Childcare (Early Years Provision Free of Charge) (Extended Entitlement) Regulations 2016

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Earl of Listowel

Monday 12th December 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, there is much to welcome in what the Minister has said. He may well recall the graph of disadvantage, where an intelligent boy or girl from a low income family will start high on the graph but over a period of time will decline and a less intelligent and less able middle-class child will rise past that child. As the Minister so eloquently put it, “High quality early years childcare and education can make a huge difference and promote the social mobility of such young people”. So I welcome the extension of the funding.

As the Minister is aware, I am concerned that future costs, such as the new cost of the minimum wage—a welcome addition, but challenging for childcare providers—is something that the Government need to take into account in future funding arrangements. I am grateful to the Minister for indicating that he and his colleagues will be monitoring this very closely and I recognise that this is the most that any Government have invested in high quality early years childcare.

I have two questions for the Minister. One relates to the penalties part of these regulations. I do not know how they will work in detail and there may not be grounds for concern, but I am thinking again of homeless families. I thank the Minister for ensuring that the piloting of these arrangements has ensured that homeless families are given attention and reached out to. I am concerned that with their movement, they can be hard to communicate with, that they might miss letters, and I would not wish to see them penalised because they missed some correspondence that they should have responded to—the Minister might like to write to me on that particular point.

The second point is in regard to foster children. I am sure that we discussed this at length during the course of the Bill, but I cannot recall why it is that foster children are excluded from this; perhaps the Minister could remind me of that. Since we discussed the Bill, we have had a report from the Family and Childcare Trust highlighting that 14% fewer looked-after children access high quality early years care than the general population. I think that emphasises how more needs to be done to ensure that they do access it. It may be that their access needs to be kept under review. I have nothing more to add and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations. It goes without saying that we welcome the extension of free childcare to 30 weeks from next September and it is helpful to have these regulations as the route map to delivering that—or at least in theory. I suspect that the practice will be more challenging and that the Government will, I fear, face real difficulty in meeting the demand unless greater resources are committed to that end.

My fears on that score stem from the current difficulty in ensuring uniform delivery of 15 hours a week and from what we hear of the plans for the future. Indeed, the Government have been accused in some quarters of “raiding the budgets” set aside by local authorities to help disadvantaged children in order to fund the doubling of free childcare for working families, some of them relatively well-off families. Local authorities currently receive government funds for 15 hours of free childcare for three and four year-olds. Under the present system, local authorities have been able to pay extra cash to schools with nurseries from that budget because they employ qualified teachers and are used disproportionately by poorer families. They have also been able to set aside extra funds to ensure that children from the most disadvantaged families get more than 15 free hours. However, local authorities will now no longer be able to offer additional funding above a set hourly rate per child. Instead there will be a requirement to pass on 95% of centrally provided funds directly to childcare providers.

The new offer of 30 hours of free childcare is of course available only to working families, so any child from an unemployed family currently getting more than 15 hours will lose that extra support. About 80% of three year-olds from the most disadvantaged areas currently attend childcare with a qualified teacher or early years professional. By preventing local authorities from continuing to offer what are known as “quality supplements”, it is likely that schools will need either to reallocate funds from the main school budget, which is already stretched to breaking point in many council areas, or reduce the status of their school nursery. This policy threatens to take cash away from disadvantaged children to pay for the childcare costs of better-off families. I am confident that the Minister will use this opportunity to deny that that was the Government’s intention, and I am not suggesting it was, but if that is the outcome then will he commit to finding a way of ensuring that children from disadvantaged households do not become the victims of unintended consequences that could seriously hamper their development?

The significance of this issue cannot be overstated. We know that the Government are struggling to find the resources to finance 30 hours of free childcare, but targeting non-working families or those who are disadvantaged should be off the agenda. This is because investing in early years is not just about quality childcare for working parents. It is also critical to closing the education inequality gap, which can already be very wide before children arrive at school. I suspect that the Minister will respond by saying that local authorities are able to offer additional cash to childcare providers from their wider budget, but the reality is that few local authorities have the flexibility to do that, and even where they do, it may not be on a sustainable basis.

At the beginning of this month the Early Years Minister, Caroline Dinenage, announced that councils will receive a minimum rate of £4.30 an hour in the new early years funding formula. This came in response to the consultation which was carried out over the summer and the DfE has now found an extra £30 million in its budget to support the introduction of this rate. While any extension of the supplement is welcome, the Government’s funding plans still fall well short across the sector of what is needed to deliver on their promise of 30 hours of free childcare. It has to be said that their record is one of closed Sure Start centres, rising childcare costs and parents waiting for much-needed support. The Government have also announced an extra £50 million for councils to build nursery schools, which is of course an important part of the whole process, but last week the shadow Early Years Minister, Tulip Siddiq, released figures that show a huge black hole in the Government’s nursery building programme which is needed to provide for the new demand. With only one-third of councils having submitted their bids, the total asked for has already exceeded £55 million, which suggests that there could be a shortfall of around £100 million if all local authorities are to have their needs met.

It is all very well promising free childcare, but we need assurances on the infrastructure and resources to back it up. Even if the Government dispute the figure of the shortfall, there will be one, so where do they intend to make it up because surely they did not intend that local authorities which apply for this funding should be turned away empty handed? If they are unable to get the funding, that will underline the evidence that the Government’s funding plans fall short across the sector of what is needed to deliver on their promise of 30 hours free childcare a week from September next year. At the same time, the childcare profession faces a recruitment crisis, with the nursery sector struggling to pay staff even the national minimum wage.

Caroline Dinenage announced that the increased rate in the early years funding formula will be made up of a base rate, plus an uplift for additional needs, based on measures for free school meals, disability living allowance and, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, mentioned, English as an additional language. The Minister also said that the disability access fund would provide £615 a year for every eligible child. That, together with the recognition in paragraph 9.8 of the Explanatory Memorandum to these regulations, is welcome. Currently, children with special educational needs or a disability are not adequately supported, and it is hoped that this additional funding will, to some extent, address that.

The response from providers and sector organisations still suggests that the latest offer from the Government is unlikely to be sufficient to achieve the requirements set out in the regulations and to deliver the policy more broadly. When these regulations were considered in another place last week, my colleague Tulip Siddiq asked the Minister whether such concerns over the latest funding announcement were well founded. She did not receive a response, so perhaps the Minister will be able to oblige today. I heard his opening remarks but, given the concern in the sector, I think that that point needs to be reinforced.

The doubts about sufficient resources remain. Sir Michael Wilshaw’s annual report notes that the current increase in early years places has not kept pace with the increase in the early years population. So, again, I invite the Minister to assure us that he is confident that there is sufficient capacity to meet demand.

I thought that last week the Early Years Minister sounded somewhat complacent, saying that she did not expect the 30 hours of free childcare offer to double the demand for childcare places, because many parents already access more than the 15 hours a week and pay for the additional hours. That may well be the case but surely, human nature being what it is, these parents will now cease paying for it themselves as they will be entitled to have it covered by government—within earning limits, of course. Therefore, why the demand is unlikely to double is at best unclear.

I have one final point of clarification to put to the Minister. A new organisation called Childcare Works is to be established. It is intended to be a conduit between the DfE and local authorities to ensure that there will be sufficient 30-hours places from September next year. I wish it, and the local authorities involved, well, but the DfE website describes the new organisation as a consortium consisting of two companies of consultants and a charity. I am happy for this to be done in writing but can the Minister outline some details of the kind of assistance—I assume it will not be handing out cash—that Childcare Works will provide to local authorities to meet the demand for 30-hours places?

I hope that the Minister will accept that I have no interest in scoring points at his expense—at least, not on this issue. Naturally, I wholeheartedly welcome the introduction of 30 hours of free childcare, but I repeat that it will be meaningless for many parents if it is not fully funded.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Earl of Listowel

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I follow my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham in being most grateful to the Government for bringing forward this Bill; there is much in it that is very welcome. I know that the complexities of parliamentary timetables can mean that Bills get introduced to us with fairly short notice, but there is one clause in the Bill that causes particular concern. Clause 29—formerly Clause 15—has the opportunity to roll back significant child protection legislation from the past. My personal concern is that something as important as that needs more time for consultation.

The document Putting Children First, which lays out the basis for this particular proposal, came out in July—so, just as we were looking at this proposed amendment, we were also given the theoretical background to it. We have not had enough information or a long enough time to process this important clause, so I ask the Minister to consider withdrawing the amendment, consulting on it properly and bringing it back at a later date. I know that we have not yet settled a second day on Report, which gives us more time to consider this important issue. I hope that that suggestion is helpful.

I support the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, on this matter, and declare my interest in mental health assessments for looked-after children and designated mental health professionals for them. I am a trustee of the Brent Centre for Young People, a centre of excellence in the treatment of adolescents with health disorders, including eating disorders and other issues, and of the charitable foundation the Child and Family Practice, which brings together paediatricians, head teachers and psychiatrists to produce assessments of children with complex needs such as autism. I strongly support her amendment and I have added my name to it.

The Minister may be concerned about whether we should assess all children. I have heard people say, “What about young children? They will not necessarily need a mental health assessment”. But research from the Tavistock a few years ago was quite clear that we were overlooking the need to assess the mental health of three and four year-olds; their needs were not being caught or addressed. I have been interested in the work of the Anna Freud Centre for many years. It does admirable work with infants, for example in Holloway Prison and in refuges, working with very young children and providing them with therapy and assistance—so that should not be an obstacle.

I look forward to the Minister’s response. There is such a call on mental health provision at the moment and I am afraid about what will happen if we do not legislate—and obviously we want to legislate sensitively. The mental health of these young people has been ignored for many years. We have prioritised their education but we have not given enough thought to the trauma that they experience before entering care and on entering care—and that trauma is often exacerbated by suffering many different placements in care. I strongly support the noble Baroness’s amendment.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group, particularly Amendment 4. I am pleased to support the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who stressed the need for screening for the various neurodevelopmental disorders and neurodisability needs listed in the amendment. Many of those arguments were made in Committee with particular reference to communication disorders, and I hope the Minister will find them more persuasive on this occasion.

There are many problems related to getting children an assessment and/or a diagnosis. The social worker needs to be aware of neurodisabilities and the support and training to enable them to develop this understanding. The lack of time to build meaningful relationships with a child and really get to know them is also of concern. Again, I hope the Minister will have something to positive to say on that.

On Amendment 1, the Minister acknowledged the need for parity of esteem between physical and mental health, and of course that is welcome. That being the case, however, there is surely no reason why he should not accept that his amendment is logically extended by the wording of Amendment 8 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler. Looked-after children are among the most vulnerable in our society, often entering care with a history of abuse and neglect. But it is the sad case that once they are in the care system—a system intended to protect them—many continue to be at risk of further abuse. The Children’s Commissioner estimated that between 20% and 35% of children who had been sexually exploited were in care at the time of that exploitation. I am afraid that, all too obviously, there have been several such cases in our newspapers recently.

Knowing and understanding what types of support would benefit children entering care should be a simple step. It should be a basic element of that support that they receive a mental health assessment alongside the physical health assessment that already happens. Not only would that identify children with diagnosable conditions that require clinical interventions, it would allow foster carers, social workers, teachers and other responsible professionals to develop an understanding of how they could foster therapeutic relationships with those children in their care. I echo the recent remarks by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel: in many cases children require mental health assessments prior to entering the formal education system because damage can often be done at that stage that it is very difficult to deal with later. Children cared for in institutional settings have often experienced a high number of foster placements which have subsequently broken down, which can often be a by-product of poor emotional well-being.

It is estimated that almost three-quarters of children in residential care have a clinically diagnosable mental health condition. If a concerted effort had been made to address the mental health needs of those children when they entered care, it is at least possible that they may never have needed to be placed in residential care, which is, after all, a much more expensive option than foster care. That is why a whole raft of professionals working with the mental health needs of looked-after children believe that this help should be offered as early as possible. There is no rational reason for delaying the introduction of these simple measures, which could prevent further trauma being inflicted on these children.

As many noble Lords present will know, we have raised this issue time and again. I was among several noble Lords making the case at each stage in the passage of the Children and Families Act 2014. It was repeated at Second Reading and in Committee on this Bill. I raised it again at the briefing session on the Bill for noble Lords which the Public Health Minister hosted in September. All this was to no avail. Nor has this House been the only source of such pleading. As the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, said, in April, the Commons Education Select Committee published its report entitled Mental Health and Well-being of Looked-after Children. One of its recommendations was that,

“all looked-after children should have a full mental health assessment by a qualified mental health professional. Where required this should be followed by regular assessment of mental health and well-being as part of existing looked-after children reviews”.

The Government considered the Committee’s report, rejected most of it, it must be said, and their response on that point was:

“We do not accept the recommendation as it stands”.

The response went on to refer to the expert working group for looked-after children that the Government established in May as a possible means of filling this long-established gap in provision for looked-after children. Perhaps there is reason to be optimistic as to that group’s recommendations, since it will have as its co-chairs Alison O’Sullivan, the former president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, and Professor Peter Fonagy, a psychologist and medical researcher. By what I am sure is complete coincidence, both gave evidence to the Education Select Committee’s inquiry and both, I understand, indicated their support for children having a full mental health assessment when they enter care. The expert working group also included four people who gave evidence to the Select Committee, plus the person who acted as its adviser, so the crossover is considerable, which I very much hope is all to the good.

It would lack consistency for the Minister today to submit Amendment 1 but then dig in his heels and steadfastly refuse to go further with regard to a full mental health assessment. Simply pointing to the expert group is not satisfactory, because it is not due to report for at least 18 months, which means that the Government will effectively stonewall again when the Bill reaches another place. Even if the expert group recommends a mental health assessment for each child entering care, the Government would then need to accept the recommendation—which, on past practice, requires a leap of faith—and then we would need to await the next suitable Bill as a vehicle to introduce it. So if anything does change, it will be quite some way down the line.

The Minister, his advisers and officials at the DfE should ask themselves how many more children will have their mental health issues undiagnosed because of government foot-dragging on an issue that the professionals are quite clear on. Over the years ahead it will be many thousands and that is not a thought of which anyone associated with the Bill on the government side should be proud.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, Amendment 13 relates to the national offer for care leavers. I am grateful for the support of the Labour and Liberal Democrat Front Benches for this amendment. Recently I heard from Ashley, an 18 year-old in a Staying Put placement who has experienced at least six different foster placements during her time in care.

As I speak, I am thinking about a colleague from a charity board who recently described to me her early experience. Her mother was a crack addict who told her children both that she valued drugs more than them and that if they did not visit her regularly, she would take her own life. My colleague is extremely bright and hard-working and made it to university—one of the 6% of care leavers who do so. There, she had many black days, but she was supported by her flatmates, she completed her degree and, in August of this year, was married to a kind man—an accountant. So many care leavers do not experience that success. Without a family to call on, they might quickly find themselves alone and in debt, perhaps destitute. Our ambition must be to furnish care leavers with the necessary skills and training to allow them to excel and achieve their full potential, as we would wish for our own children.

However, financial security—the bedrock of being able to do these things—is so often difficult for them. Jack, a care leaver who attended a meeting organised by the Children’s Society last week, subsequently told me that, “The national offer would provide stability to care leavers, with protection from the darker side of financial troubles. It means we could focus on our education, employment or training and not on the stress of how we are going to pay for this or that, or whether to buy a bus pass or food shopping that week”.

I welcome the steps that the Government have taken to better support care leavers: allowing them to stay put with their foster carers until the age of 21; the Ofsted inspection of care leavers services; the Government’s care leavers strategy; and the new rights under the Bill. However, we all know that we need to do more. The Bill makes a local offer, which is very welcome, but in their role as corporate parent, the national Government need also to provide a robust offer for care leavers, with a particular focus on financial support. If the Government are serious about building a country that works for all and improves the lives of those who are just managing to keep their heads above water, they must ensure that a package of improved support for care leavers is central to that commitment. It is certainly not for this House to decide on financial matters. However, as this Bill begins with your Lordships, we can give the other place an opportunity to discuss matters that are vital to the welfare of care leavers.

This amendment has four parts. The first provides for a reduction in the penalties attached to sanctions targeted at care leavers under the age of 25. The second would provide working tax credit for care leavers under 25, and the third would extend the current exemption from the shared accommodation rate for housing benefit for care leavers from 22 to 24. Finally, the amendment would provide an exemption from council tax for care leavers under 25.

Research from the Children’s Society shows that currently, care leavers are three times more likely to receive a sanction than other young claimants, yet are much less likely to challenge these sanctions, perhaps due to the lack of a pushy parent. When they do appeal, however, two-thirds of these sanctions are overturned. This amendment would soften the sanctions on care leavers under the new universal credit system, in recognition of the additional complexities in their lives—meaning that the maximum sanction would apply for four weeks, as opposed to the existing four to 13 weeks for a first-time infraction. The cost of this measure is effectively nil, as sanctioning is a form of punishment, not a revenue generator for the Treasury.

The noble Lord, Lord Freud, has made an eloquent case for the mental health benefits of employment—but, to be a viable option for care leavers, work must pay. For this reason, our amendment would allow for care leavers under the age of 25 to claim working tax credit—a crucial form of support already paid to those over the age of 25 and to those under that age if they have children or disability. I recognise that working tax credit is soon to be phased out, but, under the new universal credit arrangements, under-25s will still be penalised, so it would be a very important flag to ensure that universal credit will also recognise the needs of this particular group.

For care leavers, a job can mean the end of isolation, as well as the beginning of independence; yet care leavers are heavily overrepresented among young people who are not in employment, education or training. Perhaps the existing assumption behind the working tax credit age limit is that low-income young people will be living at home with their family. This assumption clearly does not apply to care leavers, and they should therefore be able to benefit from this extra help if on a low income.

Thirdly, our amendment would ensure that no care leaver would pay council tax up to the age of 25. Already, six local authorities have suspended this charge for care leavers. Where they are liable for council tax, most care leavers already receive heavy discounts—but still, many struggle to cover this. Despite these changes, we still have the nonsense of corporate parents sending around the bailiffs or taking their own children—or children for whom they have a corporate responsibility—to court to pursue small amounts of money, which might cost more than the money recovered. I am encouraged that, in their latest strategy, the Government have asked local authorities to consider a council tax exemption for care leavers. However, I am sure that noble Lords would agree that the sensible thing to do is to mandate that all local authorities do this, as they do already for those in higher education.

Finally, our amendment would disapply the shared accommodation rate for care leavers until the age of 25. Currently, when a care leaver turns 22, if they are living in privately rented accommodation, their housing benefit is often reduced to that sufficient to rent for a room in shared accommodation, rather than a self-contained property. For many care leavers, their first home might be the first stable home they have ever had. Faced with reduced housing benefit, they might experience dislocation and, possibly, homelessness. We know that approximately 25% of the homeless population have been in the care of a local authority and are therefore care leavers. It cannot be right that, when almost half of all 20 to 24 year-olds still live at home with their parents, we put care leavers in a position where they could see a typical £31 a week cut to their housing benefit at the age of 22.

The cost of our amendment is estimated at around £50 million a year. The aim of the Bill is to extend provision of some key forms of support for care leavers until the age of 25. The logic behind the national offer is to extend the financial support that a care leaver can expect to receive up to that age. The cost of not introducing this amendment is far higher than the cost of its introduction. I beg your Lordships to allow the other place the opportunity to consider this national offer for care leavers. I beg to move.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I have added my name in support of this amendment. I pay tribute to the work done by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and by the Children’s Society, to which he referred. Many noble Lords have benefited from the briefing provided by that organisation and it is a matter that it cares very deeply about. We in your Lordships’ House should also care deeply about it.

In July, the Government launched Keep on Caring, a strategy for cross-government provision. That was certainly welcome, not least because it contained the proposal to introduce a care-leaver covenant. The Government have characterised this as complementing the local offer that local authorities will be required to provide. However, it did not meet what we, and several organisations involved day-to-day in the delivery of social services to children, see as the need for a national offer delivered locally. I referred to this on the previous group of amendments. We believe that the national offer is necessary because of the patchwork provision that will be made by local authorities, so I would like to reinforce the arguments that I made on the earlier group.

I will not repeat the details of the national offer that the noble Earl outlined, but I want to refer to one or two aspects of it. There are four points, and the Minister, perhaps slightly unusually, replied to all four in a letter to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, before the debate. The noble Earl has kindly circulated that letter, and it is helpful for us to know what the Government’s position is. It is not exactly positive. None the less, it is helpful to have it outlined.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Earl of Listowel

Monday 11th July 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply and for the offer of a meeting, which I am sure will be very helpful for me. I should have said in my earlier contribution that I am the patron of the National Association of Independent Reviewing Officers, so I have an interest and some experience there. I hear what he says about independent reviewing officers; in my mind, there is certainly a question about tying up so many experienced social workers in one capacity. But one of the concerns is that when a child is in a long-term placement, it may go very well but things can suddenly go wrong. One of the chief concerns that often come up when children need advocates is that while they are in a long-term stable placement, a local authority may suddenly have decided that it is too expensive so they are moved on. There is particular concern that a child may be in a stable placement for a long time and he or she may suddenly need the expertise and professional capacity of an independent reviewing officer. However, I see that there is another side to that.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response but after almost an hour of debate, we have made little progress. I think it was my noble friend Lord Hunt who said that the Minister does not seem to get the opposition to Clause 15. It is not just from these noble Lords but across different parties and the Cross-Benchers as well, who have expressed very strong views as they did in respect of Clause 9 last week. Many of the same sentiments have been repeated here today. There is deep-seated resentment and opposition to this and it will not go away through the amendments in this group just being withdrawn or not moved today.

A lot of noble Lords asked the Minister to give us some rationale as to what is driving this and the purpose behind it. The only specific thing I was able to note down in what he said was that it was to improve the provision of services to children. I think that everyone in the Room—noble Lords, the officials of the House or the department, and even the visitors in the public seats—would throw their hands up at that suggestion. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, encapsulated it when he said that introducing best practice is the way to improve things, not regulation. I urge the Minister to bear that fundamental point in mind.

I welcome the fact that we are to have a meeting and that the Minister will also speak to CoramBAAF. That is important but there are a number of organisations, and if he has not already done so, I think that some of the adoption and fostering agencies would like to meet him because, as I said, there is deep-seated opposition to this.

I do not want to rehearse the arguments and will not do so but I need to say to the Minister that, unless something in Clause 15 changes, he will be riding for a fall on Report. I hope that he will bring forward some sort of meaningful amendment that takes the sting out of some of the arguments that have been advanced over the last hour. They are very strongly felt and there is no political point-scoring here at all. If the Minister wants to make progress with this aspect of the Bill, we need to see something different when we discuss these issues in the Chamber in some weeks’ time.

The response to the amendments is nothing other than disappointing but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. I mean it when I say that I look forward to returning to this subject on Report.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Earl of Listowel

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. The noble Baroness speaks so eloquently from her experience and makes a strong case. She takes me back to research that was discussed at the Thomas Coram Research Unit about eight years ago. That unit has carried out comparative research into residential care and foster care in France, Denmark and Germany. It is a long time ago but what stood out for me was that in those continental countries, many more teachers and social workers were recruited into foster care.

Professor Jackson, one of the leading academics on the educational attainment of looked-after children, has raised concerns that many foster carers have themselves had difficult experiences at school. That is another reason why we need to support them very well. The issue of professionalisation comes into this debate. Do we want professional foster carers? My recollection suggests that they are better paid on the continent. That may be why one can recruit from the middle classes there. There is an argument on the other side that we should not pay foster carers a lot of money, as they should be doing this out of love. I have sympathy with that argument as well. However, the very least we can do is to pay them child benefit. I hope that helps the noble Baroness’s argument. I look forward to the Minister’s response, which I am sure will be sympathetic. I hope that we will see some action.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady King. Noble Lords recognise when they hear an outstanding contribution. My experience is that such a contribution tends to have three elements. First, it must have a strong and convincing narrative. Secondly, it must be delivered with emotion—but controlled emotion—often based on personal experience. Thirdly, it must be powerfully delivered in a way that carries other noble Lords with it. All those elements were contained in my noble friend’s notable contribution. We are happy to support the amendment. This is indeed an issue to which we will come back on Report if the Minister, as I suspect, is unable to give the answers that are sought today. This is an important issue and it has to be put right.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Earl of Listowel

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful replies. They give us plenty of food for thought. I am clear that he has given very careful thought to these issues and I am grateful to him for that. It was very encouraging to hear that half of those young people eligible for Staying Put have taken up the offer. Of course, we both want it to go further, but it is encouraging. Staying Put is a very important step forward. I am glad that the Minister is listening to young people in care. We talked about that earlier. Listening to young people with experience of Staying Put is a very salutary, encouraging experience.

There is a concern about ISAs. The Minister may correct me, but I think that they represent a large sum of money being given to very young people. There is a risk that they may not use it well and that they will not be supported in using it. There is also a concern about the sums given by local authorities to care leavers. Some social workers will insist on receipts and manage the money carefully while others will just give them the money. At best the young people may waste that money, but some may use it to their own detriment. Perhaps the Minister could write to me to clarify what support there is for young people leaving care to manage those sums well. I would much appreciate that. I also thank him for his response.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I do not share the enthusiasm of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for the Minister’s response, because he seemed to say that this is all down to councils. These are the same organisations which have had their resources cut and cut and that are going to face more cuts. There would be no concerns if councils were able to deal with the problems, but that is not the case. I am sure that we will return to these issues on other days, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Earl of Listowel

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

In welcoming what the Minister said, and in noting that the noble Lord, Lord Prior, is sitting next to her, which is comforting in this current discussion, I ask her whether she has quite recognised the nub of the concern of Peers all around the House. While current practice is that a GP, a generalist, will give a health assessment that will include mental health elements when a child comes into care, many of us believe that that is inadequate, and we have been trying to communicate this to the Government. While there is a strengths and difficulties questionnaire, which is useful, it simply does not meet the need for a mental health professional to undertake an initial assessment of all children coming into care so that their mental health needs can be identified early on and they can then be met with services following. I listened with great care to what the Minister said and it was very helpful, but I hope that she can assure us that the Government recognise that that is the concern that many noble Lords are raising—the need for a specialist mental health professional to do that initial assessment for every child coming into care.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply, along with all other noble Lords who have contributed to the debate on this group of amendments on this important area.

I was very pleased that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, had received a letter from the Minister for Children and Families, I think he said, subsequent to our last sitting in Committee. I wonder whether he might be prepared to share that with us because it might have information of general interest to those of us who have been involved with the Bill and are looking to take these issues forward.

My noble friend Lady Massey raised an important point about what the outcomes of not providing this proper mental health care could be. You do not need a very vivid imagination to foresee that there will be many effects, once children reach adulthood, if some of the issues with which they are trying to deal in childhood are not adequately cared for and are allowed to get worse as they approach adulthood, not least at a time when they have to go out into the world and live on their own. That is an important point and it was well made.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, if I noted her point down correctly, talked about the resources being targeted at need rather than category. I very much agree, as she will know. Despite what the Minister said, I do not doubt that the Government are committed to other forms of care but it looks as if this is given a disproportionate amount of attention; it is the only one involved in the Bill, and then there were the remarks—attributed to, I think, the Prime Minister in his speech in November—that further legislation was somewhere in the pipeline,. Those working in the other categories would value something of substance from the Government to say, “We’ve looked to beef up the ability of the adoption sector; now this is what we are doing for the other sectors”. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind and that the Government will come forward with that in due course.

The Minister said that mental health care for children in adoption was a key issue for the Government. I am perfectly willing to accept that, but I come back to the point made on Amendment 2 that there should be an assessment prior to placement. In response to that, the Minister said that assessments were carried out prior to placement but she seemed to say, and I hope that I am quoting her correctly on this, that both types of assessments—that is, physical health assessments as well as mental—were included. That is very welcome, but it is not understood by the organisations involved in adoption, judging by the comments they have made to me and other noble Lords as the Bill has progressed through its various stages. It therefore might be helpful if she could write to me, perhaps to expand a bit about what mental health assessments are given prior to placement, as I think everyone involved sees that as a key issue.

The Minister also mentioned the £4.5 million that the Government have provided to accelerate the establishment of the regional adoption agencies. While that is welcome, I made the point in moving the amendment that that is seen to be if not running dry then already running a bit thin, and I wanted some assurance of what might follow that. She mentioned another sum of £12.5 million. I do not know whether that will be used in the same way. Some of it might be, but certainly the feeling among the adoption agencies is that £4.5 million will get things started but will not take the whole process very much further, and that additional resources will be necessary.

When the Minister assured me that the Department for Education works closely with the Department of Health, I thought, “Well, of course you would say that, wouldn’t you?”. However, a serious point is: how will the progress of implementing the recommendations of Future in Mind be reported? How can they be monitored and made available to organisations in the field that are involved in their delivery to some extent but which also care about being able to trace the effectiveness of those recommendations that are put into place? Some form of reporting would therefore certainly be valuable. Again, I ask either of the Ministers whether they would be prepared to write about that, because £1.25 billion, which is over a five-year period, is a huge sum of money—although I am not sure when the five-year period started. I think I am right in saying that Future in Mind was published in 2012 but I do not know whether that was the start of the five-year period. However, that is one of the questions that may well be answered in the Minister’s response.

We have had a number of helpful comments from the Minister. Those involved will be happy to take some of them forward and, I hope, to build on them, but at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Earl of Listowel

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I was particularly interested to hear what the Minister said about Martin Narey and his work around children’s homes, which is very welcome. I endorse what he said about the quality standards for children’s homes, which are a step forward. If there is one thing that I might ask him to bring up with his colleague, Edward Timpson MP, it would be with regard to residential childcare. It is a matter of great regret that mental health and social care in children’s homes have not been embedded together from the word go. I was talking to a psychiatrist about the history of residential care in this country. We have some excellent residential care, but I am afraid that in general the quality is pretty variable in my experience.

The continentals were interested in our approach. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, published his report on staff in children’s homes, Choosing with Care, which I think came out in 1993. In the witness evidence to that inquiry the psychiatrist said that on the continent staff in children’s homes have an ongoing relationship with mental health professionals. I discovered later that they learned that from us. If we only had that ongoing partnership in all our children’s homes, we would see better outcomes and better protection for children in those homes. I am asking for a model where a clinical psychologist, who is appropriately trained, a child psychotherapist or some other mental health professional goes into children’s homes regularly—maybe once a fortnight—and speaks with the manager and staff, providing an opportunity for them to talk about their relationships with young people and how they are managing them.

In my experience that has such an effective input. This kind of work is emotionally exhausting. People talk about the turnover of staff and how they just burn out after a few years. However, if there was that kind of support, staff would be far more likely to stay. There would be a continuity of relationship, which is so important, and experience would be built over time. Staff members would have years of experience of children with complex needs and they would know the right things to do. We should make sure that all children’s homes have that close support from CAMHS which would make all the difference in this area. I am glad to hear from the Minister of Martin Narey’s review.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank both the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the Minister for their replies to the debate. I very much share the comments of the noble Earl relating to the importance of role models, particularly for boys. Having a father figure or male in the household is important for many reasons.

I note that the noble Earl picked up the point I made about resources for local authorities. The Minister did not, but in fairness to him that is not his remit. It is important if we are looking at the broader context. The £30 million that has been made available will be welcome and well used. There will still be people in the hard-to-place groups that the Minister highlighted, as well as those who have been waiting for some time in the logjam. They will need specific assistance. At a time when local authority budgets are shrinking, it would be helpful if the Minister had something to say about the clause being robust enough to withstand the stresses and strains that will inevitably come in the years immediately ahead of us.

I note what the Minister said about the Narey review. I await that with interest as it will cover important issues. I hope that it will provide some positive ways forward. In terms of the overall structure, we can exchange a bit of political knockabout across this Committee Room but the professionals who are doing the job daily—I mentioned the NSPCC, Barnardo’s and the voluntary adoption agencies—would not have been speaking to members of the opposition parties had they not been sufficiently concerned that the proposals as they stand, and how they are likely to play out, would create further difficulties in the future. As I said earlier, it is not me or my colleagues that the Minister has to reassure but those at the sharp end. It appears, so far at least, that they are not reassured.

I was disappointed that the Minister made a rather dismissive remark about my comment on the Prime Minister. I note that in his earlier remarks, the Minister himself talked about loving families. He must realise that the point I was making was that the Prime Minister’s statement seemed to suggest that other forms of care were of a lesser value, or were not providing enough loving homes, whereas adoption did. That was the point I was trying to make. Adoption seems to be a buzzword within the department and the Prime Minister has used it in this context. I think that is unhelpful and, again, the professionals in the field think it is unhelpful. There are many loving homes that are not the subject of adoption orders. That was the point I was trying to make. It just so happened that the Prime Minister had made the remark. I want to see children secure in whatever form of care is best for them. If it is adoption, fine; if it is any of the other forms of care, so be it. I want to see the resources available to make sure that permanence is the watchword for those children.

It has been a lively and, I think, helpful debate. A lot of the points have been highlighted and we will return to them in other forums. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.