Children and Families Bill

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

I am aware of the issue the hon. Lady raises. I have just set out the principles that remain in place, and it is worth noting that the concept of fostering for adoption is not new. A number of local authorities already use fostering for adoption very successfully, for example East Sussex county council. That is in no way trying to undermine the principles in law that already exist whereby local authorities must look at potential future placements within the family before considering a placement outside the family, and that will pertain as a consequence.

We also know that black children take, on average, one year longer to be adopted than white children or children of other ethnicity. Again, that is totally unacceptable. As Birmingham city council’s recent report illustrated, potential adoptions are still being blocked by misplaced and misguided efforts to find the perfect ethnic match over and above all other considerations. I want to make it absolutely clear, for the avoidance of any doubt, that we do not intend that ethnicity will never be a consideration. However, ethnicity should not block a placement that is in the best interests of the child and that can provide them with the loving and stable family home they so badly need. The Bill will remove the explicit requirement to have regard to a child’s religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background when matching them with prospective adopters. In doing so, it will ensure quicker and more balanced decision making when matching them for adoption.

As of 31 March 2012, 4,650 children were waiting for an adoptive family. We need more than 600 additional adopters a year just to keep up with the growing number of children waiting. To address the point made by the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), unfortunately we have a situation in which many small local problems are adding up to one big national crisis. There are currently around 180 adoption agencies, including 152 local authorities, each recruiting and assessing an average of 17 adopters a year. Many operate on too small a scale to be efficient and have no incentive to recruit adopters to meet the needs of children outside their area. That system is simply not fit for purpose.

We need to ensure that the national crisis of children waiting for adopters ends, and that it ends as soon as possible. Therefore, we are continuing to work with local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies and have recently provided them with over £150 million to scale up adoption recruitment services and bolster capacity to meet the growing demand for placements. However, if local authorities are unable to develop a sustainable approach, we will be prepared to use the provisions in the Bill that enable the Secretary of State to require some or all local authorities to outsource their adopter recruitment and assessment function to one or more other adoption agencies.

As we discussed a few moments ago, sadly some adoptions break down, with inadequate therapeutic and other forms of support often being a contributory factor, yet we know that properly assessed and well-planned support can help prevent problems that can lead to a placement breaking down. People adopting children need to be confident in the support available, but that has been sadly lacking, with many adopters not even being made aware of their right to request an assessment. So we are placing a duty on local authorities to provide information about the support that is available. We are also introducing personal budgets to give adopters more control over who provides the support and how it is delivered. With appropriate safeguards, the Bill will also widen access to the adoption register so that adopters can take a more active role in identifying children for whom they may be appropriate adoptive parents.

Taken together, the Bill’s measures on adoption will mean more children being adopted more quickly where that is the right thing for them. It will mean adopters having a greater degree of control and support so that they can give those children the best start in life.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Will the Minister say something to reassure Barnardo’s and others that, given that 80% of current adoption recruitment is carried out by local authorities, Ministers do not plan to force whole swathes of local authorities into the voluntary sector, which might not have the capacity or capability to step up?

[Mr Timpson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Select Committee Chairman and I take his question in the spirit in which it was meant. The first thing to say is that we have provided £1 million to the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies to boost their latent capacity, and those agencies have already seen 20% growth this year and the year before that. It is recognised that this sector comprises only 20% of the current market, so by scaling up the market by making more astute economies of scale, we are ensuring that we move towards a much more mixed market, maximising capacity right across the country to meet the demand. Of course we do not want to sit idly by and watch this money have no effect whatever. That is why the Bill contains this enabling clause to make whatever changes are necessary to recruit the number of adopters we need so that children waiting to be adopted can have the opportunity of getting an adoptive placement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Twigg]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Lady for her lengthy record of work on this issue, including securing legislation as an Opposition Member under the previous Government. I shall move on to the elements of the plan that we do support, including the extension to the age of 25. I know that she has campaigned for that, and the Government now propose it. We very much welcome that proposal, in part for the reasons that she has set out.

We support the switch from statements to education, health and care plans, and we absolutely share the ambition to encourage joint working between different agencies in drawing the plans up and providing the services described in them. We also welcome changes that have been made following campaigning by charities and parents, supported by Labour, and also through the pre-legislative scrutiny, which will maintain access to independent special schools and colleges as an option for children with SEN, and the extension of education, health and care plans for those young people on apprenticeships.

What is striking about this part of the Bill is not so much what it contains, but what it does not. If the Government are to meet the high expectations that they have themselves raised, important changes will need to be made during the Bill’s passage. As the Bill is currently drafted, the education, health and care plans will offer no more legal entitlement to support from health and social care than statements offer at the moment. We will press for stronger requirements on health and social services throughout the passage of the Bill, as well as a strengthening of the plans for those in post-19 education.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about imposing as best we can on health, but the NHS has a constitutional requirement that can conflict with attempts to impose duties on it. Has he thought up some creative ways past that barrier?

[Stephen Twigg]

The hon. Gentleman refers to an important point, which makes the case for the agenda on health and social care set out by the shadow Health Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), which moves towards a whole person approach. That has been a focus for adult health and social care, but the Bill is an opportunity to demonstrate that that can also be the case for children and young people.

Let me turn to the point raised by the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). We, too, agree with the Select Committee that disabled children should be included in the provision of education, health and care plans whether or not they have a learning difficulty. Education, health and care plans should codify and bring together the current entitlements for disabled children and young people. The statutory rights that disabled children and young people have in terms of both assessment and provision are already laid out in disability legislation. Including disabled children, therefore, would serve to promote better co-ordination and integration of the duties that already exist, and could even lead to savings.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, which has been interesting throughout. I congratulate former Ministers and the Secretary of State on their contribution to the Bill. In particular, I congratulate the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), on the way in which he presented the Bill today, on how he dealt with pre-legislative scrutiny by the Education Committee and on his general willingness to listen. If Ministers have the right attitude, the pre-legislative scrutiny approach is exactly the right way to go about creating legislation. With reference to another issue, I think that Ministers who listen to suggested changes and then change tack accordingly should be seen not as weaker as a result, but as stronger. It is about doing the right thing in the long-term interests of children, rather than trying to avoid political embarrassment on the day. Fortunately, pre-legislative scrutiny allows no such embarrassment anyway.

Although I broadly welcome all the provisions in the Bill, I will focus today on special educational needs, which the Education Committee has looked at. The Committee’s recommendations were addressed very thoroughly in the Government’s response, on which the Minister deserves to be congratulated. The regulations and the code of practice will be absolutely key to whether the legislation delivers for children with SEN, as we hope it will, but we are yet to have any sight of them. It will be so important that the Bill Committee looks at, understands and scrutinises those regulations as it does its work.

Of course, those regulations will include the detailed requirements on local offers, which will be critical. I think that I speak on behalf of the whole Committee when I say that we have no doubt that for those with education, health and care plans the framework set out in the Bill will definitely lead to an improvement, although not perfection. Getting it right for those on school action and school action plus schemes—in other words, not the 3% who have a statement now, but the 17% who are on other types of support—is critical, and that comes down to the local offer.

I am delighted that the Minister agreed to extend the pilots, but, in truth, as we scrutinised the legislation we had little information back from the pilots that would allow us to understand what local offers would actually look like. The regulations relating to local offers need to address our recommendation on the need to clarify what will be available for pupils with low to moderate SEN, particularly those with speech, language and communication needs, who make up a substantial group within the category. That is dealt with in paragraphs 52 to 53 of the Government’s response.

The Committee recommended having minimum standards for local offers in the Bill. We wrestled with the idea of a framework, so I was pleased to hear the Minister say today that there would be a common framework. I am not sure whether he will also be summing up at the end of the debate—

[Mr Timpson]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Stuart]

No, that would be unusual. Perhaps the Minister who will sum up can tell us more about what the common framework for local offers means. Will that go some way towards our minimum standards? Will it create a formal basis to make it easier to compare provision in one area and another? It will be important to find out.

We are delighted that the Government accepted the Committee’s recommendation that the code of practice should be a statutory document and be laid before Parliament, although Her Majesty’s Opposition, doing their job, will rightly press on whether that should be by negative or affirmative resolution, which I am sure will be a useful debate to have.

The role of health remains unclear in the Bill, but not because Ministers are not trying their best; it touches on the issue I raised earlier about the NHS constitution. On the positive front, we are encouraged by the Minister’s clear determination to find ways to hold the NHS to account for how well it meets the needs of children. The Bill makes provision for time scales—they apply, for example, to responding to requests for assessments of SEN, and to carrying out the assessments—to be included in regulations, including provision for aligning time scales between local authorities and health. That is to be welcomed, because it is critical, but it needs to be watched closely when implemented.

The Bill will maintain many essential protections, entitlements and freedoms for parents and young people, including a specific right to request a statutory assessment. We also welcome the fact that the Committee’s recommendation that the detail in an education, health and care plan should be “specified”, as opposed to “set out”, was accepted by the Government and is in the Bill. The Committee’s recommendation on mediation being advised but not made compulsory has been accepted, for which I am grateful.

The Bill also shows a good level of commitment to ensuring the involvement of children and young people and their parents and carers in how provision is made for them. Explicit provision has now been made for regulations to set out how local authorities should involve young people and their parents in preparing and reviewing the local offer. The Bill now provides for more choice for young people with SEN and their parents about where they will receive their education. In response to the Committee’s recommendation on independent specialist colleges and independent special schools, provisions have now been included, so the Secretary of State can approve individual institutions for which parents or young people express a preference in their plan.

The Bill will entitle NEETs of compulsory participation age and apprentices to a plan, following the Committee’s recommendations, and I am again grateful to the Minister for listening and taking that on board. The Committee expressed concern about SEN pathfinders failing to involve colleges adequately in trialling the approaches to nought-to-25 provision. The Government’s response explains that pathfinders will redouble their focus on the post-16 sector, along with additional funding for well-performing pathfinders to advise others on implementation, but I ask the House to note that the Association of Colleges is concerned about the implementation of new funding a year ahead of the Bill’s proposed implementation. It states:

“The poor management of the funding changes are threatening the goodwill of Colleges towards the Bill.”

I hope that Ministers will take that on board. It might be something that can be looked at closely in the Bill Committee.

The Minister shares the Committee’s view that special educational needs co-ordinators should be required to be qualified teachers, and he has expressed his intention that regulations should make that a requirement in future. That, too, is welcome.

Briefly—I have 40 seconds left—the Committee’s recommendation was that disabled children with or without SEN should be included in the scope of entitlement to integrated provision and to education, health and care plans, but that was not accepted by the Government, which is disappointing. I accept that they made a cogent case as to why that was, but I hope that they might be able to look at that again. The Committee’s request for reassurance that ensuring statutory protections for 16 to 25-year-olds will not compromise provision for others has not been fully answered, so I hope that can be looked at as well. If we are to have the big improvement we all hope for, we must ensure co-operation and have seamless systems in place across all sectors, including health.