Children and Families Bill

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

My Lords, I begin by recording my admiration and appreciation for the work done by Dr Maggie Atkinson, the Children’s Commissioner for England, and her predecessor Professor Aynsley-Green, and all those who work in that office. Extremely valuable has been the contribution which the commissioner has made to the public discourse on issues affecting children since the office was established under the Children Act 2004. I wholeheartedly support the intention through Part 5 of the Bill to extend and clarify the commissioner’s role in promoting and advancing the rights, needs and voices of children.

I welcome the Bill’s aim to see that children are placed with suitable adoptive families much more swiftly. The fostering for adoption scheme introduced by the Bill could provide greater stability for children by placing them with their prospective long-term carers at an earlier stage. It goes without saying, however, that great care must be taken to ensure that all the necessary checks are undertaken to prevent unnecessary disruption to the child at a later stage.

Sadly, the needs and voices of one group of especially vulnerable children are not represented in this Bill. I speak of children who are victims of human trafficking. Your Lordships will be well aware of the research commissioned by the Home Office into the practical care arrangements for trafficked children following my introduction of a cross-party amendment—Amendment 57A—to the Protection of Freedoms Bill. This amendment was supported by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. The amendment was to provide legal advocates or guardians for trafficked children as required by Article 14 of the EU anti-trafficking directive.

In introducing the amendment we examined the three current provisions in the Children Act 1989 which the Government believed had the effect of guardianship under the directive, namely Section 26 advocates, independent visitors and independent reviewing officers. We concluded, however, that none of them had the required effect. Section 26 advocates act only on the child’s behalf in relation to local authority case reviews and are not appointed from the moment that a child is identified as a victim of trafficking. They become involved only if the child chooses to take advantage of the service. Independent visitors provide a befriending or visiting role and do not have the right to advocate on the child’s behalf. Independent reviewing officers have a specific function in relation to reviews of the child’s care and are not required to have regular contact with the child between reviews.

During the debate on the Protection of Freedoms Bill, we agreed to withdraw our amendment on condition that the Minister promised an independent review of the care provided to trafficked children. This has since been carried out by the Children’s Society and the Refugee Council. The report is due to be published next week and will, I am sure, give a valuable insight into the experience of trafficked children in this country and the care that they receive. It will be interesting to see whether the report suggests that the experience of trafficked children vindicates the notion that the current legal framework is fit for purpose.

However, even in advance of the publication of this report, we know that there are many challenges faced by trafficked children which our current laws and care provision are inadequate to meet. In fact, nothing has changed since that debate in February 2012, except that the case for the provision of guardians has grown stronger. The Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group of expert NGOs published a report in June which highlighted how children who are being used as domestic slaves are not being identified as trafficked because social workers are not investigating thoroughly the families with whom they are living.

The recent Court of Appeal judgment in the case of L and Others demonstrated that our criminal justice system is still failing to recognise children trafficked to this country and forced to cultivate cannabis. Instead of kindly treating them as victims, our criminal justice system prosecutes them as criminals. Then there is the scandal of the number of children who go missing from local authority care. The very system that should be providing safety and reassurance is unable to protect confused and exploited children from the threats of their traffickers. The figures may have improved slightly since 2010, when over the preceding five years 301 of the 942 trafficked children who were rescued went missing from care. However, the Centre for Social Justice reported in March that many children are still going missing, with 25 trafficked children going missing from just one local authority over a five-month period in 2011.

Last month, the Joint Committee on Human Rights published its report into the situation of unaccompanied migrant children. Many such children are victims of trafficking, often being identified as migrants before they are identified as having been trafficked. In particular, the committee expressed concern about the evidence of trafficked children being prosecuted for criminal offences that they have been forced to commit by their traffickers. It also drew attention to the lack of secure accommodation that could prevent children absconding from local authority care and protect them from returning to the hands of their traffickers. The committee also recognised the value of a system of guardianship for unaccompanied migrant children, including victims of trafficking, and noted how successful the pilot project had been in Scotland.

The Government have also been encouraged to take action to improve the provision of care for trafficked children by the recently published US Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report and by the group of experts that monitors the Council of Europe anti-trafficking convention, which published its first report last September. That report recommended that Her Majesty’s Government ensure that all unaccompanied minors who are potential victims of trafficking are assigned a legal guardian.

This problem is not going to go away. The number of trafficked children being identified each year is rising, and as the evidence in the Centre for Social Justice report shows, children are still going missing. The case for introducing specialist guardians or advocates for these children is growing, with recommendations from expert charities, the wider international community and our own parliamentary Human Rights Committee. Given the importance of these issues, it is a shame that the Children and Families Bill does not do more to address the challenges facing trafficked children. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain how he sees this Bill engaging with this key challenge affecting children in the 21st century.