Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Howarth of Breckland and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I have some difficulty in the way that this clause and the next clauses are drafted. There are some overlaps, and I think that that is what is causing some of the debate.

In my Second Reading speech, I emphasised the importance of relevant partners, including government departments and wider. Whether we can specify them, I do not know. But where we can specify them is in the local offer, which is what comes next. That is why it is difficult to debate one part of this Bill without debating the other.

In the local offer, the local authority and its partners should be able to provide young people with the assurance that they can be exempt from council tax, which we will debate again later; that they can get proper accommodation; that they will not have another agency or department evict them if they run into arrears; and that they will get proper help, if they need it, with any benefit system. Those things need to be available to them in the local offer through the partners. I am not much good at drafting, but I hope that the Government will take back what I have said and look at how those two things knit together.

As I said earlier, “leaving care” is a very unfortunate phrase. It implies that you are leaving the services that you need. These youngsters are “moving on” from one stage of their care life into, we hope, another one, if we manage to see them through to the age of 21 and possibly 25. That is the time when the government partners will be most important. Earlier on, the local authority will need to work closely with different partners such as the police and health—that needs to be clear. I hope that the drafting can be looked at again so that the partners can be specified crisply and clearly—like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, I think that that is the only way to get good legislation—and somehow be included.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said. The spirit of these amendments strikes me as very appropriate. What we need is a duty that is appropriate to people who are not corporate parents but have a duty and a responsibility to do what they can within their sphere of responsibility to help the corporate parent to carry out the corporate parent’s responsibility. Of course there is another area where in a sense this happens: in ordinary families. These authorities may well have a duty as well to try to help the ordinary parent, not just the corporate parent, to fulfil their responsibilities. That is not so easy these days for many. So while I entirely agree that this is a proper course to take, and I suggest, along with the noble Lord, Lord Warner, that it should be drafted along the lines of the Care Act, we ought also to have at the back of our minds the fact that there are other children who sometimes need special care, too.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I speak as a corporate parent. I am a corporate parent for the nearly 400 young people in the care of Wiltshire Council. I have concerns about the amendment. I believe that I am responsible as the corporate parent for such a child’s life chances—so I am responsible for the plans for the child’s health and for challenging the local commissioning group and the local GP who is responsible for looked-after children in our county to give that child the right services. I believe that that is my responsibility, as it would be my responsibility as a parent.

I am concerned that if we move some of the responsibility to another body, it will not do it as well as it would if we were pushing it to do it. So I welcome the strengthening in the Bill of the responsibility of the corporate parent, but that corporate parent is responsible for not just health but life chances, including apprenticeships, traineeships and jobs into the future. That is my responsibility as a corporate parent, just as it is to give support to my own children as they move on through their life chances—not, I have to say, just up until 18.

I very much look forward to debating looking after a looked-after child for many years into their future. I am still looking after mine; a couple of them are in their 40s and they still come home for advice and support. In Wiltshire we are looking at how we might use volunteers, the voluntary sector, mentors in the communities and people who are special in those young people’s and young adults’ lives to help us to do that. So please strengthen our role and allow us to be the ones to strongly challenge other departments to deliver the services that our children require.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, first, I very much support the amendments that wish to provide legal assistance to children who are in need. It is extremely important that they should have such help. I suggest for consideration setting up an advice centre because the problems that unaccompanied minors who come from abroad face include the intricate law in relation to immigration. If you go to a high street solicitor, it is difficult to get the kind of advice that you might wish for in that situation. It would be important to have a small team of specialists set up by the Government, or by anyone whom the Government could persuade to set it up, which would be available to provide that kind of help to children in that situation. That would be children who are in care or unaccompanied minors who come into our system otherwise than by the ordinary ways of care. It may be a good idea to bolster this type of amendment with a suggestion as to how it might be carried out efficiently and at reasonable cost.

My second point is in relation to Amendment 9. I understand the problem broadly in terms of the report of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, and other reports—for example, the chief officers’ consideration of it. To ask people to do this is a great aim, in a sense, but I feel that if we are to do this we should offer them some assistance on how they go about it. Is the main way of approaching it to try to prevent the children in care committing criminal offences, small or large, or is it saying that if the children commit small offences we should persuade the police to do nothing about it? In other words, we should not commit these people to the organisation that deals with complaints generally. As has been said, ordinary children may find themselves in a disciplinary situation in their own families which does not involve the police and it may be that something of that kind is required. I am not at all certain how this problem can be dealt with but I am very much aware of it, and of the point of view that it should be dealt with. I would like to give more help to the people who we are asking to deal with it in how they go about it.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I want to make two small points, the first of which was introduced quite well by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. The one report not mentioned was that of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children, which reported on an inquiry jointly with the police about children and the police. One thing that came clearly out of that inquiry was that when children kick off—to use a phrase that children would use—and create a disturbance because of difficulties in a children’s home, if the police are called to help deal with that disturbance they have to record it as an offence. But if it happens at home in a domestic situation and the police help out, it is not recorded as an offence because the people concerned cannot be pressed to press charges. We must look at the spectrum of these things because once a child has a criminal record we know that they are likely to feel fewer inhibitions about starting on that road.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Baroness Howarth of Breckland and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I join those who have congratulated the Minister on recognising the special needs of this particularly deserving group. I also congratulate those who have brought these matters to his attention. I feel that this demonstrates very clearly that, when a good argument is put forward, it will be listened to.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I am sorry that I cannot join totally in the congratulations, although obviously the noble Baronesses, Lady Pitkeathley and Lady Hollis, have achieved great things. However, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and I were very keen that those adopters of difficult children who join their families should also be excluded from the cap. In his reply, the Minister accepted that, where sibling groups were adopted, that would be an exclusion, but where there was one child, his words were, I think, that they would be not unlike any other family.

I suggest to the Minister that any adopted child is not like any other family. Children in care who are going to be adopted are not sweetness and light on the whole. They have had very difficult childhoods and are going to need extraordinary care. I express my disappointment. We have written to him to say that we are disappointed that adopted children have not been included in the list. Having said that, I am extremely grateful for those who are.

Childcare Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Howarth of Breckland and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

I shall simply add to what my noble friend has just said a concern that I have, as vice-president of the Local Government Association. The Minister well knows that local government faces a funding gap of probably £9.5 billion, and £6.6 billion of cost pressures by 2020. My concern relates to the development of the Childcare Bill, about which I am very positive; for working families, it will make all the difference. My question is about the wider envelope of the funding review. When we get that review, will we actually understand in those totals what local authorities will have to give up and where the pressures will be to meet the extraordinary cost of childcare provision? We have to be very aware of the perverse consequences that might arise, and I would like the analysis to look at the pressure on small units in particular. Loss of the cross-subsidy will result in them having to close, because local authorities are not prepared to pay top-up fees; as the Minister knows, I have personal experience of that happening.

In conclusion, will the wider envelope take account of not only the Childcare Bill but the other pressures on local authorities? If so, what kind of priorities will be set, and can the wider review examine the cross-subsidy issue and the loss of places across the country?

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened to the comments made in support of the amendment—Amendments 30 and 31 are really just consequential. The amendment requires that the report on finance should take place before Clauses 1 to 3 come into force in an Act of Parliament. It does not require information to be provided at Report. What is more, the amendment contemplates that the clauses will be enforced before the review can take place and be completed. The arguments in support of the amendment are therefore not precisely in accordance with the amendment itself, because the terms of the amendment would be satisfied if the information came forward before the clauses were brought into force—which, of course, is after the Bill reaches the statute book.