Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Lord Mackay of Clashfern Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, it seems a long time since I introduced the Bill that became the Children Act 1989 to this House. It is true that the Department of Health played a great part in that Bill, but it did not exclusively regulate what went into the Bill because it followed work by the Law Commission, which was then subject to the Lord Chancellor’s Department. Of course, the Lord Chancellor’s Department had a general remit in relation to the civil law that was not particularly allocated to a department, so the general law in relation to children was something that the Lord Chancellor’s Department had an interest in.

The Minister of State at that time in the Department of Health was David Mellor and there was an extremely experienced gentleman called Rupert Hughes who knew absolutely everything that could be known about social work. Not only did he have knowledge about it, he also had wise advice to tender to Ministers about what was feasible. I am glad to know that the structure of the 1989 Act has played a very full part in regulation since.

I confess to having two sadnesses. The first is the extent to which the care system has let down so many of those who were entrusted to it. The second is in relation to the extension for care leavers to be looked after, too, which was strongly urged on us in 1988 and 1989 by Lady Faithfull and others. It was difficult enough to get what we wanted at the time: to get more was not quite so easy. I had hoped that ultimately it would happen. It seems to me that this Bill gives us a very good opportunity to make that happen.

The principles laid out in Clause 1 are referred to as corporate parenting principles. There must be a limit to the number of organisations that will claim corporate parenting of a particular child. Any question of other departments or agencies being required to conform to these principles is a separate and distinct matter from corporate parenting. The local authority in terms of the Children Act 1989 is really given the responsibility of a parent where it is necessary for the state to intervene. The principles of parenting, therefore, should apply to the local authority. I see no reason why similar principles should not be applied to the other branches of government and agencies that are interested, and, in particular, government departments in relation to the various matters that have been referred to. I will not weary your Lordships by referring to them again. But the system of having corporate principles in relation to parenting strikes me as extremely wise.

One aspect of this has been mentioned by many others already: continuity. In the management of local authorities it is extremely difficult to have continuity with the people actually looking after the child from time to time because people change and so on. I am not particularly enamoured of the idea of a personal adviser for a child. I feel that we need the people in the local authority’s service who are actually looking after the child to have some kind of continuing relationship with the child. I understand that it is difficult and not easy to fulfil with management, but it is vitally important.

I am supported in that by the finding of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, in his excellent report to the Government on deaths in custody that somebody should have responsibility for the care of a vulnerable person in the system. So far, the Government have not accepted that recommendation, but I always hope that they will do. Certainly, emphasis on this is extremely important. I agree that it is difficult to do, but emphasis should be laid on this in relation to part of the clause that deals with relationships. Clause 1(1)(f) is one of the few places in the Bill that mentions relationships, and the need,

“for those children and young people to be safe, and for stability in their home lives, relationships and education or work”.

That has already been referred to in relation to schools and it should be central if this change is to be successful.

The constitutional issues raised by my noble friend Lord Lang of Monkton are obvious. I listened to my noble friend Lady Shephard, who said that we should not be too concerned with these. I am not going to concern myself much with them, but I will say that if it is possible to have the proposed statutory regulations in draft form before Committee, it might be equally possible to deal with another aspect of the Constitution Committee’s report, which is to change it into statute and make these amendments to the statute.

I agreed very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said about trying to change the present system. It seems to be a reasonably good system for regulation, but for the promotion of social workers, a chartered body would be useful—but it would not be a disciplinary body. The BMA is not a royal chartered society, as was mentioned in another connection. The regulatory functions in relation to health are in hands other than those of the royal colleges, but they promote the status of their members. I am an honorary fellow of one or two of them so I must not say too much, but a body with the function of promoting the stature of social workers is required.

I am extremely conscious of the kind of decisions that social workers have to take and for which they may be called into question—a point on which the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, was very eloquent. When I was a law officer in Scotland, I was involved in a fatal accident inquiry in connection with the death of a little girl who had been killed by her brother. Her brother had been violent and had been taken into custody. He managed to elude his custodians and he went home. He was at home for a time and the social worker knew that he was there, and that he should not have been. But the social worker felt strongly that the brother wanted to try to co-ordinate the family and bring everyone together. Sadly, his wish did not work.

I saw the terrific stress that is put on social workers in that kind of situation, because they feel that they ought to be seen as friends of the family, not as representatives of outside authority such as the police or the prosecution service. These are conflicts of interest, if you like, which used to be said to be part of the functions of the Lord Chancellor. This is just one illustration of a problem that happened to come before me early in my life; I am sure that there are many other aspects to this. But the fact is that social workers have to take difficult decisions and often have a great deal of work to do. Those are matters that we have to think about.

So far as the second part of the Bill is concerned, I do not propose to say anything more about it except that a good deal of what has been said requires to be considered very carefully.