Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The story was based, I think, on misleading facts. For example, some of the classes were of choirs or restructured PE classes, which would be expected to have more children. The bottom line is that the average primary class size is just 0.7 of a pupil higher than in 2010, despite there being 506,000 more primary school pupils. In fact, the average secondary school class size in 2018 will be some 0.3 of a pupil higher than in 2010. In other words, the figures are broadly stable. In spite of the fact that we have many, many more pupils in the system, we are making places available.

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

12. What progress she has made on identifying the departmental efficiency savings of £1.3 billion announced in July 2017.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)]

My Department has been working to identify the efficiency savings that will ultimately result in a cash boost for schools and put £1.3 billion directly into the hands of headteachers. That means that, across the country, funding will be maintained in real terms per pupil over the next two years.

[Steve McCabe]

I cannot say that that was a terribly revealing answer, but the Minister for School Standards did better in a recent letter, in which he said that, over three years, the Department will cut about £1 billion from the free schools programme, which he was lauding a second ago, and 37% from the healthy living project. Is that how the Secretary of State is trying to compensate for the cuts she has made to the core schools budget?

[Justine Greening]

Most parents would be staggered that the hon. Gentleman is so against my looking across my Department to make sure that I challenge it and its officials to work as efficiently as we are now challenging schools to be. That is quite right, and I am now able to put the fruits of that initiative into the hands of headteachers, providing them with more money on the frontline. We will be making effective savings, which is actually the way to get more out of our education budget.

Schools Update

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Indeed it will be, and I hope that the unions will choose to update their websites with accurate data. As the questions today have demonstrated, it is not easy to introduce fairer funding. There are millions of reasons why it is a difficult step for any Government to take, but we have done it because we cannot expect social mobility or strong education outcomes everywhere when our children are funded in such different ways, purely depending on where they happen to grow up. Nobody can accept that if we want to tackle inequality of opportunity, and that is why we are taking these steps. It is complex, but we are doing it because it is the right thing to do.

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

I welcome any additional funding. There is a lot of concern about the safety of schools following the Grenfell Tower disaster, so will the Secretary of State update me on how many schools in my constituency will be inspected, how that work will be co-ordinated and how any remedial action will be funded?

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

My hon. Friend will know that part of the consultation is looking at that aspect of our school geography, and the sparsity factor seeks to address it. However, we also have the new opportunity areas, which are looking at parts of the country, including coastal towns, where schools face particular challenges, and we can try to home in on those and spread good practice.

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

How on earth does cutting the funding to 35 schools in my constituency, followed by the news that the business rate revaluation will cost them thousands of pounds more, do anything to help educational opportunity? How does the Minister sleep at night knowing the detrimental effect the Government’s policies will have on the education of children across Birmingham?

[Edward Timpson]

With an eight-week-old baby, I am not sleeping particularly well at the moment. However, business rates are funded, and a consultation is taking place to try to ensure that the funding we have available for schools, which is at record levels, is distributed as fairly as possible.

Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]

Steve McCabe Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). I very much agreed with the latter part of his remarks about the challenges, the so-called innovation clauses and the debt that we owe to social workers.

I realise that it is customary to make congratulatory remarks at this stage in the proceedings, but, to be perfectly honest, this is a good example of a piece of legislation that has really rather lost its way. As the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh), who is no longer in his place, put it earlier, the Minister said nothing to indicate that he had a problem with new clause 14, but he still urged his colleagues to vote against it. He was left looking like a Minister vulnerable to senior colleagues at the Home Office rather than the Minister for Vulnerable Children. [Interruption.] There you go, Minister. Never mind they will look after you.

The Minister then proposed new clause 15; his colleagues warned him to guard against smuggling sexual education content into relationship education. I welcome the comments of the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), but surely the Minister either believes in such education to safeguard children in this day and age or he does not. I wonder whether new clause 16 will ever see the light of day or whether his more atavistic colleagues will have it kicked into the long grass before the election.

The Minister then formally deleted the entirety of what he was stoutly defending in Committee as the “innovation” clauses, but without a single word of explanation. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) was typically charitable and generous to the Minister, but I am really keen that the House should hear why he changed his mind. I would love it if the House had some explanation for why these clauses, which he claimed had so much support from so many notable experts just a few months ago and were so essential to new and innovative approaches to children’s social care legislation, had to go. The House would like to hear what happened. Was he wrong in Committee? Has something changed his mind? It would not do him any harm to offer the House an explanation. It is good to know that the Government listen, but we would like to know what they were listening to, and what had an impact on them.

May I clarify, at this late stage, whether the provisions on training in Government new clause 17 include—[Interruption.] Yes, this is Third Reading, which I understand allows me to speak on the entire contents of the Bill.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct: on Third Reading, he is perfectly entitled to debate anything in the Bill, but not anything that is not in the Bill; if he could restrict himself to the former, that would be great.

[Steve McCabe]

That is exactly what I am attempting to do, Madam Deputy Speaker; Government new clause 17 is in the Bill, and I want to ask whether it covers those doing initial training at higher education institutions, or whether the Government plan to exclude initial training from it.

I am sorry that this does not suit some Government Members, but if ever there was an example of the Government needing to prepare a bit more before rushing to legislate, it is the Bill. I do not for a second doubt the Minister’s good intentions, but it is absolutely clear, if one looks at the Bill from its start point to where we are now, that his Government are utterly confused in their objectives.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

My right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards just reminded me of how impressed he was on that visit by the steps that that school is taking to provide its pupils with a rigorous academic curriculum. By trusting school leaders like those in Swindon, we are enabling them to use their unparalleled knowledge of their pupils to create new, tailor-made ways of ensuring that every child can academically succeed.

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

17. With regard to disadvantage, the Government are about to close Baverstock Academy in my constituency. They will not say what that costs or where the pupils will go, and will not explain the inaccurate travel and future demand data. The Secretary of State will not even respond to my request for a meeting, although I am told she has got time for a photo op elsewhere in Birmingham, where she will not be meeting Baverstock parents. Are you at all surprised, Mr Speaker, that when it comes to disadvantage my constituents have one word for Government education policy—betrayal?

[Edward Timpson]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, Baverstock Academy went into special measures in September 2014. The Department intervened swiftly to challenge the academy’s senior leadership team, and monitored attainment and progress closely. Throughout 2016, the regional schools commissioner sought a new sponsor for the school, but in November 2016 the Ofsted inspector confirmed that the school remains in special measures. The hon. Gentleman is right to continue to be worried about the schools in his constituency: so are we, and we will continue to do what we can to make sure that we turn this around.

Children and Social Work Bill [ Lords ] (Sixth sitting)

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Edward Timpson]

I understand what the hon. Lady says and take it in good spirit, but it misses the point of what these clauses are about: building an evidence base. We cannot future-proof all of children’s social care on the basis that we are already seeing failure—I will come to the geographical spread of success and failure across the country—irrespective of the fact that we have a very rigid and complex legislative framework within which all these local authorities have to work. In itself, that framework is providing the inconsistencies that it is meant to prevent. What we are trying to do in the Bill, in a careful and controlled way, is enable different ways of working that are not about what local authorities have to do but about how they do it. That is the purpose of the new clauses.

Hon. Members also asked what would happen if there was a situation where more than one local authority was in a pilot. New clause 9 makes provision for combined authorities to apply for use of the power set out in it. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston asked in particular about the Greater Manchester combined authority, which I think involves 10 local authorities that are currently working on their own devolution settlement. Of course, that may involve children’s services, because I understand that such services are part of their agenda. Where there is a combined authority, we will want to see any application made under these provisions, just as we would for any individual local authority.

Similarly, if a local authority was running a pilot and subsequently became a combined authority, it would need to reapply for any change or extension of the pilot. We will make sure that that is set out in statutory guidance, because that would clearly be a change in circumstances in respect of what would have been approved originally by Parliament. As a consequence, the authority would need to seek further approval.

The hon. Member for South Shields also returned to the issue of profit making. As I have said before and will say again now, the power to innovate has absolutely nothing to do with profit making in children’s social care. The clauses make it clear that it cannot be used to revisit the established position on profit, and we have also been clear that pilots are granted on the basis of achieving better outcomes for children and not on efficiencies. I do not see any evidence that this process could be linked to profit making and we will make it clear in statutory guidance that the local authority will be expected to use the financial impact assessment as part of its application, detailing the expected costs and benefits of a pilot. That information will also be available to the expert panel when it scrutinises applications.

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

I have a point that I want to clarify quickly. The Minister said that new clause 9 refers to the situation of a combined authority, as established under section 103 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. Would it be possible for local authorities that do not fall within that state of affairs to come together? We have examples in London of local authorities that are already working jointly. Is there provision in what he is proposing for that kind of combination to exist? Also, regarding a specific combined authority, would it be possible for a Mayor to override his view about what provisions should apply?

[Edward Timpson]

The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s first point is yes, but of course the authority still has to comply with all the elements put in the applications and the process that follows in respect of the scrutiny of the application, and whether it is approved. There need to be very clear lines of responsibility and accountability within that, because ultimately it is the local authority that is responsible for providing those services; it holds that function.

As for the hon. Gentleman’s question about the Mayor, it is not one that I have been asked directly before; I know that it is becoming more relevant in some parts of the country. My initial view—I will clarify it later; if he does not mind, I will take some time to do that—would be that this is something approved by Parliament, which cannot be superseded by a Mayor or their powers. However, I will certainly seek to ensure that the hon. Gentleman gets chapter and verse on that point.

I also wish to consider the issue around consultation, which hon. Members have raised. The Department has had a period of very open consultation about the power and it has spoken with a wide range of organisations, including representative bodies of social work, local government, the voluntary sector, children’s organisations and others. Those meetings have been instrumental—indeed, critical—in forming our thinking on the new clauses, but we will of course continue to consult as we develop the detail of the process. We have committed to consult publicly on the statutory guidance to accompany the clauses and, as I have said before, there will also be consultation on each individual use of the power.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Timpson]

No. I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Lady. To answer the earlier question from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, the likes of Leeds City Council—one of our flagship children’s services councils—North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire County Council and the tri-borough, are all local authorities that have a strong track record in delivering high quality children’s social care. They understand the huge benefit that innovation in their services can make and has brought and they are at the front of the queue among those who want to trial many of these new ways of working. The tri-borough has said that it is

“excited about the ‘power to innovate’ clauses within the Children and Social Work bill. We believe this builds on the Munro Review of Child Protection in helping us to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and to enable social workers on the front line to spend more time working with families and less time sitting in front of their computers and filling in forms.”

North Yorkshire says that it

“welcomes the opportunity…On behalf of the wider LA sector we are keen to safely explore whether there are freedoms from current national requirements which could be used to enhance local practice.”

I am not prepared to ignore the views of those who I know are at the front of children’s social work, delivering excellent services, who are still looking to improve and can help others to do likewise.

[Steve McCabe]

The Minister is being generous. I am also grateful for the information he has provided about the authorities looking for the opportunity to innovate. Can he tell us what kind of exemptions they are seeking? What are the powers that they feel are currently restricting their innovating practice and which they are seeking to be freed from?

[Edward Timpson]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman took the time to read the letter that I sent round to all Committee members, which set out a number of examples of how local authorities think the power can be used. There is no presumption that those would be granted, of course: any application would need to go through robust scrutiny before it was agreed, as I have set out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Timpson]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

This new clause supports our aim of establishing a new career pathway for social workers that recognises specialist, post-qualification expertise in child and family social work and will reinforce our focus on the quality of practice. It makes provision for the Secretary of State to determine and publish improvement standards for social workers in England, or to arrange for someone else to do so on her behalf. An improvement standard is a post-qualification professional standard which, if attained, demonstrates a particular expertise or specialisation. The Secretary of State will be required to consult before determining any improvement standards.

I would like to make it clear that these standards are distinct from the proficiency standards which the regulator, Social Work England, will set and which must be met by all social workers in order to register. The new clause is vital to enable the introduction of the national assessment and accreditation system which is a fundamental part of our national reform programme that seeks to ensure that all children and families get the support and protection they need.

We are all aware that child and family social workers do an incredibly important job under very trying circumstances, and we all thank them for it. They deal with complex and fraught situations that require great depth of skill, knowledge, understanding and empathy. To clearly set out what characterises effective work with children at their most vulnerable, the chief social worker for children and families, Isabelle Trowler, has published three statements on the knowledge and skills needed to operate at three levels of practice for child and family social workers. That includes frontline practice, supervisory roles and practice leaders. One of the Department’s priorities is supporting the workforce in consistently meeting these aspirations.

The knowledge and skills statements will form the basis of a national assessment and accreditation system for child and family social work, or NAAS. Child and family social workers will be accredited against these standards in order to recognise consistently the specialist knowledge and skills that child and family social workers, supervisors and leaders need in order to practise effectively. NAAS will provide, for the first time, a consistent way of recognising the specialist knowledge and skills needed by child and family social workers, supervisors and leaders to practise effectively. It will recognise progression through the child and family specialism, making clear what good practice looks like and what path a career in social work could take. Supporting social workers to improve their practice is vital when it comes to supporting the profession, and thus the children and families they work with.

We have carried out extensive work with the profession to establish what form assessment will take, and we have launched an open consultation to support our thinking on how the new system is to be rolled out. While there are no current plans for a NAAS for adult social work, this measure would enable the Secretary of State to determine and publish a similar set of improvement standards in relation to adult social workers in England. There is already a degree of specialisation in this area through the roles of approved mental health practitioner and best interest assessor. We intend to look closely at whether taking further steps in this direction for adult social work is desirable.

I trust that the Committee will support this important work to build the professional and public status of children and family social work and support the profession so that it can focus ever more closely on practice that delivers for vulnerable children. [Interruption.] I cannot conclude without hearing from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak.

[Steve McCabe]

As I have said before, the Minister is extremely generous. I wanted to ask him about people who have acquired higher-level awards and qualifications as part of previous accreditation exercises. He will be familiar with the old CCETSW post-qualification award in children services. I think I am right in saying that the NSPCC ran a similar award at one stage. There are therefore practitioners who have a previous higher-level qualification award. Is it the Minister’s intention that their awards will be accredited or in some way fitted into the new framework or will those people now be expected to acquire an additional higher-level qualification?

[Edward Timpson]

This is a new form of accreditation and assessment. Over time, all practitioners who want to work in the field will need to be accredited against the new standards set out in the knowledge and skills statement. The difference now is that there are three different tiers. One of the things that has led to our bringing in this proposal is the strong feeling that there has not been a clear career pathway for children’s social workers. When they become experienced they may even become Members of Parliament or they end up in management, away from the frontline but still using their great expertise and knowledge about how to deliver good social work. They have an opportunity to supervise practitioners or to become a practice leader.

Those who are already accredited and have shown that they have relevant experience will be well placed to meet the new accreditation standards that are being set for supervisory and practice leader role. We hope that over time that will enable more of those very high-quality, well-versed and experienced social workers to remain active in social work, rather than our losing that precious commodity as they move into corporate roles within their organisation. I hope that explanation finds favour with the hon. Gentleman and that hon. Members will support the new clause.

--- Later in debate ---

I want to hear what the Minister has to say, because I heard him on Second Reading.

[Steve McCabe]

Before my hon. Friend concludes, I want to say that I am more than happy to support her new clause, although the Minister may be about to tell us that he has an alternative or additional proposal.

Since we have spent so much time talking about the value of innovation, would my hon. Friend be open to a proposal in which the Minister encouraged schools to innovate? We could make a start right away by finding the best models for my hon. Friend’s proposals and some of the wider issues referred to by other organisations, including online safety, tobacco, alcohol, drug abuse and broader health issues. Would she be open to a proposal that said, “Let’s invite schools to innovate. Let’s ask Ofsted to report on the success of that innovation. Let’s encourage schools that are doing the right thing, so that the Minister can free the others from the constraints and encumbrances that current legislation imposes on them.”?

[Stella Creasy]

My hon. Friend will be aware of previous conversations about straying from the point. We were very mindful in drafting this new clause that we should focus on relationship education as part of PSHE, which has been declining in schools. I believe there has been a 21% decrease in the number of PSHE lessons in the past couple of years because it is not valued. We recognised that it had a particular role to play in safeguarding because of the widespread evidence of sexual harassment of children.

I completely agree with my hon. Friend about the value of other forms of lessons. I will give a shout-out to Kris Hallenga and the CoppaFeel! team who have been looking at how to provide cancer education within PSHE. There is clearly a broader debate, but we do not know if there is going to be any alternative education legislation that might allow such proposals to be included.

The point about innovation and safeguarding is apposite. One reason Opposition Members were concerned about other parts of this legislation is that we want to give schools a clear framework about what should be included. Within that, we could work in a way that works for pupils and their location. That is why the new clause specifies a framework for sex and relationship education as part of safeguarding, recognising that it needs to be age appropriate.

The way in which a five, six- or seven-year-old would be taught about their body and how to ensure that, if anything happened that they were not happy or comfortable with, they could speak out, would be very different from the conversations that might be had with 13, 14 or 15-year-olds about some of the things that were going on in their lives. It would also be done in a way that was inclusive. I am particularly mindful of the evidence of young people who are gay and lesbian who said they were not given good sex and relationships education, which caused them huge amounts of harm at a young age, so it is important to ensure it is inclusive.

Finally, we need to recognise different religious perspectives. That is an important element, and I do not underplay that. Concerns have been expressed by religious organisations. We need to reflect and respect religious perspectives without using that to stop the important provision of relationships education.

The new clause is drafted in such a way that it is very much about the role of Ofsted, which I am sure would be involved in any form of safeguarding and monitoring of sex and relationships education in schools, however the Government choose to do this—if they do want to. There is a clear role for Ofsted to look at this as a form of safeguarding. Schools that were not providing sex and relationship education would be judged inadequate on safeguarding, which is a very serious matter, but it would reflect the importance of the topic.

Crucially, the new clause would give young people the opportunity to say whether they wanted to take part in this education. Some 90% of young people surveyed said they wanted this education, so it is important to give them the power to opt out, rather than that being led by their parents. The Secretary of State would have the role of setting the age at which they would be of sufficient maturity to do that. I am thinking particularly of young people who might be at college or in further education who would be covered by the new clause: we want to ensure that they have the right to take part in lessons if they choose to do so.

Finally, returning to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak made in saying, “Let’s just get on and do it”, the new clause sets out a clear timetable. That is the message I want to give to the Minister. I heard his words on Second Reading and I have seen the briefings from the Education Secretary. There has clearly been a sea change in the Government’s perspective on the issue over the past year, which is welcome.

I recognise that there is cross-party support for sex and relationships education. Five Select Committee Chairs said they wanted to see it happen. All of us who have been campaigning on the issue for some time want to see action, because we are all acutely aware that we have lost previous opportunities to make progress. The guidance that covers sex and relationships education for our young people was produced in 2000, before the era of Snapchat, Facebook and even Twitter, which feels as old as the hills. We need to move with the times, but most importantly we need to move. If the Minister will not accept new clause 11 and work with us to make it work, I want to hear him make a commitment to legislation. I tell him plainly: another consultation, another review and a generalised commitment will not do any more. Young people in this country need and deserve better from us.

--- Later in debate ---

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Steve McCabe]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 20—Former relevant children: provision of sufficient suitable accommodation—

‘(1) In the Children Act 1989, after section 23C insert—

“23CA Duty on local authorities to secure sufficient accommodation for former relevant children

(1) It is the general duty of a local authority to take steps that secure, so far as reasonably practicable, the outcome in subsection (2).

(2) The outcome is that the local authority secures sufficient suitable accommodation (whether or not provided by them) within their area to meet the needs of former relevant children, where “former relevant children” has the same meaning as in section 23C(1) of this Act.

(3) In taking steps to secure the outcome in subsection (2), the local authority must—

(a) produce, and make available to all former relevant children, information about the providers of accommodation and the types of accommodation they provide,

(b) be aware of the current and expected future demand for such accommodation and consider how providers might meet that demand, and

(c) have regard to—

(i) the need to ensure the sustainability of the market, and

(ii) the need to encourage providers to innovate and continuously improve the quality of such accommodation and the efficiency and effectiveness with which it is provided.”’

This new clause would establish a clear statutory duty on local authorities to secure sufficient, suitable accommodation for all care leavers up to age 21. Local authorities already have a duty to ensure sufficient accommodation for looked after children in their area.

[Steve McCabe]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. Hopefully this will not take too long and will not be terribly contentious. The Minister and I might not necessarily agree on the nature of my new clause, but I hope that there is not too much between us on this issue. As far as I can see, the new clause follows a very welcome decision that he took in the last Parliament about children in foster care staying put. I believe that was the right thing to do and he deserves credit for it. I should say in passing that the idea flows from a previous Labour pilot; we did not have to exempt a single local authority from a single bit of legislation to implement that pilot, but there you go.

Anyway, the new clause comes from a decision taken by the Minister. I always thought at the time that people would inevitably say, “Well, if you are making this provision for children in care who happen to live in a foster home, what about other children in care who have different arrangements?” In fact, I am slightly surprised that we have not reached a stage where this has been tested out in court. It always occurred to me that someone would inevitably seek to challenge and test the legality of a situation whereby we can have rather different sets of rules for children who are subject to the same care provision but are living in slightly different arrangements.

What I seek to do with the new clause is simple: I am trying to mirror the arrangements that the Minister made for children being able to remain in foster care for other children who might want to remain in the children’s home where they live. There are two aspects to consider. First, there is a moral issue. For children who are subject to care orders, we are their parents. They are our responsibility. That is what we sign up to when we receive such children into care.

I listened to the hon. Member for North Dorset talking about being a father and about his children. I assume that all of us who are parents are not the sort of people who are likely to kick our kids out at 18. Maybe some of us will be quite glad to see them go off to university, so that we get a bit of a break and a breather from time to time, but generally I would not think most of us, and most parents, are like that.

The truth is that parenthood is one of those things that people buy into probably for their entire life. There will always be times when children will come back, and there is no golden rule saying that at 18 or 21, they are capable of standing on their own two feet and can be cut adrift. If that is how we would behave towards our own children, it is not unreasonable to say that we should behave like that towards all children, and certainly children for whom we have become the parents.

The situation with foster care is more clear cut. I know that the Minister has a great deal of personal experience of this. The children are living in a semi-permanent arrangement with a particular parent or set of parents and have often been there for a very long time. It makes perfect sense for someone such as the Minister to say, “Well, it is ridiculous to have an artificial cut-off point—I am going to seek to extend that.”

The issue is much more tricky when it comes to children’s homes, because that provision has developed at different times under different frameworks: some local authority—although there is probably much less of that now—some private or in charity or not-for-profit organisations. The nature of the buildings and the homes is different. Although the new clause is designed to try to mirror the provision for foster care arrangements, I am reluctant to say that I want the Minister to legislate to say that everyone can remain in a children’s home, come what may. I do not personally think that is sensible.

As a consequence, I went back and had a look at a proposal drawn up a couple of years ago by a consortium of organisations, many of which the Minister has a lot of contact with: the National Children’s Bureau, the Who Cares? Trust, Action for Children, Barnardo’s and the Centre for Child and Family Research at Loughborough University. I am sure the Minister is familiar with the work they engaged in, which was a scoping exercise, “Staying put for young people in residential care”. The consortium came up with four options that it suggested we might want to consider.

The first option is for care leavers to continue to live in the same children’s home that they were living in when in care, as this is obviously about what we do with children after they pass the cut-off point of 18. My own hunch is that that may work in some circumstances and not in others.

A second option was that the care leaver lives in a separate building but in the same grounds as the children’s home they were living in when in care. Again, that might work in some situations. There may not be scope for that sort of provision in all situations so it may not work and there may not be funding or finance to deal with it.

The third option is that a care leaver might live in a different house from the one they were living in when in the children’s home, but that they would continue to have support—something akin to supported lodgings. The fourth option, which I think is more commonly referred to as “stay close”, is for the young person to live independently but with regular access to their former home—for example, being invited back for tea on a regular basis.

That strikes me as broadly what happens with our own children. They may continue to live with us beyond the age of 18 or they may come back periodically; they may at times live near us and come back. One would hope that we are always available when they need help and support. That is what I am asking the Minister about in the new clause.



Depending on his response, I am not sure that I will want to press the clause to a vote. I am making the point that we cannot have a situation where we have decided that someone who has the good fortune to be in foster care gets extended provision and we recognise their needs beyond the age of 18, but if someone lives in a different kind of care provision, they do not get the same consideration. I do not hold the Minister responsible, but we hear horror stories of care leavers ending up in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, virtually doss-houses in some cases, where they are required to live alongside people with serious alcohol and drug problems, with prostitution on the premises.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe]

That was a helpful response from the Minister, and I would like the chance to reflect on what he has said. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mr Syms.)

Children and Social Work Bill [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to return to the Committee, Mrs Main. I wish all Committee members a happy new year. I strongly support what my hon. Friend says. I am dismayed that our response to an absence of suitable secure accommodation close to children’s families and homes is leading us to reach for the solution of sending them, effectively, to another country—certainly to another jurisdiction in relation to law and, as my hon. Friend pointed out, education. I particularly want to press the Minister on that point.

The education system in Scotland is different from that of England and Wales, and it is not clear to me what, if any, thinking the Government have done about the impact on young people’s education of moving them to a different country with a different school system. Many young people in secure accommodation will be teenagers approaching the age of 16 when they should be taking examinations, planning their futures, and receiving careers advice and support. It would be helpful to the Committee to understand what thinking the Minister has done and what planning there has been to address those children’s educational needs.

Is the arrangement really seen as some kind of stopgap in which the children would be moved back as quickly as possible to secure accommodation closer to home; or does the Minister believe its purpose is for a child posted to secure accommodation in Scotland to spend the entire period there? I can understand the wish, having found suitable accommodation for a child, not to disrupt it; but equally it seems to me that if we are dealing with a shortage of suitable spaces in England it would be helpful to know whether the Minister intends children placed for a period in Scotland to be brought back home as quickly as possible.

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

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Main; I also wish you a happy new year.

I want to put three or four quick points to the Minister in relation to the measure. Could he give us an idea of how many children he thinks will be transferred north of the border, or, indeed, the other way? It would be interesting to have some context, and to know the scale of the problem and perhaps when he first became aware that there was a problem in need of such a resolution. I am particularly interested in how many children from England are likely to move to Scotland, and would like an indication of which local authorities are under the most severe pressure, so that they must look north of the border.

Whether or not the Minister accepts new clause 27, does he accept that if there is not some kind of time limit on the proposal the danger is that we will be legislating to export a problem? That seems a strange way to deal with children who are often very damaged and difficult. I am not sure that in the long run it is in the best interest of the care system in this country that we should end up simply exporting the problem.

Finally, I have on previous occasions heard the Minister say he does not support the idea that children should be moved far from home; I think that particularly in relation to Rotherham he had some strong opinions on that, which I agree with. While I accept that awareness of an impending problem or crisis may have brought him to introduce legislation, I wonder how he would reconcile the notion of sending children north of the border with his strongly held view that it is not in children’s best interests to move them too far from their home base for care provision.

[Edward Timpson]

I begin by thanking hon. Members for their contributions to this debate and for raising important issues about not only this new clause but, more widely, the secure children’s homes available to our most vulnerable children and young people in England, Wales and Scotland.

I will address some of the specific points raised. The latest information I have is that there are currently 17 children who have moved from England to secure children’s homes in Scotland. We first became aware of the issue that the new clause tries to fix on the back of a judgment of the family division of the High Court on 12 September last year that children could not be placed by English or Welsh authorities in secure accommodation in Scotland under section 25 of the Children Act 1989. This is a long-established practice, hence the legislative issue we are seeking to resolve was a surprise to everybody.

No child has been placed by an English or Welsh local authority in secure accommodation in Scotland without the authority of the courts in England and Wales. That is an important point. Every case where a child is moved to a different part of the United Kingdom on the basis of a request to place them in a secure children’s home outside their original area will be subject to court approval. The court has to decide on the usual basis under the Children Act of it being in the child’s best interest.

I will write to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak about which local authorities currently have children placed north of the border. The hon. Member for South Shields alluded to some of those, but I will endeavour to provide the hon. Gentleman with a comprehensive list.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe]

The Minister is telling me that he is proposing a reciprocal arrangement and that there will be a transfer of children from Scotland to secure accommodation in England as well. If he has the numbers will he give them to us now? If not, perhaps he will write to us. I am curious to know how many children from Scotland are in secure accommodation in England. I am also curious to know how a country with such a small population compared with England can have an excess of secure accommodation. Can he say more about the particulars, without identifying individuals, although I realise that 17 is a small number? Is there something special about the accommodation available in Scotland which differs from accommodation in England, making it necessary to have that transfer? I am curious to understand what that is. If it is not simply a question of numbers, I am curious to know the particular circumstances that necessitate that sort of shift.

[Edward Timpson]

I may come back to the hon. Gentleman with further information, but I can tell him that in Scotland there are 89 welfare places in secure children’s homes. They are available to children both in Scotland and in England and Wales, as has been the case for a considerable time. On the range of provision in Scotland, every decision made for each individual child is based on what is in their best interests. Clearly, therefore, some specialist provision in Scotland is deemed suitable as the best for a child in England with their particular needs.

I cannot give the hon. Gentleman chapter and verse on exactly what each secure children’s home offers, but I undertake to provide further detail, so that he is reassured that the decisions made by the courts are such that those very vulnerable children and young people are getting the best possible care and support. Furthermore, all those children and young people who have been placed in Scotland will still have placement visits from their social worker and regular reviews of the quality of that placement, even when they have been placed in Scotland or Wales.

Part of the care plan for a child or young person is about how their educational needs will be met. It will have to be set out and approved by the court before the placement is allowed to go ahead. However, I will look carefully at what the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston said, because I wholeheartedly agree with her that, wherever a young person is placed, it is important that they need to have opportunity—to advance themselves as an individual and in what they are capable of achieving academically and in getting into the workplace—and some stability in their life. That placement must meet all those requirements. I will look carefully at what she says and perhaps have a further conversation with her about how we ensure that children and young people in those circumstances are not missing out on the benefits of the education that is vital to their life chances.

Although I understand the points that have been made—I hope I have shown that I appreciate what hon. Members have said—I go back to where I started: the amendments do not seek to change existing policy or the practical circumstances in the system of secure children’s homes. They provide a technical fix to clarify the legal position of a long-standing and mutually beneficial arrangement that works for and should continue to work for our children.

We need to look carefully at how to continue to co-ordinate across England, Scotland and Wales and at how to improve provision in England. That is what the co-ordination unit is trying to do and why we are working hard with the LGA and the ADCS to see how we can make sure that the provision meets the future needs of this small but important and group of vulnerable children and young people who deserve the best possible support. I hope that on that basis the Committee will support the Government’s amendments and that the hon. Member for South Shields will be sufficiently reassured not to press her new clause.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Timpson]

I will speak to new clause 2 and the other new clauses in this group which deal with the power to pilot different ways of working. The purpose of the new clauses is to enable a local authority to test the extent to which changes to the complex legislative framework surrounding children’s social care might achieve better outcomes for children.

I will begin by briefly outlining the purpose of the clauses before I turn to the improvements that have been made since they were debated in the other place. The Government believe that the legislative framework is the bedrock of children’s social care services. However, that does not mean that it is perfect. In 2011, the Munro review showed us that over-regulation can be a barrier to good social work practice and can prevent social workers from putting the needs and wishes of children first.

Too frequently, legislation sets out not just what local authorities need to do, but exactly how they must do it. However, when it comes to changing the law, especially where those changes are about prescribing less process and leaving more to professional judgment, we often fail to act. That is because we do not have evidence of how a change would work in practice. Without evidence, it is simply unclear what applying a change to all local authorities would mean.

The power would enable an individual local authority to test new ways of supporting children and young people. That would be done in a carefully controlled way, for a limited period of time with the sole purpose of achieving better outcomes for children. The evidence from each pilot will allow us to assess the need for changes to legislation across the country.

Local government supports this power. Local authorities want to do their best for the children in their care and to be trusted to try new approaches to do just that. However, we also heard concerns expressed in the other place and by those organisations that we consulted about the risk to children. Clearly, that is not something that would ever be on my agenda. The Government have listened and I will outline the changes we are making which I believe address the concerns that have been raised.

Government new clause 2 introduces the power to test different ways of working. It outlines the purpose of pilots that could be granted and the scope of the power. A pilot can be granted only if the application has demonstrated clearly how it will benefit children or young people in at least one of the following ways: promote their physical health and wellbeing; encourage them to express their views, wishes and feelings and take them into account; help them gain access to or make the best use of services provided by the local authority or its partners; promote high aspirations; promote stability in their home lives, relationships and educational work; or prepare them for adulthood and independent living.

The new clause makes it clear that the local authority must use the power with a view to achieving those aims. Efficiency and cost considerations are not a sufficient basis for a pilot. It makes it absolutely clear that pilots can be conducted only for the purposes of promoting children’s best interests and for no other reason.

Another important aspect of the new clause is that it sets out areas of legislation that the power cannot be used to revisit. That should remove any lingering concerns that some hon. Members expressed on Second Reading that pilots may be undertaken for the wrong reasons. In particular, it makes it clear that the power cannot be used to allow local authorities to contract out functions to profit-making organisations. While I confess to being puzzled by some of the debate that characterised the power wholly inaccurately as a means to privatisation, subsection (3) puts the issue beyond doubt.

[Steve McCabe]

Will the Minister clarify something? Unless I have misunderstood something, the new clause does not refer to pilots at all. What we are legislating for is the power for the Minister to make regulations to change the way in which local authorities deliver some services or meet some requirements. I do notice, however, that subsection (5) says that local authorities must apply to use the power. When they apply, will they have to propose a clear pilot that expresses what the innovation is, what the changes are and what they are designed to achieve, or will they simply have to say, “I’d like to change this regulation as it applies to us at the present time”?

[Edward Timpson]

To address the two points the hon. Gentleman made, we are introducing pilots because we are testing, in very controlled circumstances, a different way of carrying out the functions of a local authority: what they have to do and how they propose to do it in a different way. We will then be in a position to consider that in the controlled way that I will set out regarding both the process and the safeguards that follow, so that we have the evidence that, as I said at the start, we need to have—I think every hon. Member would agree—before we consider making any change more profound than simply piloting something that a local authority wanted to test as a way of establishing a new way of working.

I will come on to explain what that process is, because it is tightly controlled and heavily safeguarded which, in many respects, is unprecedented when compared with, for instance, the pilots under the previous Labour Government in relation to social work practices. I commend the Labour Government on setting those up, because they tried to find new ways of working within social work and they have led to some different ways of delivering those types of services—in Stafford, for example. That was done in a similar way by setting up pilots, testing ideas, seeing whether they would be successful and were something with which others might want to proceed.

I want to make it clear that I do not believe that changes to the duties would ever have been the subject of a successful application for the use of the power. Under the process and safeguards put in place, the case simply could not have been made that modifying one of the duties could result in better outcomes for children. However, by excluding them from the power, that point is put beyond doubt. The power to innovate is about testing changes to how local authorities deliver services, not questioning their fundamental responsibilities to children and young people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

rose—

[Steve McCabe]

rose—

[Simon Hoare]

I give way to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, who looks as if he may burst a blood vessel unless I do.

[Steve McCabe]

My blood vessels are in good shape, I am happy to say. Given the hon. Gentleman’s extensive understanding of the subject, would he care to say which specific item of legislation he would like local authorities to be exempted from at the moment, to advance innovation in child social work?

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman has fallen into the trap of misreading or misconstruing, accidentally or otherwise, the purpose of the new clauses. We can all read them, but the Opposition Front Bencher has characterised—

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

I certainly defer to the hon. Lady, who has a wealth of experience in this area, far greater and wider than I have. I will leave the point she makes about young people in the criminal justice system for the Minister to comment on, because I am not entirely sure about that. I think it is best to say that.

On the opportunity for joint working, if the hon. Lady looks at local government she will see shared services and joint chief executives and joint directors of this, that and the other, and councils coming together in order to safeguard frontline services, often across geographical boundaries. I was a councillor in Oxfordshire, where we hooked up with three councils in Gloucestershire to do all sorts of things.

The order of general competence contained in the 2011 Localism Act allows for that to continue and flourish, where there is joined-up working between local authorities and statutory partners and others, under these new clauses. All it will mean is a discussion between two, three or four parties to see if they want to buy into an innovative idea which they will then take to the Secretary of State.

To conclude, I think the new clauses are absolutely right. The tone and the tenor of the debate in the other place was a gross distortion of what the Government wish to do. That was certainly echoed in the remarks of my noble friend Lord True, leader of Richmond Council. Chris Wright, the Chief Executive of Catch22 said:

“Rather than restricting social workers to box ticking”—

that is not saying we are taking away all the boxes, there will still be boxes to tick, of course—

“we should give them the power to build interventions based upon their professional expertise”.

This clause moves us closer to the goal of more human services that work for children and their families. The phrase “human services” certainly struck a chord with me. These new clauses should be supported. The argument deployed by the hon. Lady should be resisted most strongly.

[Steve McCabe]

I agree with the Minister in welcoming innovation in our approach to children’s services. It is something he and I have in common. We both have a history of working with children in this area, and I welcome measures designed to free up social workers to do better for children.

When a Government embark on a radical change of this nature, we normally have some kind of preparation for that change. There might be a Green Paper or a White Paper, or extensive consultation to allow us to shape what will happen. What seems to be happening—I do not know whether this is what the Minister intends—is that we are legislating without any real sense of what the pilots are designed to do and without any real description of them. In fact, the Bill does not refer to pilots at all, and for all anyone knows, they could be an exercise in exempting local authorities from long-standing primary legislation.

I accept that the notion of pilots exists in the Minister’s mind and that that is his intention, but it is not clear from what we are debating or from what we are being asked to vote on, and will not be the result of the legislative changes. I do not want to restrict or inhibit any effort at innovation, but it would be useful if he could give the Committee an explanation of why he is departing so radically from the normal approach to these changes in the way he has decided to proceed.

I have some specific questions about what will happen. We debated the three-year limit with the potential extension of a further three years, but what will happen at the end of six years? Let us suppose that a pilot is an outstanding success. Will the Minister then legislate for the change to be applied across the entire country, or will the exemption simply lapse at the end of that period? As the hon. Member for North Dorset reminded us, the Minister might not be in post forever. Let us suppose there is a change. What will happen to the policy then?

[Kate Green]

I agree that we need to know what the intention is if these pilots roll out successfully, but do we not also need to know what will happen if they roll out unsuccessfully and whether there is any scope for early cancellation of an experiment if it is harming children?

[Steve McCabe]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It would be helpful if the Minister could make his intention clear to the Committee. It would be horrific if people were trapped in a failing system for three years because the legislation was passed in such haste that no one had envisaged what should be done if something went wrong. We seem to have had enough examples of that in legislation for children over the years.

I am genuinely curious to know what will happen if the pilots are successful. How will the Minister ensure that, if there is a change in the occupancy the post, what he seeks to do will continue beyond the six-year period? He mentioned the Labour pilots as an example of this not being particularly new, and that is the case, but if I remember correctly, those pilots were tied to sunset clauses that had to be renewed in legislation. I seem to recall being in this very Committee Room when he proposed a statutory instrument to enable one of the Labour pilot provisions to be converted into law.

Will the Minister say a little more about research into the pilots? I have no problem with his panel of experts. They look like people we should be able to rely on; I hope we can. As I understand it, their role will be to assess the initial offer and proposal. We need to know about the thorough examination of the pilot.

How will we know that it is a success? Presumably, we are not going to rely simply on the local authority saying, “Hey, this has worked. Isn’t it good?” Will the Minister tell us whether there will be a requirement, when the local authority introduces the measure, for it to describe exactly how the proposals are to be assessed and measured, so that the expert panel can take that into consideration? Will he also tell us whether this innovation will cover only a single local authority introducing a pilot, or is it likely that two or three local authorities in partnership could come to him with a specific proposal?

[Kate Green]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a particularly important question in the context of Greater Manchester, for example, where children’s services are the responsibility of each of the 10 local authorities? There may well be a wish to look across the footprint of the whole Greater Manchester conurbation when we move forward with the Government’s devolution plans.

[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend because she anticipates what I was going to ask. This proposal comes at a time when a lot of other innovation is taking place in local government. We have the proposals in Greater Manchester, Merseyside and the West Midlands Combined Authority. I am not clear how this measure would fit with a proposal from one of those authorities. I am not trying to be clever; I assume the Minister has discussed this with colleagues and some thought has been given to it. It is part of the question about what happens after three or six years. I am interested to know how the proposal would make progress. I do not want to dwell on this matter.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I am sure the Minister will respond to my hon. Friend’s points but I asked the Minister in written questions what would happen after the six-year period. The response was that it would not be possible for a trial to be extended beyond six years. So, even if this measure works, it will be totally pointless because it will not be extended beyond six years.

[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I assumed that it could not be the case that we would spend hours in Committee legislating for something that could be a success but would simply end after six years. It is important, since we are being asked to make decisive changes to primary legislation, that the Minister provides answers not just for the Opposition but for his own Back Benchers, as they may have to explain this in their constituencies. That would be very helpful.

I want to deal with the question of who is or is not supporting the Minister’s proposals. It is always difficult when a Minister starts reading a list. The rule of thumb is that his officials find a list of supporting organisations and give it to the Minister so he can read it out. That is standard and happens in every Government. What the Minister never mentions are the people who do not share his view.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Timpson]

I want to reassure the hon. Gentleman—I am sure this issue is something he will follow through—that the process I set out earlier is very clear. Every application that goes through that very rigorous process, which includes the application going through the expert panel and the Secretary of State then deciding whether to go ahead with a pilot, has to be put before Parliament so that it can decide whether that pilot should go ahead. It is a time-limited pilot; it does not change any legislation on the statute book in relation to children’s social care. There is rightly an opportunity for Parliament to have its say and express its view.

[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful to the Minister. It is absolutely fair that by negative or affirmative resolution there will be an opportunity for a small weighted Committee of Members of Parliament—like all Committees, its membership will be determined by the parliamentary majority—to determine that outcome. I would not want to mislead the Committee by pretending otherwise. None the less, the crucial decision about giving the Minister a blank cheque to remove protections will be taken today by this Committee. We will find out the consequences of that decision further down the line. That is the point I am seeking to make. In my view, that is innovative, but I am not sure it is the kind of innovation I want to be associated with.

[Kate Green]

I had not planned to speak at this point, but a number of points that have come up in the past hour have raised further questions in my mind, and I hope that the Minister will allow me to explore a few of them a little more. It is important to say to all Members that no Labour Member is against innovation or the notion that we should take seriously a lot of the ideas and suggestions of local experts around local circumstances, but when it comes to child protection, we have a long history in this country of learning from when things go wrong, and it is important that we protect that learning. Much of the range of child safeguarding legislation that we have today has been a result of very dire consequences for very vulnerable children.

It is therefore important that we are mindful of what we could be unpicking, particularly given that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, pointed out, we have got a permission in advance that says, “Go off and do what you like, and then come back and tell us how it went.” That causes some concern for Opposition Members. May I ask the Minister specifically whom he sees as being accountable for the outcome of a pilot authorised by him or the Secretary of State, particularly if it has caused harm to an individual child? It is really important that the public understand who is responsible and ultimately accountable in those circumstances. As he knows, those are the most difficult, public, contentious and distressing cases; it is very important that we know where the buck stops.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe]

I do not want to get too bogged down in detail. The Minister may need time to answer this, but I am curious: if the circumstances he just described led to a court case over a care outcome, with one local authority arguing that it had never supported the exemption and the other having argued for it, how does he think that might affect the outcome of the judgment?

[Kate Green]

I am afraid I have no idea. The Minister might be able to offer his reflections on that—if not immediately, perhaps he could come back to the Committee in due course.

As well as social care, the other area where there is real interest in Greater Manchester in moving forward with a combined authority footprint is the justice system—both the criminal and family justice system. I declare an interest: I am a life member of the Magistrates Association, which has raised particular concerns and submitted written evidence to the Committee. I am very unclear what the intentions are in Greater Manchester in terms of reshaping the justice system on that combined conurbation footprint.

The Magistrates Association has rightly pointed to the useful work of Lord Laming, which highlighted the need for a much more integrated approach to young people in the youth justice system. There are concerns that such integration could be impacted if the proposed pilots do not specifically engage with the justice agencies with which those young children might come into contact. It is unclear what impact the proposals will have on the family courts and on young people in the criminal justice system.

This is my final question to the Minister. In Greater Manchester and more generally, how does he see relationships between local authorities making suggestions for innovation sitting alongside the relationships that need to exist with a whole range of other non-local authority services with which children and families come into contact? It is not clear to me what happens if a local authority says that it wants to innovate in a particular way and take advantage of exemptions from current statutory positions if other public authorities say that that really is not acceptable to them or may conflict with their statutory obligations. Will the Minister explain to the Committee how such potential conflicts would be handled?

[Edward Timpson]

I am grateful for hon. Members’ contributions to this important debate, which have, understandably, provoked a lot of discussion on the attempt in these clauses to enable local authorities to try new ways of working with the sole purpose of improving children’s outcomes. We have had an opportunity to explore not only some of the detail around the process, which is a crucial part of this House’s scrutiny, but what we are seeking to achieve, and for me, that is ultimately the main driver behind these clauses.

I should say at the outset that the principle behind this approach is not necessarily new. I spoke earlier about the social work practices under the last Labour Government, and of course there are also the provisions that were brought in in 2002 by the last Labour Government to allow for innovation in education. In many ways, the proposals before us are closely modelled on those provisions. It is helpful to have that context when discussing how we try to do in children’s services what the last Labour Government tried to do in education.

I will do my best to address the many points made by hon. Members, and apologise in advance if I am unable to remember all of them, or to scribble quickly enough to ensure that I answer every question, but I will do my best. I want to start by talking about the question around the Secretary of State’s intervention in this process. I assure the House that it is absolutely not the Government’s intention to direct a local authority to use the power against its wishes. It is really crucial that the House understands that this is a grassroots power, designed for those working most closely for children; it is for them to decide how to use it. This is not a top-down policy. It is a bottom-up policy that enables local authorities, under their own steam, to come forward with their own ways of trying to improve outcomes for local children, which will then be closely scrutinised, as has already been set out. The Secretary of State’s powers of direction arise where a local authority is not discharging any of its children’s social care functions to an adequate standard. That is where it would apply.

Hon. Members have asked why we have chosen to exclude specific duties. I want to be clear that by excluding certain duties from the scope of the power, we are not signalling the wholesale disapplication of other duties that apply. The chief determinant of whether a pilot will be granted is whether it can promote one of the outcomes that I have outlined.

[Steve McCabe]

I think I must have misheard the Minister there. Did he say that it would apply where a local authority is not adequately discharging its duties?

[Edward Timpson]

What I said was that the Secretary of State only uses her powers of direction when they arise where a local authority is not discharging any of its children’s social care functions to an adequate standard. I apologise if I did not speak with enough eloquence, or provided one less word than necessary in that sentence to make it acceptable to the hon. Gentleman.

There are many aspects of legislation where I expect local authorities would find it extremely difficult to demonstrate how a change would be in the best interests of children. We are seeking to remove a small number of specific duties because they reflect the core responsibilities of local authorities to protect the wellbeing of children. We have taken extensive legal advice on exactly what those core duties would be, based on the legislative framework, and we have also worked with local authorities to make sure that we have the right aspects and duties in place to ensure that they are out of scope. We aim to put that beyond doubt, so that these core duties cannot be revisited. [Interruption.] I can see that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak is itching to get up.

[Steve McCabe]

indicated dissent.

[Edward Timpson]

No, he is just listening intently. That is good to see. I should also reassure the hon. Member for South Shields that the principles that are set out—

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

Yes, I do, and we have a scheme that does just that. As the years go by, it is recruiting increasing, albeit small, numbers of highly qualified, experienced ex-military personnel.

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

10. Whether her Department has closed any state secondary schools within three years of their conversion to a single trust academy.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)]

We have not permanently closed any converter academies within three years of their conversion to a single trust academy. However, we have rebrokered or merged converter academies.

[Steve McCabe]

If no school has been closed within three years of such a conversion and no academy closed solely as a result of a bad Ofsted report, and if there is no reliable estimate of the costs of closure or of the availability of alternative places, future demand, real travel patterns and journey times to alternative schools, how do the Government justify reneging on their promise to pupils and parents to rescue Baverstock Academy in my constituency, rather than close their school?

[Justine Greening]

No decision has been taken yet by Ministers on the future of Baverstock Academy, which has twice now been put into special measures by Ofsted. Ministers are going to consider all options, and of course the view of parents and the community, before reaching a final decision. The key factor will be ensuring that children get good access to a good education.

Children and Social Work Bill [ Lords ] (Fourth sitting)

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 15th December 2016 Public Bill Committees

Division 9

Ayes: 6

---

Labour: 6

Noes: 8

---

Conservative: 8

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

On a point of order, Mrs Main. I want to raise very briefly one additional point about clause 16 that is not related to child refugees.

[The Chair]

We are about to consider it. The hon. Gentleman may make his remarks in the clause stand part debate.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

We want to hear them.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Steve McCabe]

It is always great when someone clarifies the situation. I am grateful, Mrs Main.

I notice that clause 16 specifies the partners for the local safeguarding arrangements as being the local authority, the police and the clinical commissioning group. Will the Minister briefly say why the clause limits it to those partners? Did he consider a role for education? If so, why did he decide not to pursue that? I realise that the partners are entitled to bring in other people they regard as appropriate, but I wonder what the reasoning is for limiting the specified partners to the local authority, the police and the clinical commissioning group.

[Edward Timpson]

I am happy to clarify that. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the list is not limited to those three core members, as the legislation allows for other agencies to be involved in those arrangements.

As I said earlier, we asked Alan Wood to do an independent review of local safeguarding arrangements, and his recommendation was that three core agencies—the police, the local authority and the clinical commissioning group, on behalf of the health service—needed to be at the centre of that body and that decision-making process, as they envelope a large proportion of the contact children have with safeguarding services.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the education arena has clear reasons to be involved in those arrangements. I would be surprised if it was not, bearing in mind the role it has through “Keeping children safe in education” guidance and needing to have a safeguarding officer within schools. The education arena needs to be involved and subsumed into wider safeguarding discussions, to ensure the overall strategy is effective. However, the main reason for giving those three core agencies statutory responsibility for safeguarding in their local area is that we accepted the recommendation and rationale from Alan Wood.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 16 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 17

Local child safeguarding practice reviews

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Timpson]

Clause 33 underpins our ambition to improve the practice of social work and raise the status of the profession. It establishes a new body corporate, Social Work England, which will be a new, bespoke regulator for this vital and unique profession.

First, I will set out the case and motivation for reform. In many ways, the easiest thing would be to do nothing and not prioritise social work as a key plank of the Government’s efforts to transform children’s social care. I think we all agree that high-quality social work can transform lives and that social workers play a critical role in our society. They deliver a range of vital services, from safeguarding the most vulnerable to supporting those with complex needs to live life to the full. Every day, social workers deal with complex and fraught situations that require a great depth of skill, knowledge, understanding and empathy. When social workers are not able to fulfil their role competently the consequences can be catastrophic, which is why the Government have developed a significant reform programme to improve the quality of social work and of the systems that support social workers. That includes investing £750 million since 2010 in supporting both traditional and fast-track routes into the profession and investing £100 million to date in the children’s social care innovation programme, so that local authorities and others can evidence how to reform services and practice to be more effective.

More is needed. To underpin the reforms, social work needs a regulatory system that meets the needs of this unique profession. Such a regulatory system will help to improve public safety and promote the status and standing of social work. The need for an improved system of regulation for the social work profession in England has been highlighted in recent independent reviews.

The hon. Lady asked why the social work profession should have a different regulator from the health profession. The approach of the current regulator, the Health and Care Professions Council, is designed to maintain minimum standards of public safety and initial education across a range of professions, rather than to drive up standards in any one profession. Driving up standards is vital for a profession in which the safety of our most vulnerable people is inextricably linked to the highest standards of practice. I would argue also that social work is a distinct and highly skilled profession and that its practitioners manage complex risks and work with vulnerable children and adults on a daily basis. A new specialist regulator for social work reflects that reality and will be able to focus on the unique nature of social work practice and on the education and training needed to support it in a way that is, unfortunately, not currently possible.

Clause 33 provides for the establishment of a new regulator for the social work profession in England. It makes it clear that our intention is to set up a regulator that is a separate legal entity at arm’s length from Government. It is important to maintain appropriate distance between the new regulator and Government, and I make it clear that it has never been our intention to give Government the power to make decisions about the fitness to practise of individual social workers.

The clause also introduces schedule 2, which sets out the new body’s governance and accountability arrangements. We may want to discuss that in more detail later, but our ambition in establishing a new bespoke, independent regulator for social work is to continue improving the practice of social work and raising the status of the profession.

[Steve McCabe]

I thought it might be better to intervene now rather than take up time later. On the financing of the regulator, the Minister will be familiar with the experience of the College of Social Work, for which the start-up cost included about £5 million of Government money. The college only ever reached half its anticipated registration figure, and it eventually had to close because it did not have sufficient funds to continue.

I have three specific questions. First, is the Minister confident that the regulator will be financially self-sustaining without the cost being prohibitive enough to cause a problem with registration? Secondly, will individuals have to register as individuals, or will it be possible for an employer or local authority to register them? That happened under the College of Social Work, but of course that was part of its undoing. Finally, the regulator appears to be taking on some of the functions that were previously associated with the College of Social Work and the former Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work, including education and training. Is he confident that the combination of setting the standards, approving the qualifying training and regulating the practice of individuals is compatible with having a single organisation? I recognise that he has made a lot of changes since the original proposals, so I am not criticising what he is trying to do. I am trying to be clear about how the regulator will work, given past experiences of efforts in this direction that have not exactly been that successful.

[The Chair]

That was a substantial intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Timpson]

Clause 44 enables the Secretary of State, through regulations, to confer power on the regulator to charge fees in relation to registration or continued registration in the register provided for in clause 36; assessing whether a person meets a professional standard relating to proficiency, under clause 38(4); and the approval or continued approval of education and training courses in accordance with a scheme provided for in clause 39. Social workers currently pay £180 every two years to be registered with the Health and Care Professions Council. Those fees enable the HCPC to carry out its functions effectively. Clause 44 will enable Social Work England to have a power similar to the one that already exists.

Our vision is to create a confident and highly capable social work profession with the right knowledge and skills. I am sure that hon. Members would agree that that is worth pursuing, but to support that vision we need to invest in the profession by putting in place a new, bespoke regulator that focuses on practice excellence from initial education through to post-qualification specialism.

The clause is clear that before the regulator can determine the level of the fee, it must consult those persons whom it considers appropriate and must gain approval from the Secretary of State. That is a very significant part of the clause. Although it is right and proper that the regulator has appropriate freedoms and flexibilities, we want to ensure that any potential increase in fees is proportionate. I assure hon. Members that there is no intention that this will involve any element of profit making. The powers in respect of fees simply allow flexibility in the use of funding, thereby allowing cross-subsidisation. They would allow, for example, newly qualified social workers to pay a reduced fee for the first two years of registration as they do now.

The clause also enables the Secretary of State to confer power on the regulator to charge for the approval or continued approval of education and training courses. Again, that happens in other professions, but not currently in social work.

[Steve McCabe]

I just want this to be clear. Is it the Minister’s intention that anyone working for any organisation in England whose job could reasonably be described as that of a social worker will have to be registered with the regulator to continue to do that job?

[Edward Timpson]

This is in relation to a children and families social worker. There are other roles that people can have within children’s social care, but if someone wants to qualify and be accredited as a social worker in that respect, the regulator is there for them. Of course it also incorporates adult social work and the regulation of that profession, but for any social worker there is a generic part to the degree, which the hon. Gentleman will be aware of. We want to ensure that there is consistency of approach to how we ensure that we know who meets the necessary standard, and that is reflected in the detail set out in subsequent clauses and the regulations that will follow.

Under the current regime, the cost is met from the registration fees paid by individual social workers. Again, it is right to make provision to enable the regulator at least to consider that option, but the clause is clear that it would need to consult before determining the level of any fee in order to understand any potential impact. The clause will also enable the new regulator to charge for assessing whether a person meets a professional standard relating to proficiency. Under clause 38(4), the Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about arrangements for such assessments.

The Government are keen to promote the development of post-qualification specialist practice, and we firmly believe that Social Work England can play a positive role in that, albeit as a regulator. In the first instance, it will take on functions relating to best interest assessors and approved mental health professionals. Over time, it may have a role in supporting efforts to develop post-qualifying specialisms for accredited child and family practitioners. The power under clause 38 for regulations to make provision about arrangements for the regulator to assess proficiency and the power dealt with in clause 44 for regulations to make provision for the regulator to charge a fee in respect of such assessments are included to support this future possibility. I am sure that hon. Members will agree that it is sensible in not tying the regulator’s hands to the extent of potentially affecting sustainability in the long term.

Before exercise of the powers, including determination of the level of any such fee, regulations must be made through the affirmative procedure and the regulator must consult any persons whom they consider appropriate. That ensures that the appropriate safeguards are in place and addresses the issues raised by the hon. Lady. I hope that on that basis, the Committee will support the clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 44 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 45 to 50 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Clauses 51 to 57 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mr Syms.)

Children and Social Work Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 15th December 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. However, the clause singles out adoption for special attention; the issue needs to be looked at in the wider context of overall Government policy relating to children in care and plans for permanence.

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

The Government probably have the right intention in trying to put the emphasis on the permanence of arrangements for children, but the point my hon. Friend is making about the singling out of adoption is that adoption has a history, which is also negative.

Anyone who has read the book about Philomena Lee’s experience or seen the recent film of it will know how adoption can be misused, and there is a history to adoption in this country that is not always positive. When we consider the issue of adoption, we should always think about the best interests of the child and not risking lapsing back into bad old habits and bad old days, when adoption was misused and abused in this country.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

My hon. Friend is right—adoption should not be the only option for a child. It is lazy to think that. That approach does not take into account all the other options that are there and that are in the best interests of the child.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe]

The Minister pointed out that there has in the past been a misuse of special guardianship orders—they were used in a way that was never intended, and the Government acted to address that. Does my hon. Friend feel that it would further the Government’s intentions for the clause if the Minister assured us that he planned to give clear guidance to local authorities stating that the evidence presented to the court on the relationship with the prospective adoptive parents and all other options must be absolutely balanced? In that way, we would not be in danger of thinking that one measure was being inadvertently promoted above another.

[The Chair]

Order. Before I call the hon. Lady to respond to that remark, may I draw her attention to the fact that this is a very narrowly worded clause about the duty to have regard to the relationship with adopters during the adoption process? I encourage her not to range too freely about why adoption is not necessarily a good thing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe]

The Minister was talking earlier about the drop in the number of adoptions. One of the factors for that may have been that local authority departments misinterpreted the court rulings as advice to slow down the number of adoptions. They are easily influenced by such things. Is it the Minister’s intention to offer some guidance to local authorities in the terms he has just stated, so that it is absolutely clear to them what their responsibilities are and what the intentions of clause 9 are, and how that has to be weighed against all of the other considerations he has just referred to?

[Edward Timpson]

I am happy to look again at what the guidance might say and what might be appropriate to reflect the change in the law in this small area. The primary legislation that is relevant to these cases is clear. I am on the record, not only in this Committee but on previous occasions, making it clear that it has to be a decision based on that child’s needs, taking into account all of the usual factors set out in the welfare checklist and so on. I am happy to look at that. On that basis, I hope hon. Members feel reassured, and that the clause can stand part of the Bill.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

There is a small hint of irony here. I remember in my early days as a Member of Parliament being asked at the last minute to go on “Newsnight” to press the then Labour Government on why they still held the line of insisting on not fully publishing serious case reviews and asking only that executive summaries be published, as that was deemed to be sufficient. I am pleased that the hon. Lady has moved her party to a more enlightened position. We recognise, as I think she does, that there will be very exceptional circumstances where the publication of the full report may not be in the best interests of the child concerned or siblings and other family members. In those cases, it is important that, against the presumption in every case that it should publish the full report, the panel is able to exercise its professional judgment and discretion not to do so. The panel should also consider information that it is able to publish about implications for future practice.

[Steve McCabe]

rose—

[Edward Timpson]

I knew that the hon. Gentleman would not be able to resist.

[Steve McCabe]

I just want to ask the Minister about a very simple point. I agree with what he is saying and I remember the occasion to which he referred. Given that part of the purpose of the measure is to improve learning and understanding, in cases where it is deemed inappropriate to publish the full report for the reasons he gave, will academic bodies have access to that information, or will they be excluded from access as well?

[Edward Timpson]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm what he means by “information”?

[Steve McCabe]

When the full report will not be published for the reasons the Minister mentioned, will it be available to academic institutions? Will they be able to make full use of the full report or will they be denied access?

[Edward Timpson]

The report that will be published will be the redacted report, which will then be publicly available. We want to ensure that as much learning as possible can be extrapolated from that report. That is why we are setting up the What Works centre, which will be a repository for all serious case reviews. Practitioners and academics will be able to use the findings from those reviews to inform their own understanding and practice.