Education and Adoption Bill (Fourth sitting)

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Public Bill Committees

Currently, a child entering the care system is routinely subject to a physical health check but no corresponding mental health check, irrespective of the circumstances surrounding their entry into the care system. If the Minister indicated today that he was thinking of going further on this, it would respond to the concerns of many people up and down the country.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

By definition, young people and children are some of the most disempowered in our society. The young people affected by the Bill are even more so. Does my hon. Friend agree that the purpose of the amendment is to give power to some of those young people via statutory instruments and the agencies that have a duty to care for them? That is incredibly important for these young people, who are so excluded from society and from some of the support services that society offers other young people.

[Steve McCabe]

That is absolutely right.

We must remember that the reason for a young person being adopted is that we have concluded that there is no other possibility of providing a decent, stable chance at life for them. We have concluded that all other options are closed and that the best thing to do is to make a fresh start with new parents and a new family elsewhere. I assume that in the vast majority of situations, social workers do not arrive at that conclusion lightly. There has been criticism in the court about whether they could be more rigorous in how they pursue some of the options, but it seems inconceivable that someone could arrive at that conclusion lightly. That conclusion is arrived at because a judgment is made that the young person’s life prospects are pretty limited unless that deliberate, final step is taken. These young people need every ounce of support and help we can provide if they are to have any chance of making progress.

I was saying that it would be good if the Minister indicated that he was thinking of moving in the direction I mentioned on access to support and mental health assessments. I recognise that such a request is beyond the scope of this amendment so I will leave it there.

The amendment simply asks that if the provision of adoption support services is included in the functions that will be part of the new arrangements as directed by the Minister, such support services must include fair and reasonable access to support identified in any assessment. Otherwise, the child and his or her parents are being short-changed. They are permitted an assessment to determine what is wrong when they are not entitled to the help or support that might put it right. That seems to be a glaring omission—not one for which the present Minister should be held responsible but one that he, in his current position, has the capacity to do something about and put right. He could do that by accepting the amendment or by giving us his word that he will go away, look at the issue and propose a practical means of addressing it.

With all the focus on structures contained in this legislation on adoption, surely it is not too much to ask that there is some focus on the needs of the child. I hope that the Minister takes this opportunity to right a wrong and strengthen his legislation and the life chances of the very children we are all concerned about. The purpose of the amendment is to ask him to look at that.