Children and Families Bill

Debate between Edward Timpson and Stephen Twigg

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and I will come on to the Government’s proposal in the Bill, which we welcome, on the position of children in that situation and the virtual school leadership model.

One in six children with additional needs will not be catered for under these plans, and it remains unclear what the provision will be for children who currently have school action or school action plus, which are to be scrapped. For example, will this mean that access to specialist teachers and educational psychologists might be at threat? Parents deserve a straight answer from Ministers on what will fill the void following the abolition of school action and school action plus. Will the progress of those children still be measured and published as they are now under the Special Educational Needs (Information) Act 2008? We share the Select Committee’s concerns about local offers. Of course, we welcome parents having more information about the services available in their area, but we will be seeking amendments to toughen up local offers to prevent this reform from simply exacerbating the postcode lottery that we know already exists.

On a matter relating to Parliament itself, unlike the current code of practice, a statutory document that sets out how the SEN system should work, the Bill requires only that the revised code is laid before Parliament under the negative resolution procedure. We believe that it should be subject to a positive resolution procedure, given the importance of its contents. Can the Minister—in his winding-up speech, or, even better, now—tell the House when the code will be published, and commit to its publication in full so that it can be scrutinised by the Bill Committee?

[Mr Timpson]

I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State. Just to try to answer his question, we intend to publish an indicative draft of the code of practice for the Committee stage, but of course it will still be subject to a full public consultation process in the autumn. On his point about a negative or positive resolution, is he mindful of the Select Committee’s recommendation for a negative resolution? The usual principle for other codes is that they are laid before the House through the negative resolution process.

[Stephen Twigg]

I am wary of ever disagreeing with the illustrious Education Committee—[Interruption.] That applies to the entire Committee, including its Chair. This is such an important issue, however, that using the positive resolution procedure merits consideration, although I welcome the Minister’s assurances regarding the publication of the code so that it can be scrutinised in Committee.

[Stephen Twigg]

That is absolutely right and sensible. The spirit of the Minister’s speech, and his and the Government’s handling of this issue—and the fact that he is nodding at me—suggest that my hon. Friend will get what he wants.

[Mr Timpson]

indicated assent.

[Stephen Twigg]

I welcome the Minister indicating that that is the case. Parents were told that this Bill would represent an end of the struggle for support and to the adversarial nature of the system, but there are many unanswered questions, which potentially undermine that goal.

I shall now discuss adoption and children in care. Clearly, one of the state’s most important duties is to care for children who, for whatever reason, are without a safe, loving family to care for them. In recent decades, the system has seen step changes in the fulfilment of that duty, but we know only too well that failings have let down some of the most vulnerable members in our society and, in the most extreme cases, have cost children and young people their lives. I welcome the emphasis that has been placed on reducing the time for completing an adoption and increasing the number of adoptions, where that is in the child’s best interests.

Let me put on the record my thanks to Martin Narey, who has done so much to champion the rights of children in the care system, and to The Times for its persistent campaign to address the crisis faced by too many young people in the care system. We should recognise the incredible commitments made by so many who work in the care system. Social workers up and down the country do a fantastic job, often in very trying circumstances, and it is right that we put on the record our thanks for their duty and service.

We should acknowledge important developments in social care, and I welcome the Government’s contribution of funding to the Frontline initiative for social work. Frontline has the potential to play an important role in raising performance in the care system, both for those currently working in the system and for the new recruits that it will bring in. Measures of the educational attainment by children in care show the scale of the challenge; the Minister pointed out the figures for 2012, when fewer than 15% of looked-after children secured at least five good GCSEs including English and maths.

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[Stephen Twigg]

I certainly do not doubt the sincerity of the attempt to address this issue and to learn from the Australian experience. Labour’s judgment, as I have set it out today, has taken into account not only what the hon. Gentleman and other Government Members have said, but what has been said by organisations working in the sector, including in the field of children’s law. They tell us that there is a gap between the Government’s intention and what might happen in practice. We have to anticipate those unintended consequences, so although I absolutely agree with his final comments about the importance of both parents being involved, provided there is no threat to the safety or welfare of children, the paramount principle has to be the best welfare of the child—that has to come first. The concern is that what the Bill proposes could take us down the road that the Australians went down. We should explore this issue further in Committee, because there is a real difference of opinion on it. I urge Ministers to listen to those who are expressing a different view, so that we make sure that we do not have, as an unintended consequence of this Bill, something that makes the situation worse.

The Bill proposes a 26-week limit for care proceedings. At present, children wait for an average of 55 weeks for a decision about their future. The Government are seeking to address that, and we support them in their aim to speed up proceedings. However, speed should never be at the expense of getting it right for children. We want safeguards to be built into the system to ensure that complex issues are not overlooked and siblings are not separated needlessly. Because much of the delay comes from local authorities, the Government must also address the dangerously heavy case loads of social workers.

Again, we support the recommendations of the Justice Committee. It proposes first that the 26-week time limit should be specified in secondary legislation, while primary legislation should specify the power to set such a limit so that it can be amended easily if it proves unworkable in practice, and secondly that the clause should be amended to give judges the power to take cases outside the 26-week timetable.

[Mr Timpson]

The hon. Gentleman’s point about the work done by local authorities before care proceedings is extremely important. That is why we have placed more emphasis on family group conferences, and on the need to ensure that as much as possible of the evidence that is required for a case to be dealt with as quickly as possible is available at the inception of the application. Does the hon. Gentleman agree, however, that we cannot maintain a situation in which the average time for a case to be dealt with is 17 weeks in one court and 89 weeks in another? The tri-borough pilot in London has produced a reduction to 24 weeks, less than the 26 weeks proposed in the Bill.

[Stephen Twigg]

I understand that specifying a time limit in that way in primary legislation is very unusual internationally, and possibly unique, although that is not a sufficient reason for not doing so. I think that the Justice Committee’s proposals address the legitimate points that the Minister has made, but do so in a way that would not only enable timely decisions to be made, but allow for greater flexibility in individual cases. That strikes me as a sensible compromise, and I hope that it will be considered during the Bill’s Committee stage.

There is a child care crisis in this country, with rising costs. The Government’s proposals to change child care ratios have been widely criticised as a threat to quality. We oppose the proposal in the Bill to remove local authorities’ duty to conduct an assessment of the sufficiency of child care at least every three years.

As for child care agencies, we welcome the idea of additional support for childminders to promote work force development and progression, to increase efficiency and share best practice, and to improve local co-ordination to help parents find good childminders. However, as they stand, the plans are rather hazy on detail. Ministers will need to give assurances that they will not cause knock-on effects, such as extra costs to parents. Ministers will also need to clarify what they will mean for local authorities, how often Ofsted will inspect agencies, and how the criteria for the inspection of agencies will differ from those for inspections of individual childminders.

Safeguarding Children

Debate between Edward Timpson and Stephen Twigg

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

David Norgrove is, of course, talking principally about equality of time. In family court cases in which I was involved, it was clear that when people started to talk about 9 o’clock in the morning until 5 o’clock in the evening and shared arrangements of equality during the week, it often proved divisive, whereas trying to reach agreement is in the best interests of the child. What I think the Government are trying to achieve through their shared parenting considerations is children receiving a shared time of quality care from both parents, which is a very different model from simply trying to cut the time in half.

[Stephen Twigg]

The hon. Gentleman, who I know has campaigned and spoken out on these issues for many years both before and after he came to the House, speaks with authority. What I am saying is that we need to tread very carefully, as these changes might have unintended consequences. I believe I am right in saying that evidence from Australia suggests that a similar change resulted in greater litigation and greater resort to the courts there. [Interruption.] The Minister says that the position is different there. Let us learn from the experience of other countries. We will study the Government’s specific proposals in detail today.

Norgrove recommended that

“children and young people should be given age-appropriate information to explain what is happening when they are involved in cases.”

They should be offered a menu of options setting out the ways in which they can do that if they wish. The court process is clearly an important part of that, but I think that we also need greater clarity from the Government on how we can ensure that children’s views are taken on board in the rest of the care system, which includes social workers.

We have been looking at the issue in our policy review, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for the work that she did on it when she was in the shadow education team. Children often stress the importance of the monitoring of placements by social workers, and the importance of being able to talk to their own social worker alone. Often a social worker is a source of constancy—a rock—for a child who is moving between different foster carers or residential homes.

The second aim of our motion is to ensure that children and young people are given appropriate information and guidance so that they understand the risks of abuse and sexual exploitation. We fear that in too many cases young people may not be clear about how to report instances of abuse or exploitation, and that some may not understand that the acts in which they or their friends are involved constitute sexual abuse. I am sure that we were all shocked by yesterday’s “Channel 4 News” investigation of Habbo Hotel, a very popular website which is used by children as young as 10 and has 250 million users globally.

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[Stephen Twigg]

It is not, and in my concluding remarks I shall say something about the Department for Education’s broader responsibilities for the well-being of children.

The Government have to explain how they will address the challenges that I have set, and there needs to be a robust training and continuing professional development framework not only for social workers, but for other staff in the relevant agencies, especially those in the health sector. It is crucial that we have robust supervision of social work practice by experienced senior staff and consultants who are accountable for the exercise of professional judgment. We know that the lack of good supervision was a significant issue in the baby Peter case.

[Mr Timpson]

If all those in the agencies that are involved in protecting and safeguarding vulnerable children are to be able to do so with the best possible judgments that they can make as professionals, they need to learn from mistakes that have been made in the past. We have heard about the horrendous cases of baby P and others, which have led to a number of serious case reviews. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in order to make sure that we shine a light on the mistakes that were made in those particularly appalling cases and learn those lessons from the past, it is important that we have full publication of serious case reviews, albeit anonymised in the appropriate places?

[Stephen Twigg]

I am going to tread carefully on that issue. I am being advised to say yes by my esteemed colleague in the shadow team, my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), but I recognise that that would be a change from the position that my predecessor took. I will undertake to look at it and get back to the hon. Gentleman.

Let me finish by saying something about the Government’s broader policy with regard to children and families. When the Secretary of State took over two years ago, he renamed the Department, removing the words “Children” and “Families”. I am a passionate advocate of innovation, rigour and high standards in our schools and colleagues.