Children and Social Work Bill [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Emma Lewell-Buck and Steve McCabe

Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

rose—

[Steve McCabe]

rose—

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[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend because she anticipates what I was going to ask. This proposal comes at a time when a lot of other innovation is taking place in local government. We have the proposals in Greater Manchester, Merseyside and the West Midlands Combined Authority. I am not clear how this measure would fit with a proposal from one of those authorities. I am not trying to be clever; I assume the Minister has discussed this with colleagues and some thought has been given to it. It is part of the question about what happens after three or six years. I am interested to know how the proposal would make progress. I do not want to dwell on this matter.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I am sure the Minister will respond to my hon. Friend’s points but I asked the Minister in written questions what would happen after the six-year period. The response was that it would not be possible for a trial to be extended beyond six years. So, even if this measure works, it will be totally pointless because it will not be extended beyond six years.

[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I assumed that it could not be the case that we would spend hours in Committee legislating for something that could be a success but would simply end after six years. It is important, since we are being asked to make decisive changes to primary legislation, that the Minister provides answers not just for the Opposition but for his own Back Benchers, as they may have to explain this in their constituencies. That would be very helpful.

I want to deal with the question of who is or is not supporting the Minister’s proposals. It is always difficult when a Minister starts reading a list. The rule of thumb is that his officials find a list of supporting organisations and give it to the Minister so he can read it out. That is standard and happens in every Government. What the Minister never mentions are the people who do not share his view.

Children and Social Work Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

Debate between Emma Lewell-Buck and Steve McCabe

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 15th December 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. However, the clause singles out adoption for special attention; the issue needs to be looked at in the wider context of overall Government policy relating to children in care and plans for permanence.

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

The Government probably have the right intention in trying to put the emphasis on the permanence of arrangements for children, but the point my hon. Friend is making about the singling out of adoption is that adoption has a history, which is also negative.

Anyone who has read the book about Philomena Lee’s experience or seen the recent film of it will know how adoption can be misused, and there is a history to adoption in this country that is not always positive. When we consider the issue of adoption, we should always think about the best interests of the child and not risking lapsing back into bad old habits and bad old days, when adoption was misused and abused in this country.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

My hon. Friend is right—adoption should not be the only option for a child. It is lazy to think that. That approach does not take into account all the other options that are there and that are in the best interests of the child.

Children and Social Work Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Emma Lewell-Buck and Steve McCabe

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I welcome all Committee members to this sitting. As this is my first time on the Front Bench in a Bill Committee, I ask everyone to bear with me. I am happy to take any guidance from those in the room who are more experienced than I am.

First, I would like briefly to echo some comments made in the other place about the rushed pace and hurried nature of the Bill. Noble Lords expressed concern that the Bill had not been carefully thought out; they were right, of course, because thanks to their diligent work the Bill before us is markedly different from the one that was introduced. The legislation appears not to have been made in response to any particular burning issues or needs—nor, despite its being a Bill about children and social workers, does it appear to be built on extensive consultation with children or social workers.

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

My hon. Friend commented on how extensively the Bill has changed; my understanding is that we are on more or less the fourth version. If there was extensive consultation, how come the Minister brought the Bill before Parliament in a condition so inadequate that it needed to be changed so substantially before it got here?

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

That is a question that the Minister might answer. I hope that the Bill will be changed again after our deliberations in Committee—so there may well be a sixth or seventh version.

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[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

Unfortunately, I completely disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The most deprived local authorities have received the biggest cuts.

[Steve McCabe]

If the hon. Member for North Dorset is right, perhaps he can tell us how it is that some Tory-controlled authorities up and down the country have seen an 8% increase in their funding, while other parts of the country have seen an 8% reduction.

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[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I welcome what is happening in my hon. Friend’s area. I agree completely with her comments. Once children who are unaccompanied asylum seekers reach 18, they are treated differently from other care leavers.

I recall working with many children who had escaped from conflict. Like children who have suffered abuse, their skin was grey and their eyes were emotionless. There was a look of permanent fear etched on their faces and they had an intense wariness of adults around them, which was reflected in their every movement and word. I have seen children slowly lose that look after being in placement for a while. The terror and sadness lift from their overall demeanour, because that is what feeling safe and being fed, clothed, cared for and away from a traumatic and ever-changing volatile environment can do for a child.

[Steve McCabe]

My hon. Friend will be aware that the Home Office is conducting some inquiries into what happens to unaccompanied children who enter this country. The system has not been terribly well supervised over recent years. There is a lot of concern.

Topically, there is a lot of concern about what happens with unaccompanied children who enter this country to attend sports schools and sports colleges—whether those arrangements are properly supervised and whether they could lead to abuse. In view of that situation, is it reasonable to assume that we may see further activity to receive some of those children into care as those inquiries reach fruition? In those circumstances, would it not be wise of the Minister to prepare for that eventuality in the Bill?

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I shall come on to the absolute hash that the Home Office has made of the situation later in my comments.

After the children have been settled in placement for however long they have been in the UK, the rug is ripped out from underneath them as they reach 18 years old, when they must apply for extended leave to remain in the UK. The majority are turned down, so the place they understood to be their home is no longer their home. Worse still, the Home Office often does not get its act together and remove them, despite turning them down, so they disappear and are off the radar. The Government do not know how many care leavers are in that situation or where they have disappeared to, but it does not take long to guess that if someone is here illegally and is facing the fear of returning to their country of origin, they will go underground and be susceptible to exploitation, whether emotional, financial or sexual.

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[Steve McCabe]

I, too, welcome the comments of the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole. Has my hon. Friend seen the comments of the Birmingham Social Housing Partnership, which warned that very good ambitions of the Homelessness Reduction Bill are likely to be undermined by the wiping out of the supporting people revenue grant, which will mean that we will apply new duties to local authorities and give them fewer resources to manage this issue?

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

It is a classic tale of this Government: give with one hand, take with the other, and we still end up in a worse situation.

Education and Adoption Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Emma Lewell-Buck and Steve McCabe

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Steve McCabe]

That is absolutely right.

We must remember that the reason for a young person being adopted is that we have concluded that there is no other possibility of providing a decent, stable chance at life for them. We have concluded that all other options are closed and that the best thing to do is to make a fresh start with new parents and a new family elsewhere. I assume that in the vast majority of situations, social workers do not arrive at that conclusion lightly. There has been criticism in the court about whether they could be more rigorous in how they pursue some of the options, but it seems inconceivable that someone could arrive at that conclusion lightly. That conclusion is arrived at because a judgment is made that the young person’s life prospects are pretty limited unless that deliberate, final step is taken. These young people need every ounce of support and help we can provide if they are to have any chance of making progress.

I was saying that it would be good if the Minister indicated that he was thinking of moving in the direction I mentioned on access to support and mental health assessments. I recognise that such a request is beyond the scope of this amendment so I will leave it there.

The amendment simply asks that if the provision of adoption support services is included in the functions that will be part of the new arrangements as directed by the Minister, such support services must include fair and reasonable access to support identified in any assessment. Otherwise, the child and his or her parents are being short-changed. They are permitted an assessment to determine what is wrong when they are not entitled to the help or support that might put it right. That seems to be a glaring omission—not one for which the present Minister should be held responsible but one that he, in his current position, has the capacity to do something about and put right. He could do that by accepting the amendment or by giving us his word that he will go away, look at the issue and propose a practical means of addressing it.

With all the focus on structures contained in this legislation on adoption, surely it is not too much to ask that there is some focus on the needs of the child. I hope that the Minister takes this opportunity to right a wrong and strengthen his legislation and the life chances of the very children we are all concerned about. The purpose of the amendment is to ask him to look at that.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. Amendment 9 is about ongoing support for families who adopt. There is a danger that a successful adoption placement is often considered the end of the story when it certainly is not. Although it is wonderful when a child is placed with a new family, we should never fool ourselves into thinking that their story ends there or that the case is closed. Matching a child or children to their adoptive parents begins with a paper match when the profiles of the adopter and the child are perceived to work, but a real assessment of that match can only happen when the introductions begin. No matter how well a child is matched to their adoptive parents, the process of bonding is never easy and there will always be challenges. Likewise, for adults who adopt, the difficulties of parenthood are joined by extra challenges when they have not lived with the child from birth. If that child has been attached to multiple foster-carers, they will take even longer to attach to their new family.

Children who have experienced instability in early life and have been through the care system are more likely to develop mental health issues. About 45% of children in care experience a mental health disorder, compared with 10% of the general child population. In the worst-case scenario, those combined factors can lead to adoptions breaking down and we should do everything that we can to avoid that, which is why it is essential that families who adopt get the ongoing support that they need after the adoption process is completed.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak said, needs assessments for families detail the support that is needed but, in practice, those assessments are often stored away in a filing cabinet and the support is never provided. A family in one area may get ongoing counselling and support but another family with the same rights, who have a child with similar, or even more, needs receive nothing. That kind of inconsistency is just not acceptable and it is bad for families.

It is in no one’s interests for an adoption to break down. The local authority will have put years of work and substantial resources into finding an appropriate placement. Breakdown is the worst-case scenario. For many more children, the transition into their new home is made more difficult than it should be.

There is a gap in post-adoption services. Just as proper support services can prevent family breakdown and the need for adoption in the first place, ongoing support can prevent adoptions from being disrupted and can keep families together. The Bill needs to reinforce the responsibility of local authorities to meet the needs of the adopted children and their parents, which is why I am supporting the amendment.

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[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I would like to speak briefly to amendment 11 tabled by my hon. Friends and to my own amendment 26, which at this stage is a probing amendment.

I and my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Selly Oak and for Sefton Central have said before that the Government treat adoption as a special case and focus on it at the expense of other approaches. There is a danger that clause 13 could go even further in setting adoption apart as a preferred option, relegating other types of permanence arrangements to second-order solutions. That would be a mistake.

At the very least, there is a danger that, because the reforms are applied to adoption services only, the process for adoption will be separated from other forms of permanence such as fostering, kinship care, special guardianship or long-term residential care. Such options exist because, as we all know, the job of finding a home for a child is never routine, and children’s needs and family circumstances are far too varied for one single answer to be applied in all cases.

If clause 13 is to be effective, fostering and other arrangements need to remain properly integrated with adoption. We cannot have a two-tier system in which the process for adoption differs from that used for fostering or kinship care. That is a sure way to create a disjointed procedure and encourage confusion and delay.

[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am particularly struck by subsection (6B)(c) of her amendment and the point she is making. We all receive from time to time communications from people who refer to forced adoptions. Often people talk about the tendency of social workers to select the youngest child in the family, perhaps the baby, and consider him or her for adoption, but not consider that option for other children in the family. I am curious about how that works and what drives social workers to make that kind of decision. Does my hon. Friend agree that it may be due, in part, to the fact that adoption has been separated from other forms of permanence?

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I will try to shed some light, from my practice, on why younger children are often separated from their siblings and placed for adoption. From my experience, when a child reaches three or four years old, they become, to put it bluntly, unadoptable. More often than not, adopters want babies.

Education and Adoption Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Emma Lewell-Buck and Steve McCabe

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.]