extra burdens that we are placing on local authorities will be met, so that the authorities have sufficient funds to ensure that the system really does reach the parts that we want it to. Ultimately, this is about ensuring that parents and young people who have special educational needs and disabilities see that cultural change in the system that for too long has been absent. As my hon. Friend says, this is a fork in the road, and we need to take the right path. I believe that we can do that, but we need to pull together to make sure that this really does make the difference that we all want to see.

Question put and agreed to.

Free Schools (Chapeltown, Sheffield)

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on securing what is an important debate not just for the students, but for the communities that she represents in Sheffield, and on ensuring that the proposed free school at Chapeltown in Sheffield is scrutinised properly. It is right to acknowledge that she has made a long and distinguished contribution to education in the House and in her constituency. I believe that she was also a teacher of English at Dearne Valley college until 2003, so she speaks with authority on this subject.

I will endeavour to respond to as many of the points she has raised as possible in the short time that we are allowed for this debate. If I do not manage to do so, I will ensure that she gets the answers in writing from either myself or the Minister who is responsible for this area of policy, my noble Friend Lord Nash.

I begin with a statement on which I hope we can all agree: every child and young person should have the opportunity and choice to go to an excellent local school. That is why we are committed to providing all parents with a diverse choice of high quality provision, including free schools. One hundred and seventy-four free schools have opened and another 120 are in the pre-opening phase and are due to open in 2014 and beyond. Once they are all approved, open and full, those free schools will offer 150,000 pupil places.

Before free schools are allowed to open, the free school proposers receive a significant period of support and challenge from the Department for Education. There is a rigorous application process that involves a paper assessment and an interview with the proposer group. Where required, there are specific conditions for the approval. There is then the pre-opening period when groups such as Chapeltown are supported by officials as they develop their proposal further, consult the local community and work towards signing a funding agreement with the Department.

Quite rightly, as they are brand new schools, there is greater oversight of open free schools than other academies, at least until their first successful Ofsted inspection. It is worth noting that most free schools are performing well. For example, recently in Yorkshire and the Humber, Dixons Trinity academy was rated outstanding by Ofsted, despite opening only 20 months ago.

There are already six free schools open in England that cater for 16 to 19-year-olds. The first of those to open was the London Academy of Excellence, which has been rated as good by Ofsted. The others, including Chapeltown academy, are looking to open in September 2014 and beyond. Chapeltown academy will be the first purely academic 16-to-19 free school—should it be accepted—for 300 students in the north of the city.

The trust’s vision as it is laid out is to provide young people in the area with the dedicated A-level provision and support that it believes is currently lacking in the north of Sheffield. That type of provision is needed by students who have aspirations to attend some of the top universities in the country. The academy aims to open in September this year with 150 students, and it will cater for a total of 300 students when running at full capacity.

[Angela Smith]

The Minister has just claimed that there is demand for high-quality sixth-form places in the north of the city, yet Bradfield school—one of the highest performing and most popular schools in the city—cannot fill its sixth form.

[Mr Timpson]

That is not my claim; that is the trust’s own vision that it has set out. I will come on to explain how we must take into consideration—along with a number of other factors—the demand in the city for this provision before deciding whether to go ahead with the project.

As the hon. Lady knows, the Department assesses the proposal for the Chapeltown academy, and it must approve it to proceed into the pre-opening phase, which it did in June last year. There has been significant progress throughout that phase, and we envisage that the Department will soon consider whether the Secretary of State for Education should enter into a funding agreement with Chapeltown Academy Trust. I emphasise that the Department places great importance on that decision, and it is also aware of the need to do it as soon as reasonably practicable if it does go forward, so as to provide increased certainty of a sixth-form place for potential students in the local area.

The hon. Lady alluded to the fact that she has already written to my colleagues, the Secretary of State for Education and the Schools Minister, on a number of occasions, to express her concerns about this academy, which she has also articulated extremely forcefully this evening. She has helpfully laid out some valid points before the House, and the Minister responsible for the decision will carefully consider such issues before entering into any funding agreement with the Chapeltown Academy Trust. I will also take this opportunity to address some of the specific points the hon. Lady has raised.

On evidence of demand, in its original proposal the Chapeltown academy had—as with all free school projects—to produce robust evidence of demand for its proposed provision from parents and prospective students, and make a strong case for its proposal, citing contextual factors including the breadth and quality of the local post-16 offer. The Chapeltown academy received more than 300 expressions of interest in spring last year from students who stated that they would choose to attend the academy were it to open in 2014. As I have said, the academy will have 150 places available in the first year, and even with the delays to the announcement of the site for the academy—I will come to that in due course—the trust has already made more than 130 offers, 81 of which have been accepted to date. That figure will obviously change in due course.

We are aware that some students may potentially hold a place at another post-16 establishment—a point raised by the hon. Lady—so it is difficult to predict precisely at this stage the number of students who will arrive should the Chapeltown academy open in September. However, the academy has a robust student retention plan in place that has been shared with the Department for Education, and it will continue to recruit students to ensure that sufficient numbers are achieved.

The hon. Lady also mentioned the decreasing demographic of the 16-to-19 cohort in Sheffield and the impact on existing providers. I understand that the 16-to-19 cohort in Sheffield overall may decrease in the coming years, and that all post-16 providers in the north of Sheffield will therefore be looking to attract potential students. Chapeltown academy will have a dedicated academic provision focus and will attract students who aspire to go on to attend some of the top universities in the country. Currently, if students in the local area wish to attend a purely academic education option they must either attend provision that provides both academic and vocational courses, or travel substantial distances across the city to seek it elsewhere.

Unfortunately, time does not allow me to elaborate on the various institutions available to students in the city, although the hon. Lady referred to some of them. Part of the whole ethos of the free schools programme is to provide competition for existing providers with the aim of driving education standards across the whole sector. That is something that the Chapeltown academy will want to be able to offer to the academic students in the area.

The hon. Lady also raised concerns about the capacity and experience of the proposer group for the Chapeltown academy. We are fully aware that the skills and attributes that are valuable in writing a proposal or successfully delivering a project are very different from the skill set required to govern an academy effectively. I totally agree that a strong and effective governing body is a crucial element in the success of any educational institution. As is the case with all free schools, we expect to see a strong governing body in which any conflicts of interest are identified and addressed. That is why we have asked the trust to consider its governance arrangements to ensure that its membership has both the skills and the experience to drive through any necessary improvements. That was reiterated to the hon. Lady in a letter from the Minister for Schools. To that end, the revised governing body now consists of two former head teachers—one being the chair of governors, who has post-16 leadership experience—a chief executive of a local charity, a senior human resources consultant, a former director of education and skills, and a chartered accountant. We are now satisfied that the governance structure has the capability to deliver an outstanding education to its students. I understand that full details of the governing body are available on the Chapeltown academy website.

[Angela Smith]

Will the Minister acknowledge that that is only five members of the permanent governing body? The rest of the governing body will not be announced until towards the end of the year.

[Mr Timpson]

I cannot contradict the hon. Lady’s comment, but I will look carefully at the point she has made. It will need to be considered as part of the process as it continues.

The Department is aware that some of the local post-16 providers in the north of Sheffield and across the city are not in favour of the proposed Chapeltown academy. Clearly, we would not necessarily expect that to be the case, for obvious reasons. We are also aware that some of those providers have liaised directly with the Chapeltown academy to request further information about its proposal. It is for the academy trust to determine what information or financial data it is appropriate to release at any given time. I understand that the Chapeltown academy has discussed its proposal with some existing colleges and has provided as much information as it feels is possible without releasing confidential information.

As for the financial viability of the Chapeltown academy, it has supplied financial plans as required at each stage of the project, along with a business model that further demonstrates the viability of the free school. The trust will produce revised financial plans again before we consider entering into a funding agreement. Rightly, those financial plans are rigorously assessed by the Department to ensure that they are viable both from a financial and educational perspective.

The hon. Lady raised concerns about the consultation carried out by the free school trust. That is something it has to do to establish whether it should enter into a funding agreement with the Department. The Department also consults local authorities in considering a free school proposal. The trust has worked to ensure that it consults as many stakeholders as possible, and I understand it wrote to the hon. Lady, inviting her to attend a consultation event, along with giving her a hard copy of the consultation document.

At the time of planning and launching the public consultation, the negotiations for the Chapeltown academy’s premises were commercially sensitive, so the trust was unable therefore to release the details of the proposed premises at that stage. Respondents to the consultation were informed that the trust would consult the public again regarding premises in due course. It has now run a separate public consultation regarding the premises, which opened on 12 March and closed on 2 April. The trustees are considering the responses received and will publish a supplementary report. I know that the hon. Lady will be interested in its contents.

Officials from the Department also sought the views of local authorities in Sheffield, Rotherham and Barnsley. As with all free school proposals, the responses from this consultation, along with the consultation undertaken by the trust, will be duly considered before we decide whether to enter into a funding agreement with the trust. The next steps are for officials to collate all the evidence in relation to the Chapeltown academy proposal, and for Ministers to consider whether to enter into a funding agreement with the academy trust.

I know that the Chapeltown academy has taken the approach of sharing as much information as it can publicly regarding the new academy. As the hon. Lady said, it is proposed that the free school will be located in an industrial unit on the Hydra business park. It is intended that temporary permitted development rights will shortly be applied for to enable the school to use part of the existing office space for one academic year. A full planning application for change of use and external alterations will also be submitted for the permanent building, so there will be some planning oversight of the facility.

As with all free schools, a wide range of factors is considered before entering into a funding agreement. We remain confident that the Chapeltown Academy Trust has produced the material necessary, but it remains for it to make its case.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

2. What progress he has made on speeding up the adoption process.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

Major reforms in the Children and Families Act 2014 will help to speed up the legal adoption process for children, support quicker matching and ensure the earlier placement of children with foster families who may go on to adopt them. We have also implemented a new adopter approval process and, in 2012-13, the number of adopters was 34% up on the year before.

[Martin Vickers]

I thank the Minister for his reply and welcome improvements that have been made to the system, but may I draw his attention to a Canadian couple who have been trying to adopt a child from north-east Lincolnshire to whom one of them is related? The process started in December 2012 but has still not been completed, and the child is now three. If the complications have arisen because the couple are from abroad, can anything be done to speed up the process?

[Mr Timpson]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the fact that some adoption cases take far too long. The average time from care to placement is 22 months, which is why we have streamlined the approvals process and introduced regular scorecard data to show local authorities’ timeliness with adoptions. It is also why we have put more than £200 million into the adoption system to try to rip out unnecessary red tape and ensure that everyone keeps their efforts firmly fixed on children who badly need stable homes.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

Adults who become special guardians face the same difficulties as parents who adopt, yet receive less support. My experience is that overburdened social workers are more likely to pursue a special guardianship order because the process is less intensive, but sometimes that lack of rigour leads to breakdown. Will the Minister try to bring the processes for SGOs into line with those for adoption so that children are protected by arrangements that are appropriate for them?

[Mr Timpson]

Of course, any special guardianship order must be signed off and approved by the court in the same way as a placement or adoption order. There has been a significant increase in the number of SGOs throughout the country in recent years, which is why we have commissioned for the first time proper research not only into the prevalence of the orders, but into who is taking them forward and what the breakdown rates are, as well as what is available to ensure that children who find themselves in such permanent situations get the support that they need. If the hon. Lady wishes, I will be happy to talk to her about that further.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his astonishing record and success on expanding adoption, but may I echo the comments of the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) by saying that there is still more to be done to speed up the process? One of the easiest ways of determining where the blockages in the system are is to compare neighbouring authorities that have similar socio-economic bases, but very different adoption rates. We must get out the message that speed matters when dealing with young children.

[Mr Timpson]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend that we must bring as much transparency as possible to the adoption process, which is why we have introduced the scorecard data and a national adoption register that is more open and available to prospective adopters. It is also why we have put such a strong emphasis on ensuring that local authorities’ artificial barriers do not get in the way of children finding a loving, stable family home, if adoption is right for them. I welcome his support for what we are doing but, of course, we must continue to exert pressure so that all the 6,000 children who are in care and waiting to be adopted this very day get the opportunity that they deserve.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I also welcome the improvements, but may I remind the Minister that, in England alone, 16% of all children put up for adoption are black, Asian or from the ethnic minority communities, and that adoption still takes three times longer for a black child than for a white child? What steps is he taking to ensure that more prospective parents come from the ethnic communities and that that difference is brought to an end?

[Mr Timpson]

The right hon. Gentleman is correct to raise that issue, of which I am conscious from the statistics that he shared with the House. That is why we have made it clear—not only through the Children and Families Act 2014—that although ethnicity is an important consideration when matching for adoption, it should not be the single guiding principle that determines whether prospective adopters take on a child with a different ethnic mix from theirs. It is also why we are helping to fund local authorities, in partnership with independent fostering agencies, to examine how they can recruit more widely across our communities so that we ensure that we have a good cross-section of people coming forward to adopt.

We need to make people aware that some of the myths and barriers that they think prevent them from adopting do not exist. We want more people to come forward, so we should do everything that we can to encourage them to do so.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

3. What plans he has to create a national register of foster carers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

We have no plans to introduce a national register of foster carers. Foster carers are approved locally by their fostering service, which helps ensure a good match between the foster carer and children. Introducing a national register would add an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy and make the approval process less responsive to foster carers’ and children’s needs.

[John Glen]

I thank the Minister for that response, but does he not agree that it seems somewhat counter-productive to restrict outstanding carers to one authority or agency, forcing them, in effect, to go through that additional bureaucracy and vetting procedure should they move? What plans does he have to make the system less bureaucratic so that, particularly in neighbouring authorities, they do not have to repeat that process, wasting a lot of time?

[Mr Timpson]

I agree that we need to make transferring from one agency to another, or from one local authority to another, as streamlined and as simple as possible. That is why we have changed the regulations to make it easier for new fostering services to access the foster carer’s record, including the training that they have received, and why, more recently, fostering services have also been required to share relevant information about a person’s suitability to foster.

We have seen a 6% rise in the number of approved foster carers, as well as a 9% rise in the number of approved foster placements, but we need to go further and do anything we can to ensure that those who want to foster and want to continue to foster really get the chance to do just that.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I recognise the Minister’s concerns, and I suppose that the issue depends on what the register is intended to achieve, but the Department has had to address issues over the adoption register very similar to those to which he just referred. That register is managed by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering. How would a fostering register differ dramatically from the adoption register, on which the Minister has been rightly lavishing praise?

[Mr Timpson]

There are more than 71,000 approved foster carers, so there is already a scalability issue. We also have a much more deeply entrenched local system in relation to the recruitment of foster carers. That is why we have given the fostering network £250,000 to try to boost recruitment at a local level to try to meet local need, but we also need to do everything that we can to ensure that the latent capacity in fostering across the country is utilised. Hundreds of thousands of people would consider fostering and we need to find them. That is why we are also funding Fosterline—an independent, free advice line—so that people can get the guidance that they need to come forward and, hopefully, foster.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

4. What guidance his Department has issued to head teachers on what constitutes the exceptional circumstances in which children may be granted leave of absence for holidays during school term time.

Private Education: Offences Against Children

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2014 Ministerial Corrections

[Mr Timpson]

The National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) has received referrals from four independent schools, relating to convictions for sexual offences, since it commenced its regulatory role on 1 April 2012.

Under the previous Government, there was no requirement for teachers at independent schools to be registered. Under our new NCTL regulatory system, teachers in independent schools must be registered and are therefore regulated by the NCTL.

The correct answer should have been:

[Mr Timpson]

The National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) has received referrals from four independent schools, relating to convictions for sexual offences, since it commenced its regulatory role on 1 April 2012.

Under the previous Government, only registered teachers were considered by the regulator and there was no requirement for teachers at independent schools to be registered. Under our new NCTL regulatory system, all teachers, including those in independent schools are regulated by the NCTL.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)]

11. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of safeguarding policies in independent schools; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

Independent schools must follow the independent school standards and statutory guidance on safeguarding, as well as requirements on vetting checks for staff. The inspection and regulatory system is designed to ensure schools meet these standards and any failure to do so triggers a process designed to bring the school up to standard or ultimately be closed.

[Meg Munn]

Local safeguarding children boards are reporting increased problems in getting independent schools to co-operate with the requirements set out in guidance to provide information on their policies. Will the Minister look at this, and when does he plan to issue new guidance in relation to education and child protection issues?

[Mr Timpson]

First, may I pay tribute to the hon. Lady, who is not standing again at the next election? Throughout her time in Parliament, she has been a real stalwart and a supporter of children in care, particularly the most vulnerable. I know that many families, not only in Sheffield but across the country, will be grateful for the work she has done. We will issue the updated guidance shortly, and I reassure her that we will look specifically at how we can ensure that the information given to local safeguarding children boards by independent schools is provided properly; that will be made as clear as possible in the guidance that is to follow.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn). [Interruption.] She has had one go; that is enough. May I say, however, that I echo entirely what the Minister has said? This House is losing far too many outstanding Members, and far too many outstanding female Members.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

There is a conflict of interest when abuse is alleged in independent and military fee-paying schools, in that the interests of children as possible victims are pitched against those of the schools, which want to protect their reputation in order to maintain fee income. Will the Minister look again at introducing mandatory reporting by staff who become aware of abuse allegations to a designated local authority officer, rather than simply requiring the reporting of abuse to a senior teacher or manager in the school?

[Mr Timpson]

The Working Together guidance, which was revised in 2013, makes abundantly clear the responsibility of all professionals who work with children to keep them safe. The evidence, internationally and from experts such as Eileen Munro, makes it clear that mandatory reporting does not necessarily make children safer and that it can have unintended consequences. We continue to look at the arguments, but at the moment the Government are not convinced that mandatory reporting is the way forward.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

What causes the Minister greater concern: the inadequate investigations into historical abuse at those schools and the lack of support for the victims, or the worry that the system he has just outlined is so full of holes that it is still possible for a dedicated abuser to carry on victimising children in those schools?

[Mr Timpson]

We need to be careful not to conflate the two issues of historical abuse and the robustness of the current system. When there has been abuse in the past, we need to investigate it and take the evidence where it leads. I am clear, however, that the Working Together guidance—along with all the other work we are doing to improve social work practice and to free people working on the front line to spend more time with families rather than sitting behind desks—is the way forward. We are building on the Laming and Munro reviews, and that is being reflected in the response not only that Ofsted is having through its inspections but from front-line practitioners themselves, who can see the sense in what we are doing to ensure that all children are kept safe, whatever the circumstances.

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

13. What steps his Department is taking to raise the status, professionalism and morale of the teaching profession.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

14. What steps he is taking to improve support for young carers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

On 8 October, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education issued a written ministerial statement announcing an amendment to the Children and Families Bill. For the first time, all young carers will have the right to an assessment of their needs for support, as part of the consideration of the needs of the whole family. This amendment will help achieve our aim of protecting young people from excessive or inappropriate caring roles.

[Chloe Smith]

I very much welcome those measures in the Children and Families Bill. I will meet Norfolk Young Carers Forum next week to, “Get it right in education”, as the forum puts it. These young carers tell me that there needs to be more awareness of young carers at schools and colleges, and in the workplace. What message would the Minister send the NYCF?

[Mr Timpson]

I commend my hon. Friend for taking up the challenge on behalf of young carers in her constituency. I know they have been particularly active in helping to design and commission many of the services across the country for young carers. To help raise awareness and to encourage good practice in schools, we are working with the Children’s Society and the Carers Trust to provide teachers with the tools—the training and guidance—they need to recognise and support young carers as early as possible.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

15. How many applications for academy status from community primary schools have been declined by his Department. [Official Report, 28 February 2014, Vol. 576, c. 1MC.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

18. What assessment he has made of the potential role of schools in building character and resilience in young people.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

Schools play an important role in providing character-building activities for their pupils. Sports clubs, orchestras and choirs, school plays, cadet forces and debating competitions all help to build character and give children opportunities to flourish. Schools are best placed to determine the needs of their pupils and how best to meet them.

[Damian Hinds]

Given that welcome emphasis on character building for all, may I commend to the Minister—and subtly plug—a report out tomorrow on character and resilience by the all-party group on social mobility? Will he consider more ways to develop these crucial traits throughout childhood, and in and out of school?

[Mr Speaker]

Not that subtly.

[Mr Timpson]

The report has clearly moved to the top of my reading list. I will read it carefully and look at some of the lessons that we can learn from my hon. Friend’s work, to which I pay tribute. We have already spoken about the role that cadet forces can play in state schools, and we are working with the Ministry of Defence to improve that role. We are also removing unnecessary health and safety rules that prevent children from going on expeditions and seeking adventures, which I hope that the whole House will applaud.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Of course one of the ways of building resilience among pupils would be to introduce compulsory sex and relationships education. Fahma Mohamed, a 17-year-old student from Bristol, is spearheading a national campaign to end female genital mutilation. I understand that she has written to the Secretary of State to ask if he is prepared to meet her. Her petition has already attracted 167,000 signatures. Will the Minister ask his colleague whether he is prepared to meet Fahma, who is doing brilliant work through the campaign?

[Mr Timpson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and the answer is yes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The Facebook drinking game Neknomination has gone viral, and very sadly young people have died as a result. What role do schools have in building resilience in our young people to resist peer pressure?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

The hon. Lady is right to be concerned about some of the ever-changing risks, as well as opportunities, for young people through the internet. That is why we have brought in the teaching of online safety at every key stage so that from the earliest opportunity children are getting the benefit of sound advice. It is also important that parents play their role so that children are getting a consistent message both at school and at home.

[Mike Thornton (Eastleigh) (LD)]

T7. The 17.5% cuts in spending for 18-plus learning announced last year by the Education Funding Agency, the changes in the 16-to-19 funding formula and the unfair treatment of sixth-form colleges compared with schools regarding VAT have put sixth-form colleges under serious strain, with cuts to courses and staff. Will the Minister, or even the Secretary of State, meet me and the principal of the excellent Barton Peveril college in Eastleigh to discuss the impact of these cuts?

--- Later in debate ---

Contact Between Prescribed Persons and Adopted Person’s Relatives

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendments 2 to 42.

Lords amendment 43, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendments 44 to 72.

Lords amendment 73, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendments 74 to 120, 126 to 149 and 151 to 157.

Lords amendment 158, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendments 159 to 176.

[Mr Timpson]

It is a pleasure to set out to the House a number of Lords amendments. The changes will improve our reforms, and make a real and lasting difference for children and families. I hope Members will support them. I will try to be as succinct as possible in explaining each set of amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)]

Will the Minister please say whether there will be a presumption in favour of disclosure to children and grandchildren? Specifically, if an adopted person does not wish to have contact with the birth parents, does the amendment state that prescribed persons can go against those wishes?

[Mr Timpson]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his continued interest in this important matter. The whole basis of the amendment is to extend the provisions that already exist, so that anyone who wants to make further inquiries, about accessing information or making contact, has to do so through the intermediary services. There is not a presumption, therefore, in that sense. We are looking to go beyond the direct line of descendants from the adopted person, who obviously fall within the prescribed relationship category, and consult on whether we should widen that to others. The provision certainly does not work on the basis that if someone does not want to have contact there is a presumption that that will take place.

[Mr Djanogly]

Is my hon. Friend saying that the intermediary might have more discretion than the adopted person, who may have a different view from the children?

[Mr Timpson]

The intermediary service is there to ensure that anyone who seeks access does so in a way that does not compromise the position of the person they are seeking either to gain access to or make contact with. That is in line with the approach that already exists, and which works well and successfully. What I can say on the record to reassure my hon. Friend is that this will not force anybody to have contact if they do not wish to do so. Clearly, there will be lots of reasons why people will either want to make contact or have access to records. For example, someone may want to understand the genetic history of direct descendants to see whether there is a prevalent hereditary disease to which they are more prone.

At this juncture, may I say how grateful I am to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) for his tireless campaigning on this issue, as well as to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Government Policy, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin), who has continued his personal interest in pursuing these important changes? I believe that the changes will ensure, where it is appropriate to do so and through the intermediary services, a greater prospect for those who want to establish contact or have access to information, to be able to do so without compromising those who may be also involved.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and for his generous words. I put on record that many of my constituents, and many people from outside my constituency, have contacted me on this matter. I have been able to say to them that this has been Parliament at its best, working with Ministers on this subject. I am grateful to him for the advice and support of his office in moving towards an acceptable solution.

[Mr Timpson]

I thank my hon. Friend for those words. As he knows, this has been a long-standing issue on which we have sought the advice of the Law Commission and others to establish a way forward. The fact that we can now legislate and implement these provisions represents a good outcome for many people, including his constituents.

In amendment 2, we have clarified the point at which the fostering for adoption scheme must be considered for a child and established that before a local authority considers placing a child in this way, it must first have considered kinship care and decided that it was not the most appropriate placement. Also in part 1, through amendments 7 to 10, we have introduced an affirmative resolution procedure in relation to the Secretary of State’s powers to direct local authorities to outsource adoption functions, in relation to the use of personal budgets and in relation to allowing approved prospective adopters to search and inspect the Adoption and Children Act 2002 register in pilot areas.

On part 2 and family justice, many hon. Members will be pleased that the noble Lords accepted the principle and purpose of clause 11. However, we have accepted amendment 12 to clause 11 from the noble and learned Baroness Butler-Sloss. As hon. Members will also be aware, clause 11 introduces a presumption that a child’s welfare will be furthered by the involvement of each parent, where this is safe and subject to the overarching principle that the child’s welfare must be paramount. Baroness Butler-Sloss’s amendment addresses concerns raised that the clause could be misinterpreted as giving a parent a right to a certain amount of time with a child. That was never the intention, as I have said several times during the Bill’s passage. The amendment addresses those concerns by clarifying that “involvement” does not mean a particular amount of time.

Importantly, the amendment does not change the effect of clause 11, as it will remain for courts to determine what arrangements are right for each child in the light of the evidence before it. I want to put on the record my gratitude to my hon. Friends the Members for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) and for Northampton South (Mr Binley) and, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has championed this change in the law for many years. I have no doubt that had he not done so, we would not have made the significant progress we now have.

[Tim Loughton]

I thank the Minister for his comments. I understand the logic of Baroness Butler-Sloss’s amendment in not referring to a particular division of a child’s time. Despite being at loggerheads with her over many years, I can see the logic of that. Will he explain, though, why her amendment refers to “direct or indirect” contact? What does that add to the Bill?

[Mr Timpson]

As I said in Committee, I did not feel it was necessary to add anything more to the clause in order to explain its function, but that was not the view of their lordships. The reference to “direct or indirect” contact makes it clear what we mean by “contact”. As I know from my time practising in the family courts, many orders are set out in those same terms. It does not mean, however, that indirect contact, in itself, fulfils the presumption that we have now set in law; it simply makes it clear what we mean by “contact”.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for establishing the important principle that children’s rights include knowing, and having contact with, both their parents, but for the benefit of the House and those outside, will he confirm that “indirect” contact will not be interpreted as meaning just a phone call at Christmas or a book of photographs, and that it will be meaningful contact, even if indirect?

[Mr Timpson]

Once again, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his persistence in pushing this issue. I cannot prescribe exactly the outcome of every case before the courts or the view of a judge concerning the correct order to make. However, the clause seeks to make it abundantly clear that, where it is safe to do so and in the child’s best interests, the child should have meaningful contact with both parents. How that contact takes place is then for the judge to determine according to the usual criteria. I was trying to make it clear to my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham that indirect contact, on its own, could not, in every case, fulfil the presumption. It is important to put that on the record, and I wrote to him today about that to put—I hope—his mind at rest.

[Bill Esterson]

On contact, will the Minister clarify the position regarding children’s views and the paramountcy principle? From what he just said, I am slightly concerned about the view of the judge. I know he thinks it important that the needs of the child come first, but how do we ensure that contact is appropriate and avoid inappropriate contact that does more harm than good?

[Mr Timpson]

We will do that by ensuring that the paramountcy principle still holds water and that the judge’s discretion is not fettered by this change in the law. We went to great lengths to set out, with the help of parliamentary counsel, exactly how that would operate. Baroness Butler-Sloss, with her esteemed legal mind, was happy to accept it in the terms we set out. So I do not see any conflict. We have been clear from the start that this is about the right of the child to have a meaningful relationship with both parents, where it is safe for them to do so and in their best interests, and their lordships have agreed to that presumption and principle. The only change that has come, as a consequence of their amendment, is that we are stating in the Bill something that we had already made clear was our intention in both the pre-legislative scrutiny stage and in subsequent stages in the House.

I would like to recognise the considerable contributions by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd)and my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly)to our important reforms of the family justice system. Their expertise and insight have been invaluable. I was a fellow Cestrian member of the Bar and, like him, plied my trade along the north Wales coast, and I know that the right hon. Gentleman’s legal clout will be sorely missed in the next Parliament and beyond.

Part 3 takes forward our fundamental reforms to special educational needs and introduces integrated education, health and care plans for children and young people with the most complex special educational needs, extends comparable rights and protections to 16 to 25-year-olds in further education and training, as found in schools, and introduces a new local offer to ensure that parents, children, young people and those who work with them can see the support that should be available to them.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I welcome the enhanced offer in the Bill as a result of our deliberations in Committee. Earlier today, I had a meeting with senior consultants in social services and charities concerned about the situation of seriously ill children, their families and the social work support they need. How will the incorporation into the Bill of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 help those children, who might be terminally ill, but will certainly be seriously ill, and their families get the social work and educational support they need at a very difficult time?

[Mr Timpson]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will be dealing in more detail later with the social care element, the 1970 Act and how that sits within the Bill. However, during the course of the Bill, I have met hon. Members concerned about children who might be terminally ill, perhaps with cancer, seeking support from elsewhere, outside their educational environment. We have taken that into account in the Bill and in the code of practice, which is still being drafted but will soon be available, so that those who require support through their education receive it when they need it and in a way that makes a difference.

[Joan Walley]

Will CLIC Sargent and other charities dealing with the chronically sick have an input into the guidance as well as the Bill?

[Mr Timpson]

I had the opportunity to meet CLIC Sargent and a Labour Member who has a particular interest in this matter to discuss many of their concerns. That has already resulted in some changes to the draft code of practice, and CLIC Sargent remains involved—as do many other organisations, charities, parent-carer groups, parent partnerships and others—in shaping the SEN code of practice so that it reflects what we know works on the ground. That will continue as we move into the implementation stage, should the Bill become an Act in due course. Given these reforms, for which many families, professionals and charities have been waiting for 30 years, it is fair to say that many of our conversations with CLIC Sargent and other groups—particularly the discussions about the all-important detail, which is ultimately what will matter—have been helpful.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I, too, am particularly pleased that the local offer has been somewhat strengthened, as it will be central to the success or otherwise of the new system of support for children and young people with special educational needs. However, I still do not think it is good enough for the unwritten postcode lottery that we have now just to become a written one. Does the Minister not agree that we need a baseline against which parents can judge whether their local offer is good or even sufficient?

[Mr Timpson]

I thank the hon. Lady—for probably the 14th time during the passage of this Bill—for her continued constructive approach to this part of the Bill. I know she has a keen interest from her own family background in ensuring that we produce a system that has children and their families at its heart. We had an interesting and quite long debate in the Commons and another place about the local offer and minimum standards, as well as—from memory—a number of Westminster Hall debates.

It is clear from both the regulation on the local offer that we have set out and the code of practice that having a national framework not only provides some of the stability in provision that the hon. Lady is looking for, but allows the local offer to be truly local, so that people have a genuine reflection of what their local authority expects to be available and deliverable for children and families in that area. Therefore, although I hear her continued call—which I think is for national minimum standards—I think we have got the balance right between having a national framework and giving parents and young people the opportunity to be consulted on the local offer and comment on it as it is developed, and also, given the addition to the Bill and the code since the Commons stages, ensuring that local authorities respond to the queries and concerns raised by families.

[Mrs Hodgson]

If it is brought to the Minister’s attention that unacceptable differences are developing across the country, will he have a mechanism to revisit this?

[Mr Timpson]

As the hon. Lady knows, we have to use the affirmative resolution procedure in this House for the code of practice and that will provide an opportunity to look at some of these issues. The other thing we have done to ensure that implementation is as successful as it can be across the country is to carry out a local authority readiness survey. We are working with local authorities that are perhaps not as well advanced as others in starting to prepare for the changes, which includes looking at the local offer and what steps they have taken so far to involve families in its evolution. That will continue as these reforms become a reality from September.

[Bill Esterson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Timpson]

I will, but I have quite a lot to get through.

[Bill Esterson]

I appreciate the Minister’s giving way. Things will vary around the country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) said. Will he look at sharing good practice, and does he think it wise for the Government to be saying, “This is what we consider to be best practice,” in order to give local authorities that do not have best practice an indication of what they should be doing?

[Mr Timpson]

We have already provided local authorities with a raft of good practice and data to help them not only to improve their understanding of what is required of them, but to do better at the earlier end of the process —in commissioning, planning and assessment. We can learn a huge amount from many of the voluntary organisations that are out there in the field, working closely with families and statutory agencies to ensure that they get the best possible outcomes. We have a number of grants and contracts with those voluntary organisations to support them in doing that. That will be a key part of ensuring that our reforms start to bite in the way that we have already started to see in many of the pathfinder areas.

We have also extended the scope of a number of significant clauses to children and young people who are disabled, but do not have special educational needs, through Lords amendments 14 to 39, 41 to 46, 48 to 51, 62 to 65, 67 and 118. I am pleased that we were able to make that change, which has been widely welcomed. For example, Julie Jennings, a board member of Every Disabled Child Matters, has said:

“The changes announced today mean that all disabled children and young people, will benefit from the Children and Families Bill when it is introduced. This is very welcome news, indeed.”

To reflect that, Lords amendment 176 would amend the long title of the Bill to include children and young people with disabilities. We have also made it clear, in clause 21, that health care and social care provision that educates or trains a child or young person is to be treated as special educational provision. That relates to an understandable concern of many Members of this House, so I hope the change in Lords amendment 13 is welcome.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. We had many arguments about the “wholly or mainly” provision in the original draft of the Bill, and I am grateful to him and the noble Lord Nash for listening to the case that many of us made against it. We now have clarity, which we hope will prevent the sort of damaging litigation that has plagued special educational needs provision over the years.

[Mr Timpson]

My hon. Friend speaks with great wisdom and force, as he has done throughout the passage of the Bill, particularly on this part. To hear him utter those words gives me great confidence that we have done the right thing and ended up with both clarity and a sense of what is now required as we move forward.

The local offer was discussed at some length in this House. We have amended part 3 further to improve accountability and the responsiveness of the local offer. I do not think it would be right to make the changes sought by amendment (a) to Lords amendment 43 in the way proposed. These issues have been debated at length in both Houses, both of which accepted the Government’s arguments, which I will briefly explain again.

The local offer will contain provision made by a wide range of organisations, including small voluntary sector groups or informal arrangements—for example, a circle of friends group for disabled young people set up by local young people. The services may be expected to be available, but this cannot be guaranteed. Requiring local authorities to publish what is available might deter them from including such provision in the first place, and children and young people will miss out. In publishing what it expects to be available, the local authority cannot say, “Well, we think this might be available one day, so we’ll put it in.” For the avoidance of any doubt, we will make it clear in the SEN code of practice that the duty on the local authority to set out what it expects to be available is not about what it would like to be available, but about what it actually expects to be available.

We have also made a set of amendments that will shift the focus from explicit consideration of age when assessing education, health and care plans for 19 to 25-year-olds, and that instead require local authorities to consider whether a young person requires more time to complete their education or training, and whether the specified outcomes have been achieved before the plan can cease.

Lords amendments 72 and 73 build on the health duty introduced in Committee in the Commons by including in the Bill provision made under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, under which there is an existing duty to provide social care services to disabled children. Those amendments were welcomed by the Special Educational Consortium and a number of peers on Third Reading in the other place. Lord Rix said:

“The government amendments move us closer to the holy grail of integrated education, health and social care,”

and will

“undoubtedly aid children and young people with a learning disability and their families.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 5 February 2014; Vol. 752, c. 209.]

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Timpson]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Well remembered, Minister!

I think that there is much that we can support in the Bill, but I wanted to ask about the single point of appeal and the reviews and pilots that are taking place. Will the Minister explain how the findings will be used in the further development of the appeal process?

[Mr Timpson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for returning us to the important issue of redress. I shall go into a little more detail in due course, but I can say now that I was conscious from the outset that we should do all that we can to integrate education, health and social care throughout the system, including in the areas where there was disagreement. I think that we have gone a long way towards achieving that during the passage of the Bill so far, but if the hon. Lady will bear with me for a few moments, I shall wax lyrical for her and the House’s benefit.

I understand the intention behind amendment (a) to Lords amendment 73. It is, of course, vital for parents and practitioners to understand the duties to deliver the social care services specified in the education, health and care plan. However, let me reiterate the points made by Baroness Northover when she spoke to Lords amendments 72 and 73.

The Government amendments mean that when a local authority decides that it is necessary to make provision for a disabled child under section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 following an EHC assessment, the authority must—I emphasise “must”—identify which provision is made under section 2 of the Act, specify that provision clearly in the EHC plan, and deliver the provision. Furthermore—I hope that this is helpful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe)—we will ensure that the SEN code of practice specifies the services under section 2 that must be included in the EHC plan and explains the existing duty to provide those services, in order to provide clarity and reassurance for parents and practitioners.

The code of practice will clearly specify the other social care services that must be included in the EHC plan and relevant local authority duties, including services provided for children and young people under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 that are not covered by the 1970 Act, such as residential short breaks, and adult social care services for young people aged 18 to 25, where a care plan is drawn up under provisions in the Care Bill. Given those reassurances, I do not think it is necessary to legislate for a further requirement to identify existing duties in the EHC plan.

Lords amendments 86 to 97 and 113 constitute a strong package to improve the join-up between education, health and social care when parents and young people wish to complain or seek redress. That includes extending mediation and establishing a review of appeals and redress in the new SEN system. Following a commitment that I gave on Report, we tabled a meaty group of amendments that will strengthen protections and support for young offenders with SEN. They require local authorities and relevant health commissioners to arrange appropriate special education and health provision for young offenders in custody, enable EHC assessments to take place while a child or young person is in custody, and require secure youth institutions to co-operate with local authorities and to have regard to the SEN code of practice.

The package also includes amendment 114, which would remove clause 70. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) for his involvement in and guidance on the issue, and on many of the changes I have just outlined. As he knows, I was as uncomfortable as he was about clause 70. Although it was a legal necessity at the beginning of our deliberations, it did not really reflect the ambition that we shared, and I hope that he is as pleased as I am to see the back of it.

[Mr Buckland]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I know that he worked with the Ministry of Justice and, in particular, with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), who was as committed as we were to ensuring that this was an ambitious Bill that covered all the right areas. I pay tribute to both Ministers for ensuring that children and young people who need rehabilitation as much as punishment can be assisted, and we can reduce reoffending. That is very important too.

[Mr Timpson]

I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said. Perhaps I should also put on record the important contribution of Lord Ramsbotham, who, having worked at the top of the Prison Service, has continued his work in Parliament and enabled us to make the inroads that we have made in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Burstow]

On amendment 126 in respect of young carers as well as parent carers, may I thank the Minister very much for the way in which he has engaged with carers organisations, me and many other hon. Members? These issues first surfaced in the Joint Committee’s scrutiny of the Care Bill, and I thank the Minister for care and support, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), for the way he has engaged with these issues, too. Will the Minister here tonight now give some consideration to the following? Now that we have these two parts of the Bill and we complete the range of improvements for carers, can we make sure we have joint guidance from both Departments covering all carers?

[Mr Timpson]

May I first pay particular thanks to my right hon. Friend and also to the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis) for their dedicated work and interest on behalf of parent carers? That was clearly on display at the meeting I had with them both not too long ago. My right hon. Friend will see that my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for care is sitting alongside me, and we both heard that constructive and sensible suggestion, and we will both take it up and discuss it in more detail and see whether we can make some important cross-Government changes so that those who are looking at the guidance that is relevant to them find it easier to access and understand it, rather than trying to find information in a host of different places.

[Paul Burstow]

It is helpful to get these points clarified. I think my suggestion would be helpful, in particular because this welcome new provision for parent carers makes specific reference to the well-being principle in the Care Bill; and making sure that guidance is co-ordinated will ensure that there is no difference in application, regardless of whether someone is in a children’s service or an adult service.

[Mr Timpson]

My right hon. Friend makes a sensible and logical suggestion; we will go away and consider it and come back to him in due course.

Amendment 128 added a new clause enabling any young person who was in care immediately before their 18th birthday as an eligible child to continue to reside with their former foster carer once they turn 18. The local authority will be under a duty to support such arrangements, commonly known as “staying put” arrangements, until the young person reaches the age of 21. This is an issue on which many of us with a background in fostering and adoption and those involved with the all-party group on looked after children and care leavers from both sides of this House and in another place have worked for many years. I am delighted that we have been able to find the funding to do it, and I would like to thank the Earl of Listowel and my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) for their work on this area. I am very sad that the late and much missed Paul Goggins is not with us today to celebrate this important step forward for young people leaving care. As was typical of Paul, I suspect he would have shied away from taking any of the plaudits, a trait that set him apart and from which we could all learn. We owe him a huge debt.

In welcoming this new clause, Janet Rich of The Care Leavers’ Foundation said:

“Step by step this Government has demonstrated that it truly understands the difficulties which face care leavers as they set out on the journey towards adulthood. Today’s announcement is another positive step on the journey towards State-as-parent acknowledging the duty they owe to this uniquely vulnerable group of young adults”.

[Bill Esterson]

I agree with the move the Minister is proposing. I think it is very good news. I also welcome what he said about Paul Goggins. Is this the start of a move to raise the age for care-leaving, given that many adult children stay at home much longer than this? Will the Minister say something about the potential for extending the care-leaving age for children in residential homes as well, as it is my understanding that that is staying at 18?

[Mr Timpson]

I share what I think is the hon. Gentleman’s ambition, and that of many others, to move away from seeing age as the sole indicator of whether a young person is ready to move on when they are in the care of the state, and, as we have done in the Care Bill and elsewhere in this Bill, to move towards looking at it as more of a continuum of care, trying to shape what is necessary for the young person around that young person, rather than simply using the blunt instrument of a birthday to decide their future.

This is an important step in relation to the three-quarters of children who are in foster care and securing their future into adulthood, but of course, as I made clear in an Adjournment debate only a week or so ago, I want to see us move towards this as a norm rather than an exception. That is why, although we have some much needed wide-reaching reforms to the residential care system, I see that as part of addressing how we can use residential care in a much better way than we have in the past, not simply seeing it as a last resort, which has too often been the default position. I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman that I very much desire to see what we have done with the “staying put” arrangements for foster children spread more widely at the right time and when we have confidence that it will do what we want it to do, which is to improve the lives of those who are moving on from care and into independent living.

We worked closely with a number of organisations to bring about amendment 129, which introduces a new duty requiring maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units to support pupils with medical conditions. This issue was first raised in the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders). We are currently consulting on draft statutory guidance and advice that will support the duty, but it is encouraging that the likes of Diabetes UK had this to say about the change:

“The Government’s announcement that it will amend the Children and Families Bill so that schools have a legal duty to support children with health needs has the potential to make a huge difference to the lives of around a million children.”

Amendment 130 adds a new clause to clarify the law in relation to the Secretary of State’s power to intervene when a local authority is failing to deliver children’s services to an adequate standard. Amendments 131 to 134 seek to improve the quality of children’s homes, and particularly to enable us to develop a regulation and inspection framework for children’s homes that sets high standards for children in residential care and offers them the support required to achieve positive outcomes. This has been a significant piece of policy development, founded on the formidable efforts of the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), who is in her place tonight and whose own all-party group report and continued close involvement have been of huge assistance. As she knows, this is part of a wider reform package that is already under way and I have no intention of shying away from the necessary changes required to ensure that children who are in residential care get the best possible care based on the best possible decisions.

Amendment 135 introduces a new clause to require state-funded schools, including academies, to offer a free school meal to all pupils in reception, year 1 and year 2. Giving every infant pupil a healthy and nutritious lunch will bring educational, health and social benefits, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Amendments 136 to 138, which cover the provisions on the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, will require the Children’s Commissioner to have “particular regard” to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child and to give an account in his or her annual report of the steps taken to involve children and how their views were taken into account in the discharge of his or her functions.

Amendments 139 to 142 are minor and technical amendments relating to the part of the Bill that deals with the introduction of shared parental leave. They would give the Secretary of State the power to make regulations to allow for a notice to curtail statutory maternity pay, maternity allowance or statutory adoption pay to be revoked subject to restrictions and conditions. Finally, consequential amendments 144 to 151 would make commencement dates clear in the Bill where necessary.

I commend these changes to all hon. Members. I firmly believe that they have improved our legislation and that, more important, they will make a profound and tangible difference to the lives of children and families.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

This feels like the end of a long, hard road for the Bill. As the Minister said, the Bill has been substantially amended since it left the Commons, and for that we owe their lordships a huge debt of gratitude. I should like to take a few moments to acknowledge the efforts of some of the individuals involved in the process, including my hon. Friends the Members for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) and for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who did the heavy lifting on the Bill in the Commons. I also want to thank Baroness Hughes of Stretford and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch, as well as the numerous Cross Benchers involved, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) and my colleague in the shadow Education team, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), who worked so hard on the Bill in Committee and more recently. I also want to put on record my gratitude to our friend, the late Paul Goggins, who worked so hard on so many aspects of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

I welcome the “staying put” Lords amendment 128, which means that a young person can stay with their foster carers until they are 21. The Fostering Network ran an excellent campaign, bringing to our attention the many examples of young people in care who may have experienced poor parental care and neglect, who often go into care for the first time in their early teens and who need more time and stability to prepare for adult life. It is good that they will now be able to stay—provided they wish to do so, of course—with foster parents who will see them through that transition to independence. That has been very much welcomed by foster carers in my constituency.

I also congratulate the Earl of Listowel on his determined efforts to persuade the Minister to change his mind after his initial rebuff to hon. Members. It was clear that the Minister had great sympathy with the proposal and it is to his credit that he was able to find the money to underpin it. I regret that Paul Goggins, who, sadly, died earlier this year and ran a tremendous campaign on the issue, is not here to enjoy its successful conclusion.

I want to raise an issue with regard to the draft guidance issued on 4 February to support the Bill’s Third Reading in the House of Lords. A paragraph on preparations for ceasing to be looked after states that

“local authorities should start discussions with the young person and foster carer regarding the option of staying put as early as possible, ideally before the young person reaches the age of 16.”

Another part of the guidance states that there is no minimum time the young person needs to have lived with their foster carer prior to turning 18. One of my slight concerns about the way in which the guidance is written is that it might be interpreted as only being a consideration in a long-standing foster placement, whereas the provision gives young people the option to stay put with foster parents, even if they have only been there for a few weeks. It is important that this is seen as an option for those vulnerable young people who may have left a children’s home aged 16 and were not able to cope in the accommodation they were then offered. Foster care would be a good option for some of those young people in order to help put them back on their feet.

[Mr Timpson]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point. Although she correctly notes that this is draft guidance that is subject to further discussion, I believe that, in the main, it reflects the Bill well. I am, of course, happy to take up any specific concerns, particularly that which she has raised this evening.

[Ann Coffey]

I thank the Minister for that. I also welcome his amendments, which mean that Ofsted will be able to inspect children’s homes for good standards rather than minimum standards. It seemed strange that one of the young girls involved in the child sexual exploitation case in Rochdale had run away 100 times from a children’s home, yet that home was deemed “good” by an Ofsted inspection. I hope that will not happen again.

I very much look forward to the Minister’s proposals for introducing a reform package for the qualifications and training of staff working in children’s homes. It cannot be right that the most damaged children are often cared for by the least qualified staff. I wonder whether he might give us a time scale for bringing forward those proposals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Charlie Elphicke]

May I be the first to welcome you to the Chair, Mr Speaker? I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley), who has been passionate about these issues for many years. Many of us have made common cause on this matter.

In conclusion, I simply enjoin the Minister to take up Baroness Butler-Sloss’s recommendation, in line with the guidance of Families Need Fathers, and to work positively to ensure that children have a right of access to both their parents and that the amendment is not misconstrued.

[Mr Timpson]

I would like to thank all hon. Members who have engaged in this detailed—

[Mr Speaker]

I think the Minister has asked the leave of the House, has he not?

[Mr Timpson]

It almost passed my lips, and it has done now.

This has been a detailed debate of the amendments made to the Bill in another place. The changes are a testament to the dedication of both Houses to making the Bill the best it can be, and I completely understand the interest of hon. Members on both sides of the House in its implementation: it is an excellent Bill, and it is only right that we ensure its successful implementation. Provided we can find time for early and proper consideration of the secondary legislation, we expect to implement the Bill’s reforms quickly so that they can begin to make a real difference for children and families across the country.

I will seek to write to all hon. Members who have asked detailed questions in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) asked when the revised code of practice would be made available. It will be made available as soon as possible after Royal Assent, but I am sure he will appreciate that we want to get it right. My hon. Friends the Members for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) and for Northampton South (Mr Binley)—I hope that the latter heard my earlier praise for his involvement in this important clause—raised important points. As the Bill stands, the presumption is clear, and I do not share the scepticism of some hon. Members that it has been diluted to the point of having no effect. This is a considerable change and should not be underestimated.

The principle and purpose that the Bill enshrines in law, in conjunction with many other measures we are taking, both through the Bill and in non-legislative ways, will help to ensure that more children have the opportunity to have a relationship with both parents. To enable that to happen in practice, we have made sure that the Judicial College is aware of the provision in clause 11 and the Government’s objective behind it. Although it is for the judiciary to consider its required training itself, we will continue to work with it to ensure that there is clear information about the intended effect and operation of the clause, so that they can be reflected, if need be, in future training.

It is important to make it clear that this is about the right of the child. The reason we have set about introducing the provisions in this clause—over many years, both in opposition and now in government—is to put across a strong message to many of the families who find themselves at the door of a court: we are interested in only one thing, which is making sure that any children involved in a case get the opportunity to have their rights put first and, as a consequence, have a meaningful relationship with both sides of their parentage.

[Tessa Munt]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Timpson]

Very briefly.

[Tessa Munt]

Will the Minister clarify absolutely that the presumption is that children should always have a right to have access to both parents, unless it is proven that it is not safe for them to be with one parent or the other?

[Mr Timpson]

As I made clear earlier in the debate, the paramountcy principle still holds in this case, as does the need to ensure that the child in question would be safe. That has to be the case, but what kicks in under those circumstances is the presumption that the child will have a relationship with both parents. That is an important change that we should all support.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to share some well deserved thanks.

[Jim Shannon]

On a day when 3.2 million diabetics are registered in the United Kingdom and we are seeing a rise in type 1 diabetes among children, will the Minister confirm that the duty to support pupils with medical conditions means that insulin pumps will be available and one or two teachers will be available and able to understand how to deal with diabetic hypos?

[Mr Timpson]

The clause in question puts the “Managing medicines” guidance on a statutory footing. That has long been called for and is a significant change. The equipment that will be available in schools is still a matter of discretion, but we look at these things carefully, particularly when it comes to defibrillators and the important role they play in schools, as well as other public spaces. However, I hope the hon. Gentleman is pleased with the advance that we have made on that aspect of the Bill.

It now feels like a very long time ago that work on the Bill began. The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) said at the end of Committee last April:

“We seem to have been scrutinising the Bill for months”.––[Official Report, Children and Families Public Bill Committee, 25 April 2013; c. 815.]

That was nine months ago, so it is fair to say that we have been working on this Bill for a long time now. However, it is only right to acknowledge the four Select Committees that conducted pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill—the Select Committees on Education and on Justice, the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Lords Select Committee on Adoption Legislation—and the great start they got us off to.

We have had some excellent debates in this House on the Bill. I would like to thank hon. Members for their participation and for how supportive they have been in helping the Government to develop the Bill. An illustration of how much work has been done is that, in both Houses together, 1,153 amendments have been tabled and debated. The Bill started off as a very good piece of legislation; with all the constructive and well-meaning work that we and Members of another place have done on it, I believe it is now a great piece of legislation. We should all be very pleased about that and the benefits that children, young people and their families will see as a consequence.

I am sure we all appreciate the hard work of the Clerks of the House and the Hansard reporters throughout the passage of the Bill, which I know has involved some late nights for them, for which I take some responsibility. If it is any consolation to them, I have also had a fair few sleepless nights—not that my children and family have had much sympathy with that. I also thank the many organisations that have engaged with us on the Bill, all of which have made an important contribution. I hope that they will continue to work with the Department as we proceed with the key task of successful implementation. A good many Ministers have been involved in the various stages of the Bill, and they deserve thanks as well.

I thank my hon. Friends the Members for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), who initiated this work with such vigour and aplomb. I thank my hon. Friend the Members for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), and the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), with whom I have had the delight of sharing the Front Bench as a minority male. Importantly, I thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who shares my passionate determination to improve the lives of our most disadvantaged young people, and has not a capricious bone in his body: he has only compassionate bones.

I thank all our colleagues in the Department for Education, the Department of Health, the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, who have done so much to put departmental boundaries aside in the interests of children and families. Finally, I particularly thank my friends in the other place: Lord Nash—who has been stoic, good-humoured and unflappable—Lord Faulks, Lord McNally, Viscount Younger and Earl Howe; and I thank my noble Friend Baroness Northover for picking up the baton from Baroness Garden with such prowess and nerveless enthusiasm.

It has been an undiluted and, as it has turned out, a long-standing privilege to work on a Bill which will make a real difference to children and families, and which we have been able to manage in this place in ways that have been very constructive and often even consensual. In that context, I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) and for Washington and Sunderland West for their leadership during the Bill’s earlier outings in this House, and to the hon. Members for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) and for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), who have continued to work in the same spirit today.

Today we have recognised, and heard from, Members in all parts of the House who are passionate and committed in their pursuit of improvements for our most vulnerable children. Let me repeat my thanks to all of them, and particularly to those who were members of the Public Bill Committee between 5 March and 25 April last year: my hon. Friends the Members for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), for Erewash (Jessica Lee) and for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), and the hon. Members for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), for North West Durham (Pat Glass), for Hyndburn (Graham Jones), for Manchester Central, for Croydon North (Mr Reed) and for Corby (Andy Sawford).

It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the pivotal roles of my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway) and my hon. Friends the Members for Guildford (Anne Milton) and for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) in securing the Bill’s safe passage by virtue of their professional and tactful stewardship. Numerous officials from various Departments have worked very hard on the Bill, and I am sure that the House will want thank them as well.

I cannot end my speech without singling out for special mention the Bill team and other Government officials, led with such distinction by Jenny Preece. I thank Jamie, Alan, Lara, Helen, Ruth, Katy, Lizzie, the lead lawyers Sofie, Paula and their colleagues, Phil, Stephen, Jonathan and everyone in the special educational needs team, and all the officials and lawyers—too many to mention—in several Departments who have contributed to the development, drafting and scrutiny of the Bill. Their efforts usually go unnoticed and undetected, and are carried out without fanfare. I, along with other Ministers and all Members—as well as you, Mr Speaker—owe them enormous gratitude. It has been an absolute delight to work with each and every one of them.

I hope that the House will agree that all the amendments made by another place are beneficial to the Bill and, ultimately, to children and their families. If so, we can then move on speedily to the task of turning this legislation into something that has meaning and impact, and, above all, is able to make young lives better.

Lords amendment 1 agreed to.

Lords amendments 2 to 120, 126 to 149 and 151 to 176 agreed to, with Commons financial privileges waived in respect of Lords amendments 15, 17 to 20, 22, 25, 27 to 31, 33 to 35, 37, 39, 41, 43, 44, 64, 66, 85, 88 to 90, 92, 94, 96, 97, 104 to 109, 115 to 118, 126 to 129, 135, 144, 149 and 176.

Staying Put Agenda

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) on securing this important debate. As my successor as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on looked-after children and care leavers, he is well placed to bring to the House the concerns and views of the many children and young people who actively participate in the group’s work. Like him, I completely recognise the vital need for care leavers to be provided with good-quality, stable accommodation and support if they are to make a successful transition to adulthood. Likewise, I am sure that he recognises my personal commitment, and that of the Government, to making substantial improvements to services for care leavers. That will include ensuring that young people are given help to access suitable accommodation with the right support.

As has been said, we recently announced our intention to place a new legal duty on local authorities to provide staying-put arrangements, supported by additional funding of £40 million to local authorities over the next three years. We will introduce a new clause into the Children and Families Bill to place a duty on local authorities to give young people the opportunity to “stay put” with their former foster parents from their 18th birthday until they are aged 21. We have worked closely with the Who Cares Trust and other interested parties to ensure that we get the wording of the new clause right, and I look forward to tabling it soon.

That is not the only step we are taking. This is all part of our wider reform programme to provide care leavers with much better support as they move into adulthood. Other reforms include changing the rules so that 16 and 17-year-olds remain in care until they are ready to move out, and providing much greater financial support for young people leaving care at 18.

My hon. Friend has secured this debate in order to express his concern about the potential for inequity between young people in foster care and those in children’s homes. So let me be clear: I want to ensure that all care leavers, whatever their placement while in the care system, are provided with the appropriate support when they leave care. As my hon. Friend is aware, one of my two adopted brothers came to live with my family from a children’s home, so I have a deep personal interest in wanting to see all children’s homes provide the best-quality care and support on offer, both during a child or young person’s time in care and as they move on to independent living or other accommodation.

My hon. Friend says that for some young people staying in the children’s home is the right thing to do. I agree, and the law is clear that local authorities can already provide funding and support to a young person to stay with their former foster carer or to remain in a children’s home beyond their 18th birthday, and we know and see examples of that already happening. The issue, however, is whether it is appropriate to place a new duty on local authorities to provide a particular type of support to all young people in children’s homes.

The evidence for placing such a duty on supporting staying-put arrangements for young people in foster care is robust. Staying-put arrangements were tested out in pilots, and proved to have a positive impact on their outcomes. Research from the Fostering Network since the pilots ended shows that, where these arrangements continue, they show similar positive outcomes. Making the transition from a children’s home and from a foster home are very different, however. For some children, leaving a children’s home means moving into residential accommodation for adults. For others, it will be supported accommodation back in their home community; I acknowledge that many—too many—children’s homes are miles from where their families live. We also know that a disproportionate number of young people leave children’s homes and go home to live with their families.

There are also a number of practical and legal issues we would need to consider and test out before placing a duty on local authorities to have to provide staying-put arrangements in children’s homes. A key barrier would be having vulnerable adults living alongside much younger vulnerable children. My hon. Friend addressed that point, but children’s homes are, in law, establishments “wholly or mainly” for children and are registered as such by Ofsted, which, as my hon. Friend mentioned, inspects children’s homes and makes judgments on how the home is achieving outcomes for children. As part of our wider reform of residential care, a much stronger inspection regime will be put in place to help drive up quality standards.

Given that most children’s homes are now very small—typically 2, 3 or 4 beds—extending staying put could result, for example, in a home accommodating two or three care leavers and one child. In this case it could not be registered as a “children’s home”, as it would mainly be an establishment accommodating young adults, which could cause difficulties for the only child living there. For the same reason, Ofsted would not have any legal scope to regulate and inspect this service.

I recognise, however, that these should not be viewed as insurmountable barriers, so my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that I have asked my officials to work with the National Children’s Bureau, the Who Cares Trust and Catch 22 to look at the practical issues of introducing staying-put arrangements in children’s homes over the coming year.

[Craig Whittaker]

The news my hon. Friend has just announced is very welcome and I thank him for it, but I want to challenge him on some of his points about children’s homes and the number of adults staying in them. He has said that local authorities can already allow someone who is 18 to stay in care. Surely if that is allowed, the problems he is bringing up are not insurmountable and can be put right.

[Mr Timpson]

I have expressed a clear view about some of the legal and practical issues that remain. It is right that we consider them carefully and understand the consequences more widely across the residential care sector before taking any further steps. I want to be absolutely clear that I am not looking to find excuses not to do this. I am trying to establish what we will need to do to make me feel confident that any further steps we take will achieve what we all want, which is much more stability in placements, whatever that placement may be while in care, and a much better transition into adulthood that is co-ordinated and planned properly as a consequence of the input from the professionals involved in that young person’s life.

As I said to my hon. Friend when I recently gave evidence to the Education Committee on this issue, if I believed that including children’s homes and staying-put arrangements was the right thing to do at this juncture, I would do it in a heartbeat. However, I think it would be premature to place a new duty on local authorities now or to pilot a scheme before the work being carried out by the National Children’s Bureau is completed. I also think such a move would be wrong when we know there needs to be fundamental reform of children’s homes, as the 2012 report by the Deputy Children’s Commissioner and the all-party group on runaway and missing children and adults illustrated so clearly.

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend that children’s homes should not be seen as a last resort and should be a positive option for many, as I have said on several previous occasions in public and am happy to reiterate this evening. However, too many current homes are simply not good enough. He has said that Ofsted inspection reports show that most homes are rated as “good”, but that is under the current system of national minimum standards. Although there are undoubtedly some excellent children’s homes, and we should applaud them and try to encourage what they do well to be spread more widely, we do not think these standards—the “good” standards—are good enough, and neither do many of the children and young people in residential care. We want to raise the bar and move to much higher quality standards.

Young people living in residential care are more likely to make an early transition from care at aged 16 compared with those living in foster care. Those who do leave at that stage are less likely to be in education, training and employment, as my hon. Friend said. That is why I have introduced a new duty that directors of children’s services must sign off the pathway plan where it suggests a young person should leave care between the ages of 16 and 18. As I said a few moments ago, research has found that many young people are dissatisfied with the support they receive, and report shortfalls in planning and preparation for leaving care, which leaves their needs unmet.

Our immediate priority is to press ahead with driving up the quality of residential care, and we have set out a substantial programme of work to do that. We also want to test out new ways of delivering residential care via the children’s services innovation programme I recently announced. It will catalyse the development and spread of more effective ways of supporting children and of new approaches to commissioning—the point my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) made—and managing that support. Part of that may well include a move away from spot purchasing and towards more regional commissioning, as well as the extension of a children’s homes remit further into adulthood. Our approach will build on the call for change from the field, as evident in the Association of Directors of Children’s Services “What is care for” report and in the Local Government Association’s report on the strategic commissioning of children’s homes.

The “What is care for” report proposes a more fluid boundary between care and community services and new, more flexible models of care, particularly for troubled adolescents who often end up in care and placed in children’s homes. By winter 2014, we will support the developing, testing and implementation of the most promising approaches both in delivery and around the structure of services. I encourage all those who want to see improvements in residential care and its role in the transition to adulthood to come forward with their own ideas as to how best to achieve just that. We must get the system right before considering whether to run pilots or impose a duty on local authorities that requires them to provide staying-put arrangements in children’s homes. We must be confident that homes can offer children provision of the highest standard and that the £1 billion per year that we spend on placements in children’s homes is truly delivering for those living in them.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, this all comes against the backdrop of a wider reform package for care leavers. It is important to remind the House that, to date: the Government have launched the care leavers’ charter, which sets out the support that care leavers can expect right up to the age of 25, with more than 120 local authorities now signed up; we have introduced the junior independent savings account for all care leavers, with more than 40,000 accounts now open, and with a £200 contribution from government; I have written to all local authorities calling for a dramatic improvement in financial support for care leavers, resulting in a tripling in the number of councils now paying £2,000 or more through the setting up home allowance; and we have published the first cross-government care leavers strategy, which sets out in one place the steps government is taking, from housing to health services, and from the justice system to educational institutions, to support care leavers to live independently once they have left their placement.

I will take away the valid point raised by my hon. Friend about the post-care use of child benefit, and the correspondence that he has had with the Department for Work and Pensions. I am happy to work with him to ensure that the response that he receives from my ministerial colleagues in the DWP is sufficient to push that issue further forward, and I will happily discuss that with him in due course.

I am determined to improve the outcomes of all care leavers, and I hope that the action that this Government have taken to date amply illustrates that endeavour. However, I am not yet convinced that placing a duty on local authorities to offer staying-put arrangements in children’s homes is the right thing to do at this time.

I am acutely aware of the disappointment that this brings to many of those young people currently in residential care, and I share the ambition to see staying-put arrangements take hold in children’s homes, as has been the case and will now more widely happen in foster homes. Councils can, in certain instances, already do that. We first need to see more fundamental reform. We need to be confident that any change to the law is founded on good, sound evidence and that it will deliver what we all want to see. Sadly, we have not yet reached that point, but I hope my hon. Friend recognises my ongoing commitment in this area, as well as the significant progress that the Government have already made. I am grateful to him for securing this important debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Children and Families Bill

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

I beg to move,

That the period on the expiry of which proceedings on the Children and Families Bill shall lapse in pursuance of paragraph (13) of Standing Order No. 80A shall be extended by 46 days until 21 March 2014.

I am aware that there is a very important Back-Bench business debate to follow, so I shall keep my remarks to a respectable minimum.

The Bill, whose Report stage is due to conclude in the other place on 29 January, was introduced in this House on 4 February 2013. As set out in Standing Order No. 88, as a carry-over Bill it will fall if it does not receive Royal Assent within 12 months of its First Reading, and that date is now approaching. Given the strong interest in, and support for, the Bill in both Houses, it is only right for us to guard against that.

The Bill makes critical and far-reaching improvements to services for children, young people and families. It has benefited, and is continuing to benefit, from the detailed scrutiny of Parliament, and I know that the principles on which it is based have cross-party support. If both Houses and all parties can work together to ensure that we can meet the new target date of Royal Assent by 21 March and then find time for the necessary consideration of the secondary legislation and the special educational needs code of practice, we shall be able to proceed swiftly to the implementation of these hugely important reforms.

I look forward to the House’s co-operation in this matter.

Strengthening Couple Relationships

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) for raising this deeply important subject, and for stoically being here despite his heavy cold.

Like all those who contributed this afternoon, I believe that strong and stable families are the backbone of a strong and stable society—the key to ensuring that children grow up in a loving environment and develop into healthy and fulfilled adults. That is why the Government have invested significantly in supporting families and couple relationships, as well as the institution of marriage—because we understand the crucial role that the family plays in providing a foundation for a child’s development and success in later life. I saw that for myself in my own personal and professional life before coming to Parliament, so I need no persuading of the merits of a strong, stable and loving family environment in bringing about a better society.

Although the view that I have set out is based partly on what we know intrinsically works, and the values that help to improve and enhance lives, we also know from research that happy relationships lead to better physical and emotional well-being for all involved. The fact is that the quality of the relationship between parents is strongly linked to positive parenting and better outcomes for children. Family stability is key for children. Sustained parental relationships are associated with a range of positive childhood, adolescent and adult outcomes, including in respect of cognitive development, education—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State himself said that in his speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research in 2008—better job prospects and less propensity to commit crime, as well as in relation to health. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) raised important points about how health outcomes could be improved with the right support for relationships, and measures that we know help to achieve that. I will take away her comments about the health outcomes framework and the role of the health and wellbeing board, and I will discuss the matter with Ministers in the Department of Health to ensure that it is properly considered as those aspects of the health system develop further.

On attachment, which is a vital part of understanding whether a relationship is positive or not, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence will for the first time produce guidelines on what constitutes a secure attachment, which will be an extremely useful addition. Conflict between parents is detrimental to children’s outcomes, hence the high priority we are giving to supporting all couple relationships, particularly those of people who are married. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot told us, evidence shows us that the children of married parents do better than those of cohabiting parents, particularly on measures of social and emotional development at the ages of three and five. We need to ensure that all under-fives receive the best possible support, so such evidence is important.

Centre for Social Justice reports, which many hon. Members have brought with them, have starkly illustrated the considerable emotional, social and economic costs associated with the breakdown of families. As my hon. Friends the Members for Aldershot and for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) have reminded us, those costs amount to an astonishing £46 billion a year, which is not far off the total annual budget for educating all our children.

Important life events, including the transition to parenthood, relocation or changes in employment, can contribute to relationship stress. We must do what we can to encourage couples to take up support at an earlier stage—the early prevention that hon. Members have mentioned in this debate—to ensure that they get through difficult events in their lives. My time at the family Bar has shown me the devastating consequences of not doing so, not only for adults but, perhaps even more importantly, for any children involved. To bring that about, and by virtue of the strong prime ministerial steer, the Government have committed £30 million over the spending review period from 2011 to 2015, which puts funding for relationship support on a much more stable long-term footing. That gives us greater encouragement that we can get couples to use relationship support services.

The Department is funding a range of providers to deliver relationship support services, including one that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) highlighted: the Parents as Partners evidence-based intervention programme delivered by Family Action, which works with couples who are particularly likely to face relationship stress or be at risk of relationship breakdown. There is also a series of campaigns and culture change messages aimed at employers, new parents and young people to raise awareness and encourage them to seek help on relationships. There is training for early years workers and managers, to help them to encourage positive relationships between parents, and to engage better with fathers, in particular, on relationships and parenting. The public policy agenda is being developed—a point made by my hon. Friend—through the formation of the Relationships Alliance, which I know he has been instrumental in helping to bring together.

I take on board the point that my hon. Friend made about the need to scale up some of those excellent services, and the Relationships Alliance is well placed to help achieve that. In my ongoing discussions with the alliance—I am meeting representatives next week—I am sure that that will be on the agenda. All those valuable services are provided by expert organisations. Many hon. Members have praised the work done by such organisations, which include Relate, Marriage Care, the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships and OnePlusOne. Those four organisations, which launched the Relationships Alliance in the House of Commons in November, will be key in helping to establish a much more coherent and cohesive message on what is available to those who need support.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank the Minister for his constructive personal concern and his comments so far. We have heard today that the issue straddles many different areas: education, local government, the criminal justice system and health and well-being. Would it not be helpful to appoint a dedicated Minister to tackle this issue? Care for the Family has said that it feels as though there is no one in government waking up every morning thinking about this key social policy as a priority. After all that we have heard today, should not there be?

[Mr Timpson]

As the Minister with responsibility for children and families, I have sympathy with the need to raise the issue across Government and to ensure that all Departments play an active role in establishing what works and delivering it, but as my hon. Friend will acknowledge, I am not in a position to start appointing new Ministers or Departments. Forums are available to bring the topic together across Government; in particular, the social justice committee, which is chaired by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has a strong interest in the subject and is well placed to hold such cross-government discussions.

We are doing a significant amount to support families but we must recognise that, sadly, parents separate. When that happens, it can be a difficult time in which families need support on a range of issues. That is why we are improving the information, advice and support available to separated parents outside the court system to help them focus on their children’s needs and to agree workable arrangements for post-separation parenting. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) rightly said, the Children and Families Bill, which is currently in the other place, includes provision to highlight the importance of a child having a relationship with both parents following family breakdown, provided that to do so is safe and in the child’s best interests. The welfare of the individual child must be the court’s paramount consideration, but, subject to that, the parental involvement clause requires courts to presume that the child’s welfare is furthered by the involvement of each parent who can be safely involved. By making clear the basis on which the court makes those decisions, that provision is intended to encourage parents to reach agreement themselves about their child’s care without recourse to the court.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Before my hon. Friend the Minister sits down, may I thank him for the serious attention that he is paying to the issue? We hope that we can support him in raising it up the Government’s agenda. Before we conclude, may I also thank you, Mr Streeter, for all that you have done in this field?

[Mr Timpson]

It is remiss of me not to have directed similar praise to you, Mr Streeter, and I concur with the words that have just come in your direction.

The Government have commissioned two key pieces of work that will inform future policy makers and commissioners, because problems often start with poor commissioning decisions. That will help in areas such as Mid Derbyshire that want to move away from short-term, spot-purchasing solutions towards something more sustainable. Those two key pieces of work are an independent evaluation of relationship support interventions and a cross-government review of the family stability indicator of the social justice strategy.

Although significant evidence points to the importance of the quality of adult couple relationships to child outcomes, we know from various reviews of literature that there is limited evidence from within the UK about which relationship support practice has the most positive impact on adult and child outcomes. My Department has consequently commissioned research to test the effectiveness of several relationship support interventions, some of which we have already heard about—“Let’s Stick Together”, which my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton and for South West Bedfordshire have mentioned, as well as marriage preparation and couple counselling—to evaluate whether they are as effective as we would like. That report is due at the end of the month.

[Steve McCabe]

Does the Minister agree that it would be wrong of us to conclude the debate without acknowledging that figures released today show that the divorce rate in this country is falling, not rising?

[Mr Timpson]

It would be remiss of anyone not to welcome a fall in the divorce rate, but the fact is that it is still far too high. That is why our emphasis is on working with couples at the earliest opportunity so that they never have to reach that stage in their relationship.

The debate has been informative, passionate and serious. Although the Government have done a lot of work in this area, we recognise that there is still work to do, not only on the ground to improve relationship support, but in the messages that come from Government about how we build strong relationships across society. The past 50 years have seen a seismic shift in the structure and composition of families in this country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot rightly acknowledged, we should respect many of the reasons why that has happened, but we cannot accept the erosion of marriage and the many well evidenced benefits that it brings to society. That is why the Government are committed to supporting marriage. The marriage tax break is a step in the right direction that will help to ensure that all the attributes marriage brings with it flourish and do not wither.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Has the Minister had any recent discussions with ministerial colleagues about the law on child neglect? Is he giving any consideration to updating what many professionals argue is an outdated law that can hamper their ability to intervene and protect vulnerable children?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for asking that question, if for no other reason than that I get to answer a question. This is an extremely important issue. I know that he agrees with me about the utmost need to make further inroads into eradicating child neglect in our society. There are two definitions of child neglect which relate to criminal law and civil law. I assume that he is talking about the criminal aspect and the work that is being done in the Ministry of Justice, with which I have had discussions. This is an ongoing issue and I am happy to discuss it with him further.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

T2. What steps is my hon. Friend taking, working with the Treasury, to equalise the VAT treatment of sixth-form colleges, such as the outstanding Mid Cheshire college in my constituency, to bring them in line with school, academy and free school sixth forms?