Family Justice (Transparency, Accountability and Cost of Living) Bill

Jim Dobbin Excerpts

Friday 26th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jim Dobbin (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) on presenting the Bill to the House and on how he has gone through a number of clauses in detail.

The hon. Gentleman and I have discussed some of these issues in the past, including the problems I have had with constituency matters as regards the courts and local authority departments. I speak as the Member for Heywood and Middleton but also as one of the Rochdale borough MPs and a leader of Rochdale borough council before I came to this House. The hon. Gentleman referred to a recent case in Rochdale that received global coverage, and the local council’s safeguarding children board recently presented its initial report. Members will appreciate why I have a great interest in these matters and strongly support the Bill. I congratulate him on his choice of subject.

A second independent report from Rochdale’s local authority will become available quite soon. The safeguarding children board’s report was transparent and hard-hitting and strengthens the case, in my view, for improvements to child care and the protection of children in not only Rochdale but other local authorities across the country. It presents some 15 recommendations, which are now a matter of public record, that are designed to develop a much more effective strategy for family care.

Members might be interested to hear some of the recommendations and how they might affect local authorities across the country. More than 10,000 staff in agencies throughout the borough have received briefings in respect of recognition and response to sexual exploitation. More than 1,500 staff have had face-to-face training with plans to reach the whole work force by the end of this year. Awareness-raising workshops have been given to almost 10,000 children in local secondary schools and there are plans to deliver similar sessions for parents in schools and community centres. Training for staff who work with young people at risk of child sexual exploitation is happening, too.

The formulation of a multi-agency strategy to ensure a more co-ordinated response to child sexual exploitation is also part of the recommendations. Improvements to the way in which Greater Manchester police and other criminal justice organisations deal with victims of child sexual exploitation is at the top of the list and staff numbers will be increased in the Sunrise team, which is a multi-agency team jointly funded by all agencies and created to prevent and tackle child sexual exploitation. The new procedures to be followed when staff refer possible child sexual exploitation cases are an important recommendation, as is the introduction of one point of contact for referrals of concern. All referrals to children’s social care services for children over the age of 12 will be screened for early signs of child sexual exploitation. More guidance will be issued to professional staff, which is an important point, and there will be more training, too.

Greater Manchester police and the council’s licensing authority will work more closely together and regular multi-agency information-sharing meetings will be held to ensure that services share concerns about possible victims, abusers and hot spots in the borough and develop appropriate responses.

[Stephen Barclay]

The hon. Gentleman is correct to highlight the importance of training and multi-agency work, but is not one of the difficulties the lack of accountability? The buck does not stop with any single individual in tragic incidents such as that which occurred in Rochdale. What would he like to see happen to improve accountability? It is great to train 1,000 or 1,500 people, but we also need to address the accountability of individuals.

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[Jim Dobbin]

I fully understand and I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I have the report with me and if he wants to take a look at it at some stage, he will see how the council intends to tackle that problem, which it recognises as important. I should also point out that the leader and chief executive of Rochdale council have both appeared in front of the Select Committee on Home Affairs and further senior staff are due to appear in due course.

[Stephen Barclay]

Has any individual lost their job as a result of the events in Rochdale? Does he believe that any individual should lose their job? It is all very well appearing before a parliamentary Committee, but what are the real-term consequences for those who are accountable?

[Jim Dobbin]

That is certainly an important question that people are asking. The difficulty is that many of the staff involved have retired, as these cases arose a number of years ago. Recently, the head of the department concerned resigned, so things are happening there, but at present the local authority is reviewing the whole process. It still has another report to come out; after that, it will be fair to accept that members of staff may well lose their jobs because of the affair. That is a possibility, but I do not want to pre-empt the decision of the local authority.

I have referred to better staff training. Partner agencies, such as the police, community groups and schools, must be better co-ordinated. Criminal justice organisations should be encouraged to support young people who have been exploited, throughout the entire process—when reporting the crime and making statements; in pre-trial preparation; when they go to court; and after the trial. The recommendations refer to holding

“Regular multi agency information sharing meetings”

to ensure that possible victims and abusers are identified, and proper responses are developed; at present, none of that is happening anywhere, as I understand it. The Rochdale case is not the only one; this is a problem across the country—and indeed the globe, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, said.

I illustrate the need for this Bill by referring to a constituency case. A constituent, Mr X, came to one of my surgeries to complain that the local social services children’s unit was threatening to remove the youngest of his five children. The child had cerebral palsy. The other four children were well looked after and were doing very well at school. The department refused to accept that the child’s cerebral palsy was the reason for his unhappiness at school. Even though a consultant paediatrician, with whom I was acquainted, diagnosed cerebral palsy, the diagnosis was questioned by the department and the professionals. They had to bring in an independent paediatrician to verify that the child had cerebral palsy. That was verified, but even then there were question marks. I knew that the parents were a caring, loving couple.

The social worker complained to the family court judge that Mr X was seeking my intervention. The judge ruled that Mr X could no longer seek any help from his Member of Parliament. I raised that issue in the Chamber with the then Solicitor-General, who appeared to support what I said, and thought that the ruling was wrong. When she checked, she found that the judge was within his rights to rule as he did. That is why I am pleased that that issue is tackled, as I understand it, in the Bill. Eventually, the department backed off, but not before Mr X had a massive heart attack and died. It is my view that the worry about the threat of his son being removed, and the possibility of his other four children being removed, caused his death.

Members may remember the perceived satanic abuse cases that suddenly appeared on a council estate in my former council area. That followed similar episodes in the Orkney islands a number of years ago. Professionals were encouraging a theory that some families were involved in satanic abuse. A number of children were removed from their families. The courts tackled the issue, and eventually ruled that there was no evidence to prove the claims, and the children were allowed back to their families.

I use those local experiences as examples of why I support the Bill. I am convinced that there is a need for changes in departments that are responsible for the protection of children, and that family courts need to respond to these challenges in parallel; that is most important. I am absolutely amazed that the Association of Directors of Children's Services opposes the Bill. I hope that it will eventually see the error of its ways and bring itself into the 21st century.

[Lorely Burt]

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) was a little coy when he was invited to speculate on why that august body did not support his Bill. I wonder whether the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Jim Dobbin) has any idea why it does not.

[Jim Dobbin]

I can only guess. I feel that the ADCS is absolutely acting as a protective body, and it is protecting its membership; I think that is the only reason it has made that statement. We will not know otherwise until it clarifies why it has taken that stance.

I have been appointed the United Kingdom’s delegate to the “One in Five” campaign, which is a sub-group of the Council of Europe’s Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development. It is to hold a major conference on trafficking and child abuse.

[John Hemming]

To go back to the hon. Gentleman’s point about preventing children from being maltreated, trafficked and so on, does he agree that they need an advocate who is not employed by the local authority?

[Jim Dobbin]

Indeed. That is an extremely important point, and I assume that will be part of the Bill.

[John Hemming]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me a second bite at the cherry. Yes, it is part of the Bill to ensure that somebody who has no vested interest in concealing malpractice is an advocate for the child.

[Jim Dobbin]

The “One in Five” campaign is convening at a conference in Moscow in November, which I will take part in, and if the hon. Gentleman agrees, I will refer to his Bill on that platform.

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[Dr Lee]

My hon. Friend is spot on. One has only to look at how many Energy Ministers there were under the last Administration to see that energy was never a priority until rather too late in the day. The problem with the majority of forms of energy, particularly the low-carbon ones and especially nuclear power, is that there has to be a decade-long perspective. The idea that we can press a button and then open a nuclear power station the following year is plainly nonsense. Remarkably, in 2003 an energy review by the then Government concluded that nuclear power did not have a role, although by 2007-08 they decided that it did—the policy was all over the place. We know that the current Government received a pretty ropey inheritance across the board from the previous Administration, but the situation regarding energy generation is truly challenging and something we must think about. Despite the fact that our inheritance from the previous Government was so bad, in future we will need cross-party agreement on nuclear power. There is a desperate need for a large number of nuclear reactors.

[Jim Dobbin]

As an Opposition Member who has a 27-turbine wind farm in his constituency, I understand and accept the need for nuclear energy to fulfil the capacity that the nation will require in the future. I agree with the hon. Gentleman and let him know that some Opposition Members do support nuclear energy.

[Dr Lee]

If I gave the impression that all Opposition Members are to blame, I apologise. When trying to address fuel poverty, energy generation is clearly significant. We are entertaining the idea of paying a significant strike price to EDF for nuclear power stations, and I encourage all Ministers engaged in those negotiations not to pay that but to step back, burn some gas and buy us some time, in order to get it right and so that families up and down the country can afford fuel to heat their homes.

Let me return to social housing and the drive towards energy efficiency, which I am sure the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley agrees with. I attended part of the Opposition day debate last Wednesday, and the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (John Robertson), who sits with me on the Energy and Climate Change Committee, made a valid point about the quality of some social housing flats in his constituency, and how difficult it is to insulate them and introduce the energy-efficient measures that we would like to see in all homes up and down the country. We may have to reflect on such matters when considering how we build social housing in the future, as well as on the amount of social housing that needs to be built.

Our inheritance of housing stock from over the past 30, 40, 50 or 60 years—I am not blaming either side of the House for this—is not up to scratch. If we are to reduce our need for foreign energy imports, and reduce our carbon footprint in the medium to longer term, our housing stock and the quality of our buildings must be improved. That may require significant investment from the private and, I suspect, the public sectors, to arrive at a point where all in this country have energy-efficient homes.

In conclusion, I believe there is some merit in the measures included in this rather extensive Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley. I support him in that and believe in anything that supports families and keeps them together. Even where there has been divorce, families can still retain some cohesion. We see children from broken homes manifested up and down the country—how many times do we see such cases on our screens on the Jeremy Kyle show and so on?—and children are growing up in environments that have no male or senior family role models. Anything we can do to alleviate or improve that situation gets my support.

Finally, on energy and fuel poverty, I say again that we need to redefine what poverty is in this country. If we do not, how on earth can we set about eradicating any problems that may still exist in 21st-century Britain?