Education and Adoption Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Peter Kyle and Steve McCabe

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[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.

Education and Adoption Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Peter Kyle and Steve McCabe

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. Let me clear: I am not saying that regional arrangements are bad. I suspect there is a degree of consent across the Committee that the direction of travel is right. What I am querying—and is central to the point that she makes—is what are successful regional arrangements or consortia? What do they look like? What are the factors by which we should judge them? She rightly stresses the point made by Mr Leary-May of Adoption Link, that adopters often feel that they, of all people, do not have enough say or consideration in existing arrangements. If implicit in the hon. Lady’s intervention is the suggestion that new regional arrangements could take into account that adopters need to be given further consideration and support and more involvement, then she and I are on the same wavelength. I repeat that I am not opposed to regional arrangements; I think the Minister is on the right track. I want to ensure that his end product meets his aspirations. That is the purpose of this debate.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I note the cross-party consensus that devolution and regional powers are good because they take the necessary powers much closer to the young people affected by the Bill. We must also remember that the key thing we are trying to achieve is the relationship between the young people being adopted and the agencies. We must ensure that we do not focus so much on devolution to regions that we forget the relationship between adoption agencies, the young people being adopted and the local authorities. Is that not the point of amendment 13?

[Steve McCabe]

I recall that one of the last witnesses of the day made an apt point about regional arrangements and consortia. These arrangements must have sufficient geographic context for it to be possible for adopters to get in touch with the various parties. He warned against the dangers of a structure in which that simple point was overlooked. In that respect the hon. Gentleman is right.

As to amendment 13, which is grouped with amendment 7, I am, as I have said several times, conscious of the Minister’s wish not to be too prescriptive in the design of the arrangements that he envisages; and I am extremely conscious that it is not possible to insist on including a voluntary adoption agency in every set of arrangements that might emerge. I remember working many years ago for an organisation that adopted such an approach, and needless to say it got into considerable difficulty in trying to put it into practice; it is not possible.