Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Viscount Eccles

Monday 18th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Viscount Eccles]

My Lords, I would like to continue to probe the question: what is the Government’s true opinion of the Children’s Commissioner as a corporation sole? I hope that my Government are not exclusively depending on John Dunford. His report was published three years ago. That is a third of the life of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner so I suppose that something must have happened over the past three years; I do not think that things will be exactly the same and I would like to know how they have developed.

On another occasion, maybe on Report, I will want to have a longer discussion about independence. I will confine myself to saying that arm’s-length relationships between public bodies and the Government are twisted arm’s-length relationships, and if you are funded by public money there is no such thing as independence in the true meaning of the word. If you consider the American War of Independence, which resulted in the United States of America, you can completely forget that as a meaning of the word when it is applied to a public body.

Three years on, I will just make the comment that John Dunford did his report on his own, in five months; he is a very able man. He did not have any peer group review; I think it was mentioned earlier that sometimes it is a good thing to have some peer group review. I hope that the Government are not just taking cover behind John Dunford because by now they should have an opinion of their own.

I have two background thoughts when I raise these issues. One is the size of the superstructure that we have built in recent years on top of what is, to me, the front line, which has been very frequently mentioned during our debates. This is a very big superstructure, starting with the United Nations—190 signatories, not including the United States of America; some 70 of them have a national human rights institution. The expert committee in Geneva gets a report every five years. We last sent ours in 2008. The next one is going in 2014, which seems to be six years, not five, and there may be some message in that. That draft report is 200 pages long. It is sponsored by the department present here today, which has to get evidence from the whole of the rest of government, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, mentioned.

My second amendment is also a probing amendment. I just wanted to remind myself that everybody is concerned with the human rights of children. There is no exception—apart from, perhaps, one or two people living on a beach in western Scotland who have completely dropped out into a hut. However, I do not think that there is anybody who is not concerned. There are parents and there are teachers; many people have two roles.

If one third of children under 18 are not represented by an adult, by whom are they going to be represented? We have to remember the huge scope of the subject we are discussing, and sometimes a degree of unreality comes into it. For example, the Explanatory Notes say that this Bill is “strengthening” the Children’s Commissioner. In what way is it strengthening the Children’s Commissioner? It does not appear from my noble friend’s answer to the previous debate that the commissioner is going to get any more money. They are given more duties; they are even given a direction by Parliament to look into advocacy, while the rest of the Explanatory Notes say that we are not going to tell them what to do, we are going to leave them entirely free to decide what to do for themselves—but apparently not in the matter of advocacy.

The Children’s Commissioner also has a duty in the Bill to,

“consider the potential effect on the rights of children of government policy proposals and government proposals for legislation”.

You could employ 27 people on doing only that and they would have plenty to do. The Government need to be much clearer with us on what they mean by strengthening. If you add to the duties of an organisation but do not add to its resources, you could argue that you weaken it.

Where has the Children’s Commissioner stood in relation to the size of the task? I think that the commissioners have done rather well. They have done research, co-operated with a lot of other bodies, produced interesting reports, been a thorn in the flesh and rather successful lobbyists. Whom have they lobbied? They have lobbied the Government in general. You can argue about whether you want a lobbyist 100% funded by public money, or whether you would rather it was Amnesty International or some other rather looser and less controlled body that you want to do your lobbying, but it seems to have worked rather well.

The question I end with is: what is going to change? How is this Bill going to change the capability of the Children’s Commissioner? Or is it going to continue with business as usual? I really would like an answer to that question. I beg to move.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I have some amendments in this group, but before I speak to them, I will say a word about the amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. I do not support it because it would take out what is the most significant improvement in the powers and duties of the Children’s Commissioner: namely, the duty to promote and protect the rights of children in England. This is making our commissioner a rights-based commissioner for the first time and I very much welcome that. I hope that the Bill makes a difference and that the Government are not, in the words of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, “playing a game”.

I will speak to Amendments 250, 254, 255 and 256 in this group. Before I do, I will mention my support for Amendment 252 on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and Amendment 266A about a duty on public bodies to respect children’s rights and give proper regard to their views, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey. However, in order to save the Committee’s time, I will leave both noble Baronesses to speak for me on those amendments.

Before I go into the detail of my amendments, I will pay tribute to the coalition Government and the current Ministers, and particularly to the former Children’s Minister, my colleague Sarah Teather MP, for bringing the Children’s Commissioner for England much closer to the Paris principles and making the office a much better national human rights institution, as it should have been from the start.