Children and Young Persons

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I can understand that there might be a need for some easements due to anticipated staff shortages during this crisis, but I do not understand why there are fewer safeguards on easements for children’s services than in the arrangements for adult services. What is the logic in that? Obviously visits might need to be suspended during the lockdown, but why is it necessary to suspend the six-week contact rule? Are reviews not a crucial safeguard for the interests of children and young people in the care system? Who does the Minister think benefits from removing six-monthly reviews and what does she think is the main benefit of not holding panels for prospective adopters?

One of the conclusions from the child sexual exploitation cases in Rotherham and Rochdale was that children placed outside their own area were all too often out of sight and out of mind, and that is why it was so easy for them to fall prey. Like the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), I am concerned about the removal of senior-level approval for out-of-area placements. What alternative arrangements have been put in place to compensate for the loss of independent visits to children’s homes? Afterall, it is only nine years since the House was discussing the Pindown report. When you make these places less accessible, it is easier for things to happen that should not happen.

Like my hon. Friends, I am curious to know who the Government consulted before they implemented these arrangements. I would love to know who made representations to the Minister and who asked for these arrangements. Was it the same people who tried to impose these changes back in 2016 and 2018? Of course, the reason they were eventually scuppered back then was that there was a genuine fear across the parties that the measures were intended to relax local authority scrutiny and safeguards, save money and pave the way for further privatisation of children’s services. At the very point where this Government are rueing the fact that they made unnecessary changes to probation and are now planning to reverse them, it would be completely mad to create the same conditions for our children’s services, only to go through all this again.

I am a bit more sceptical than the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham—I fear that the emergency may be a smokescreen and that this is just a third attempt at the same old game. I recognise that the Minister believes that the powers are being used sparingly. She says in her letter of 15 May that they should

“only be used if absolutely necessary”.

Is she receiving regular reports on their use? Does she have any plans to collect and publish data on the use of these emergency arrangements? Will she place in the Library an interim report on the use of these powers to date?

I am also curious to know why the Minister thinks that children’s services in Scotland have not been under similar pressure and do not face demands for a similar change. What does she think is different? Has she looked at that arrangement? As we have heard, the Children’s Commissioner was rather critical of these measures. Was it an oversight not to consult her? That requires a straightforward answer from the Minister. Was a children’s rights impact assessment conducted before the regulations were approved? If so, will the Minister publish it, and if not, why not?

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is quite clear that, at a time of great crisis, the Government’s first duty is to protect the most vulnerable. My hon. Friends and the former Minister, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), have spoken eloquently about the need for proper administration of this sector for vulnerable people. We must consider the broader implications of this mistaken statutory instrument. It appears to me that this is part of a wider mishandling of a range of issues related to children, which paints the Government in a very poor light. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is yet another blunder in relation to children?

[Steve McCabe]

The honest answer is that we do not know, but when children’s services across the country are under enormous pressure, this is maybe not the smartest time to relax safeguards and scrutiny. For that reason, we have to hope and trust that when the Minister says these measures are purely for the purposes of this emergency, she is being entirely frank with us. It would be easier to draw that conclusion if she could tell us what she plans to do after 25 September.