Education and Adoption Bill (Third sitting)

Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Steve McCabe]

I should stress at the outset that amendment 7 is a probing amendment designed to help the Committee and the sector understand more about the Minister’s thoughts on the kinds of regional arrangements most likely to speed up adoption and increase the number of successful adoption placements for children. During the evidence session, we heard different views expressed. Sir Martin Narey, to whom we referred earlier, told us that he was attracted to the Minister’s ideas because, as the Minister indicated, he felt that the Minister did not have a single view of what would contribute to a successful regional model—I think he meant “singular view”; “not a single view” could be interpreted to mean something else. The point was that the Minister did not have a singular view on what constituted a successful model. Sir Martin appeared to indicate that different models might emerge according to region and circumstance, which sounds reasonable.

Carol Homden, chief executive of the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children, told us about the benefits of the models that it uses, with outstanding success, in places such as Kent and Cambridgeshire.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to be careful not to assume that regionalisation in itself will improve services? As we heard in evidence on Tuesday from the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies and the chief executive of the Thomas Coram Foundation, bringing together a group of poorly performing local authorities and agencies will not improve services, but make them worse.

[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. The Department’s own paper is called “Regionalising adoption”. I was struck by the fact that some witnesses seemed to indicate that the key element of a consortium is the component parts and what they can all bring to the table. To be fair, the section on voluntary agencies in the document makes that point. The assumption that we should simply organise matters on a geographic basis has obvious weaknesses.

To return to my point, we heard different things from witnesses. We heard about the wonderful work that the Thomas Coram Foundation does, but of course that, as the Minister well knows, is almost unique as a charity. It is cash rich; it has tremendous reserves, wonderful fundraisers and a tremendous level of volunteer support. I am full of admiration for its work, but unfortunately not many organisations in this field are like the Thomas Coram Foundation.

I would like to know what the Minister would be trying to achieve. Let us forget the earlier argument about imposition and powers of direction. I would like to know what the Minister is going to try to achieve by consensus and what he will seek to impose if he cannot achieve it by consensus. He must have some idea of the criteria and the priorities that would influence his judgment if he were, under new section 3ZA(2), to

“specify who is to carry out the functions, or…require…authorities to determine who is to carry out the functions.”

I imagine that that would occur if previous discussions had arrived at a stalemate due to a lack of agreement or a general reluctance to commit. In such circumstances, the Minister, I presume, would feel that the time had come to give a lead. It would be useful to know what the nature of that lead would be. Would it be influenced by size and geography? Would it be influenced by the potential number of adoptions that his new arrangements might accomplish? Would he be influenced by the need to retain particular staff with obvious expertise in areas of specialism? Would he want to specify the inclusion of particular voluntary agencies?

I do not expect the Minister to set down a blueprint today, but the idea that Parliament should legislate to give a Minister powers without any idea of the likely shape of the end product or the factors taken into consideration when trying to achieve it is, frankly, ludicrous. We are being asked to approve powers to create an entity that can take any shape or form on the whim of the Minister or those able to exert the most influence on him.

I was particularly struck by the evidence from Carol Homden of the Thomas Coram Foundation when she emphasised “excellence for children”. There must be some models that in the Minister’s experience are more likely than others to achieve that excellence. I also noticed that she made reference to the benefits of a clear tracking system and concurrent planning. Would they have to be essential features of any consortium or grouping ordered by the Minister to carry out those adoption functions? [Interruption.]