Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]

Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 5th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). I very much welcome this debate and the time and focus that this Government are devoting to the outcomes for children who are looked after and to the social work profession. However, I must declare an interest. My sister is a senior practising social worker and, prior to becoming a Member for Parliament, I worked for Supported Fostering Services in a contact supervisor capacity. I am also still connected with that charity as I remain an independent visitor for one of our looked-after children.

I consider myself to be extremely lucky. I was brought up in a safe and loving environment and was given the necessary tools to go out into the big wide world and make my own way. In 2007, via my sister, I got involved for the first time with Supported Fostering Services. That was the first time I had the privilege to meet and work with some of our looked-after children, their families, carers and social workers, and to see at first hand the challenges that our young people and the social work profession face. There has been an increase in children becoming looked after, and some of that has been attributed to the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, representing 6% of the looked-after population. I have also seen at a local level the increase in the number of children in care.

In that environment, it is right that this Government, and society, are putting the outcomes of our young people at the top of the agenda. It is also right that there is a focus on the decisions made about the futures of those young people. In my limited involvement over the past nine years, I have seen some fantastic outcomes for our young people, but far too many disappointing ones—some due to decisions made about their futures and to a lack of understanding of the child and of the use of timely interventions that are best for that child.

One young person who has been in care for over 10 years since the age of four has had to go through unbelievable experiences, which even an adult would struggle to cope with—being split from siblings, attending therapy, a failed adoption, time in a therapeutic centre, and number of foster placements and social workers. That young person has amazing strength of character and a resilience that we could only hope to have. Luckily, an amazing placement has now been found and that person will succeed, but it will be in spite of some of the interventions and not solely because of them.

If a young person is ready for adoption by a family that is the perfect match, no one would disagree that adoption for the child should be a major consideration for social services and the courts. Achieving the best outcomes for that young person should be the duty and focus of social services and the courts. Unfortunately, I have seen decisions on adoptions being delayed by too much focus being placed on challenges by the birth parents and on their needs, even after several reports from professionals have recommended a decision. Allowing judgments to be challenged over long periods does not put the interests of the child first.

A social worker once told me that she did not like adoptions and that they made her feel nervous. I asked her why, and she said that the stakes were too high. At the time, I did not know quite what she meant and I thought it rather an odd thing for a social worker to say. However, having subsequently seen the damage that a failed adoption can cause, I finally understand. Relationships with children are like all relationships. We as adults do not like everybody we come into contact with, and it is the same for children. We ask a lot of children and adopters when, after an introduction period of perhaps only two weeks, we put those strangers together and hope that it works out okay. I know that the process is far more complicated than that, but fundamentally we hope that a good relationship will be built after only a short honeymoon period and that the adopters and children will be given the support they need to make it a success.

I have seen children being given the best chance of a great life when their adoption has worked, but once an adoption order has gone through, the support from the agencies stops. The stakes are high with adoption. It should be regarded as the perfect solution, but its success will always be dependent on the individual child, and the use of special guardianships and placements should not be undermined by a focus on adoption.

I welcome the fact that support for care leavers features heavily in the Bill, through the local offer and the extension of personal advisers. This is a major step forward in supporting this vulnerable group of young people as they make the difficult transition from coming out of care to going it alone. Some of our young people have had upbringings and experiences that we would struggle to comprehend. The care system tries to wrap them in a safety blanket, so a child in care can be far less prepared to go it alone without a support network of trusted people giving guidance, or to make decisions for themselves after most decisions have been made for them up to that point.

It is a long outdated view that once a young person reaches 18 or even their early 20s, they do not need any help. I very much welcome the extension of personal advisers to work with our young people to ensure they get access to the services they need, to give them the support they deserve in order for them to succeed, and to put them on the pathway to achieving their full potential. That is great, and I very much welcome it, but will the Minster tell us how this will work in practice? Will personal advisers always be social workers? How will plans for young people leaving care be monitored and evaluated to ensure that this is not just a box-ticking exercise by local authorities, that it provides meaningful help, support and advice to our vulnerable young people and that the personal advisers get to know the young person and truly understand their needs?

The local offer will be extremely important to young people, but we know that due to local authorities’ budget burdens the availability of that support will very much depend on a council’s priorities unless there is a statutory obligation to deliver the services. Investment in our most vulnerable young people at this crucial time in their lives can only bring rewards, and I would like to see high-quality offers from local authorities for our young people.

A high proportion of formerly looked-after children are not in education, employment or training. We also know that leaving care and going it alone can present barriers to prevent a young person from moving forward with their life in a positive way, even though they might think of this time as being exciting and full of hope. However, some of those young people will never have to manage their finances while in care and are therefore much more vulnerable to getting into debt and not being able to manage without the safety net that a family or carer can provide. We must ensure that young people are given all the tools they need to succeed. They deserve to be treated differently in terms of accommodation provision and access to funds so that they are able to move forward and get the best chance to succeed. My constituency contains a young offenders institution and a secure training centre and, sadly, too many of the young people in such institutions were once looked-after children. That is a direct outcome of not only what they experienced growing up, but a lack of support and access to the services they needed as they moved towards adulthood.

My final point relates to social workers. Policemen, doctors, nurses and firemen are public servants, and many sectors of our society stand up to defend them and will hear no criticism. However, social workers are often criticised, blamed and singled out when something goes wrong. They put up with a negative dialogue about their profession, including stereotypes and being dismissed as interfering do-gooders. However, our social workers should be held in the highest esteem as professionals who make decisions, intervene to protect children and families from harm, work with families to help them stay together and have an impact on outcomes—day in, day out. They see some of the most terrible situations on a daily basis, including where children are being neglected or physically and mentally abused, and they work with children who have severe, complex disabilities. Social workers do not go into social work for the money; they do it because they want to protect children—often a thankless task.

I remember when my sister was working in a duty team and would struggle to sleep at night as she worried about what was happening within some families after she went home. She feared what she would be presented with when she got into work in the morning. That is not unusual. It is the daily life of a front-line social worker. I welcome the creation of Social Work England, even though the profession has some concerns about the change. Social work is so important and it is right to have a regulator focused on raising standards, good practice and strengthening formal training pathways. However, I spoke to several social workers before today’s debate and, owing to the level of their caseloads, some were not even aware of the Bill.

Social workers carry out a mentally and emotionally demanding job, and I feel that one element has been missed. There is a high burnout rate among front-line social workers and individual social worker caseloads are far too high in some parts of the country, causing some to feel unsafe in their work. For example, a social worker working 40 hours a week with a caseload of 20 would have only two hours a week per case. The casework could involve a mixture of children in need, court cases or child protection, all requiring a different amount of attention in any one week. Some cases require a significant amount of time and yet we expect social workers to know the children and the family and be able to make safe decisions. Such circumstances do not give our professionals the opportunity for thinking space or allow them to carry out the preventive work that many want to do. The nature of their work means that every child and family is different, and social workers innovate every day within the current framework in sometimes challenging circumstances.

In conclusion, everyone in the House should champion outcomes for children, who will go on to become the parents, workers and leaders of the future. It is unacceptable in this century for some of our young people’s future to be predictable based on their past or where they have come from. State intervention must work, and I hope that this Government will continue to push for better outcomes for vulnerable looked-after children.

“Educational Excellence Everywhere”: Academies

Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend raises a really important issue. A number of people have told me that they are in good local authorities with good schools, but we should compare those with other local authorities—whether similar local authorities or those in the most disadvantaged areas—where sometimes we see schools doing fantastic things for their pupils. That is why we introduced the Education and Adoption Act 2016, which tackles coasting schools—those schools that are okay, but that could be a lot better. That is what we intend to help them to achieve.

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s strength in her statement. In my constituency, and in Medway as a whole, most secondary schools and a large proportion of primaries are already academies. Some of those were compelled to become academies. It is true that home-grown academies have played a massive role in driving up standards within our authority, which has historically been an underperforming one. In my time as portfolio holder for education improvement, I saw adults’ positions being put before outcomes for young people in the schools those adults were charged with looking after. Will the Secretary of State confirm that she is committed to tackling underperformance, wherever it is?

[Nicky Morgan]

By the sheer strength and passion of my hon. Friend’s question, she has shown just how committed she is to this agenda. I well remember discussing it with her on the campaign trail when she was seeking election to this House. I absolutely assure her that we will have no let up and no reverse gear on lifting standards for all young people in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

Yes, there has been concern from academic communities and I can confirm that all grants issued by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the academies will not be covered by that clause.

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

T7. I am proud that, of the south-east’s 348,000 apprenticeships, Rochester and Strood has provided 7,410, the fourth largest number. I am also grateful to companies such as BAE Systems that makes an annual commitment to 12 higher level apprenticeships in my area. How can the Secretary of State provide further support to my constituency’s small and medium-sized businesses to offer more local people the opportunity of a quality apprenticeship?

[The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)]

The performance of businesses in my hon. Friend’s constituency is truly remarkable and leads the way in the south-east. I hope that she is aware that we offer smaller employers who have never had apprentices before a grant to help them with their first five apprenticeships. I hope that she will be able to communicate that to them and ensure that they take up that grant.

Engineering Skills: Design and Technology Education

Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me to speak in this debate, Mr Bailey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) on securing this debate and on her detailed speech, which correctly highlighted the issues facing us.

I represent a constituency with a long, rich history of engineering. It has the dockyard, the Royal Engineers, Short Brothers, BAE Systems and now a growing digital and high-tech economy. The Royal Academy of Engineering has suggested, as my hon. Friend said, that there is an annual shortage of about 53,000 graduate engineers. We must encourage young people to get excited about a career in engineering and technology and to see the plethora of opportunities that are available if they choose engineering and design and technology as a career.

In my constituency, we are lucky enough to have an engineering and construction university technical college, which was opened in September. It gives 14 to 19-year-olds the opportunity to study those subjects, gaining academic qualifications and—this is also key—the skills required to go out into the workplace. We hear that employers value that very much, and it is what they look for in young people who study those subjects.

We particularly need to encourage girls, who are less likely to see engineering and design and technology as a route. Last week, on International Women’s Day, I was lucky enough to have some young women from the UTC come up here to showcase some of the work that they had carried out since starting there in September. They are doing their bit locally as well by running a “UTCs are for girls” campaign, but they rightly point out that the necessary change must start earlier, in primary and secondary schools, so that young people are completely aware of the opportunities and excitement that engineering can bring. That can be achieved only by offering the opportunity to study those subjects at GCSE level and by giving pupils good-quality careers advice while they study.

This year, BAE Systems has offered 12 higher-level apprenticeships at its Rochester site in my constituency. BAE is doing exciting design and highly technical manufacturing work in my constituency, and some people there have not always been aware of that work. BAE reports that the young people who came through the doors were aware of those 12 higher-level apprenticeships only because they had been guided by their parents or had friends or relatives who worked at BAE Systems.

Our UTC reports that it also has concerns and challenges in recruiting staff for the technology subjects. It is proving increasingly difficult as schools phase out some of those subjects. It is absolutely right that we should be able to attract high-quality people into such roles within our schools to ensure that they create the excitement that our young people need when choosing further careers. Businesses are doing their bit. For example, BAE Systems has an early years working group, a team of volunteers working to drive encouragement for future generations to consider engineering careers. BAE has increased engagement with the community, and has launched a brochure to inspire the workforce of the future which has been shared and delivered across 360 educational establishments in Kent.

BAE Systems is working to encourage young people, particularly in my constituency, to consider a route to a long, exciting career, with opportunities not only to work in the UK by fulfilling jobs available currently and in the future, but to dream of travelling and working in other countries. We are lucky: we have an international history of sending young people abroad with quality skills. I hope that we continue to increase that.

It is important that we can fulfil the requirement for such skills in future, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham has outlined. I support her call to re-include the design and technology GCSE in the EBacc. I was lucky enough to take the design and technology GSCE when I was at school, and I later became a marine surveyor. I had opportunities to travel all around the world, and I was not limited to one career option. I think we should focus on ensuring that we really understand what engineering means. Maybe that one word does not always highlight correctly what opportunities there are.

I know I am repeating myself, but it is important to labour this point. I would particularly like to mention careers advice. It is a challenge not just in my constituency but across the country. It is crucial that the teachers charged with teaching the young people in our schools can be educated on what opportunities and career choices there are in this field. It is not necessarily teachers’ fault if they are not aware of some of the opportunities available. I would like much more focus on how we train and brief our teachers to understand what opportunities there are, so they can impart them to our young people and be part of the challenge of engaging with local businesses to drive the situation from a school perspective, not just by bringing businesses into schools.

Thank you for allowing me to speak in this debate, Mr Bailey. I welcome what the Government have already done to focus on STEM subjects. The issue is always on the agenda now; we are talking about it more and more often. That is absolutely right, and I wish that to continue.

Apprenticeships

Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I am happy to pay tribute to the work of the former Secretary of State, with whom I worked. He managed to increase the budget for apprenticeship training at a time when most other budgets were not increasing, and that was an admirable feat. I can give the right hon. Gentleman a general answer to his specific question, but I do not want to tread on the territory of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs so I will write to him with further details. The general answer is that the levy will be applied to all PAYE pay, but I will get a further answer to him, either from me or from an HMRC Minister.

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister’s statement this morning. I am a big fan of apprenticeships and I am extremely proud of the fact that in Rochester and Strood we have produced 7,410 apprenticeships since 2010, the fourth highest figure in the south-east. This week, I was at MidKent College, which has had more than 100 new engagements with employers since last September. Can the Minister assure me that the Government will continue to work with our colleges, especially in places such as Rochester and Strood, to ensure that we have the correct provision in place and that we continue to develop it in order to keep up with the demand in constituencies such as mine?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I had a meeting with college leaders just the other day. At the moment, colleges secure only one third of the money that is spent on apprenticeship training. As we have heard, that money is going to increase substantially. I have challenged college leaders on this and I will do everything in my power to help them to secure two thirds of that funding, because a great further education college can be the heart of a community that is investing in young people and local employers.

School Expansion

Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. If he can share details, I shall certainly arrange a meeting, either with me or the Schools Minister, to hear about them.

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s comments today. Although I am not a grammar school girl, I have some fantastic grammar schools in my constituency that are delivering for young people. Will she join me in welcoming the contribution that grammar schools have made to the improvement of underperforming schools in my constituency and across Medway?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I remember the school visits we did together when she was first attempting to become a Member of this House—and I am delighted that she has now done so. She is absolutely right to talk about the good schools in her own constituency and the impact that high-achieving schools such as a grammar school can have on neighbouring schools. In my statement, I mentioned the role of grammar schools in multi-academy trusts, and we see examples up and down the country of how such collaboration can really drive up standards to benefit all students in a local area.