Archbishops’ Commission on Families and Households: Love Matters Report

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Tuesday 13th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, some of the work that we are doing has already anticipated the recommendations, including the one to which the noble Baroness referred. She will be aware of our significant investment of around £300 million to enable 75 local authorities to create family hubs designed to give children the best start in life and of our childcare reforms which include £4.1 billion of investment by 2027-28 to fund 30 hours of free childcare for children over the age of nine months.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, as co-founder of the Family Hubs Network, I am pleased that the archbishops’ report, Love Matters, mentions family hubs more than 30 times and recommends that they also help separating families. The Ministry of Justice’s mediation reforms for England and Wales anticipate family hubs helping separated or separating parents to access services. However, there are not yet family hubs in Wales. While recognising that social care is a devolved matter, how might the Government encourage Wales to integrate family support in this way?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Like my noble friend, the Government are committed to championing family hubs. I will ensure that my officials engage with colleagues in the devolved Administration to share evidence and best practice about them.

Schools: “Ghost Children”

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As the noble Lord may agree, I am not sure that a home education Bill would be quick. More importantly, we support the rights of parents to educate their children at home and know that many parents are very committed and do a fantastic job. Equally, we cannot overlook the rising numbers of children being home educated. We remain committed to introducing statutory local authority registers of children not in school, but in the meantime we are working closely with local authorities on a voluntary basis to collect that data. I recently met the chair of the ADCS to discuss this exact point.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, guidance on school absence refers to multiagency and whole-family approaches but not to family hubs, which specialise in this for children aged nought to 19, not just the early years. They exist in more than half of English local authorities, but the Family Hubs Network—which I co-founded, as recorded in my entry in the register—finds many schools not engaging with them. Will the Minister commit to updating the guidance to refer specifically to family hubs so that they become the starting point for addressing anxiety and other underlying issues affecting our children?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his work in this area and I agree with him that very often persistent absence will not be the only issue that is going on in a family; therefore, the nature of family hubs is ideal to address this. The department has commissioned a team of 10 expert attendance advisers who are working with every local authority and with multi-academy trusts to help address issues of persistent absence. As part of that support, those advisers strongly recommend and encourage engagement with family hubs.

Schools: Transgender Guidance

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Farmer]

To ask His Majesty’s Government when they intend to publish their official transgender guidance for schools.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, we recognise that issues relating to sex and gender can be complex and sensitive for schools to navigate. That is why we are developing guidance to support schools in relation to transgender pupils. It is important that we are able to consider a wide range of views to get this guidance right, so we have committed to holding a public consultation on the draft guidance prior to publication.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer, but schools need this guidance now. There is much confusion in schools, children are suffering, and teachers and headteachers are struggling. Also, the experience of NHS gender dysphoria services points towards future class actions, brought by former pupils. Some of those who want to detransition fully will be unable to do so. Will the Minister assure this House, and headteachers and their staff, that this guidance will be definitive enough to protect schools legally?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The guidance to support schools in relation to transgender pupils will set out schools’ legal duties and aim to provide clear information to support their consideration of how to respond to transgender issues. However, the guidance will not create new laws or be able to pre-empt the decision of a court on any specific case that might be brought.

Independent Review of Children’s Social Care

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for introducing and championing this important review, the design group for which I was a member of. I welcome the review’s stress on preventing, where possible, children coming into care in the first place and the care system acting as a conveyor belt into crime and other highly detrimental outcomes. Rightly, it prioritises children having the relationships they need to thrive during care and once they leave it. It is love and relationships which make life worth while.

Currently, relationships with members of birth families and the wider community are an undertapped resource. Sibling and other family relationships are still, too often, treated as disposable, despite tried and tested models such as Lifelong Links. This programme aims to ensure that children and young people in care have a positive support network around them to help them while in care and when they leave. An independent co-ordinator works with a child in care to find out who is important to them and who they would like to be in touch with, then searches for these people in a variety of ways. A family group conference brings them together to make a plan with and for the child, which the local authority supports, so these relationships continue to grow.

DfE’s innovation fund trialled Lifelong Links in 17 local authorities. Over 2,000 young people from 31 councils across the UK have benefited from it already, so this is not a new programme to the Government. Various effectiveness studies, including Oxford University’s evaluation of that DfE trial, found overall positive impacts on the lives of children in care: greater placement stability, an increased sense of belonging and, on average, a more than tripling of the number of their social connections. Perhaps most importantly, Lifelong Links changes the culture and practice of those authorities which use it, so that relationships are not broken in the first place.

It is a decade or more since Family Finding came to the UK, but this proven model is still not standard practice. The independent review calls for it to be part of the national children’s social care framework, and says:

“Because of the evidence around these and other family finding programmes, there should be no delay in local authorities developing these, and all local authorities should have skilled family finding support equivalent to, or exceeding, the work of Lifelong Links in place by 2024 at the very latest.”


I completely endorse this and would go further. Lifelong Links should be available to every young person in care and, as I said in my 2017 review for the Ministry of Justice, to care-experienced young people in a young offender institution or prison.

Healthy relationships are, statistically, the most protective factor against reoffending. Lifelong Links could make the difference between the revolving door of crime for care-experienced young people and custody being the turning point. That, after all, is central to the purpose of prison. Yet why has it taken another major review to state the case for Lifelong Links, when the evidence has already been so assiduously amassed? I ask the Minister: first, what is the department specifically doing to promote its own evidence? Secondly, more generally, how can the Government ensure successful programmes are scaled up and made available as standard in a timely manner?

There seems to be an intolerably long journey from innovation to evaluation to implementation, even when the Government get involved, as they did with Lifelong Links. The journey will often be so long that thousands of children never benefit from transformational innovation during their time in social care. The country is in desperate need, so we must shorten the dispiriting process where organisations do all they can to get evidence of effectiveness, which then appears to be ignored.

The second area I will touch on is the revolution in family help which the review indicates would need roughly £2 billion to build. Putting prevention at the heart of social care in this way would continue the revolution that the Children Act 1989 was intended to bring about, through its emphasis on prevention, keeping children with their families wherever possible and ensuring help is available for deeply struggling parents.

The troubled—now strengthening—families programme started a decade ago and brought another vital wave of change, the success of which must be integrated in children’s social care reform. How will the Minister ensure that this happens? As a director and controlling shareholder of the Family Hubs Network Ltd, which advocates for family hubs and advises local authorities on how to establish them, I welcome the review’s recognition of their role as a delivery site for family help.

Returning to the Children Act 1989, paragraph 9(1) of Schedule 2 states that local authorities

“shall provide such family centres as they consider appropriate in relation to children within their area.”

Forty years earlier Michael Young, one of the architects of the welfare state, called for child welfare centres to fulfil Beveridge’s principle of the preservation of parental responsibility and deal with the emotional cost to children of high post-war levels of family breakdown. Family hubs are unfinished business from the founding of the welfare state. The Government’s early investment in them lays an essential foundation for the implementation of this review. They build on Sure Start children’s centres, but crucially they help whole families with older children. That, respectfully, is where they are an improvement on what went before.

However, I agree there is a funding scale disparity between the two projects. Sure Start investment ran into billions. Family hubs, so far, are attracting around £130 million from central government. The revolution in family help outlined in the review will need a reversal in the lack of investment noted in The Case for Change. The review states:

“Spending on help has reduced significantly in recent years, and the system has become overwhelmingly focused on crisis management and more costly late stage intervention.”


While I wholly support delivering family help from family hubs, local and central government must protect the value and principle of access to all. If hubs are seen as spaces for problem families, going to them will be stigmatised. The review highlights the need for a front door any family can walk through without necessarily being referred, where they will find the appropriate level of help. Some of these voluntary walk-ins might lead to the intensive, preventative help a family would never have received without that universal access point. A mother who can approach a family hub with worries about her son’s possible drug use might get the early help which spares her a visit from the police months later.

I am also looking forward to the Government’s response to this review. In the meantime, can the Minister confirm that the review will be integrated with existing family hubs policy and not skew delivery away from universal access, which its authors would not support?

Family: Protective Effect

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate will have heard me say already the scale of the investment we are making in family services and the importance we place on them. In particular, the Government are committed to opening 75 family hubs in areas which need that support most. But I agree with the right reverend Prelate and stress the striking point in the report regarding who families in need turn to: namely, their families and friends, far, far before any statutory service.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, we have a new Cabinet since my own Question on this review, so I ask again whether a Cabinet Minister has been appointed to co-ordinate every department’s policies to strengthen families? Also, acknowledging the 75 hubs already mentioned and my registered interests, will the Government bring funding forward for the remaining 75 local authorities to develop family hub networks, given the huge pressures facing families and the test-and-learn approach taken to hubs in the first 75 councils?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend knows that working to strengthen families is a key priority across several government departments and although there is not currently a designated Minister, we will be actively considering this. We share my noble friend’s aspiration to see family hubs across the country and it is crucial that we deliver really well in the selected local authorities, so we will be building on the evidence and learning from this investment to improve services across the country.

Family-strengthening Policies

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Farmer]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, further to the Children’s Commissioner’s Family Review, published on 1 September, what steps they will take to ensure every department brings forward family-strengthening policies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, across government we are committed to strengthening families. We recently announced over £1 billion for programmes to improve family services, including funding for family hubs and the Supporting Families programme. Recent reviews such as the independent review of children’s social care and the Children’s Commissioner’s review of family life make recommendations on how public services should understand and respond to family needs. We will take a cross-government view when considering those recommendations.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her somewhat positive response. Has a Cabinet Minister been appointed to co-ordinate every department’s policies to strengthen families? Also, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that the hallmark of British families is their “greater fragility and complexity” compared with other western European countries. Only 56% of children are still with both parents at the age of 17; the OECD average is 84%. The IFS also says that parental separation lowers the economic and psychological well-being of the adults. How will the Government address the importance of family stability for economic growth?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his question and I take this opportunity to thank him more broadly for his tireless work over many years on support for families and recognition of their value. The Government, too, recognise that a stable environment and well-functioning families are vital for children’s outcomes, which in turn can support economic growth. On the issue of a Minister within the Cabinet with responsibility for families, obviously my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is extremely focused on this, but our current focus is on how we can drive join-up, and the department is leading on collaboration with several other government departments in this area.

Child Safeguarding

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right, and I am pleased that I can reassure him. Obviously, there are children who will have been at school with Arthur and people who will have been involved in his life in many different ways, and we are making sure that all of them receive the support they need.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, can I ask my noble friend the Minister whether the review will look at the contribution of family breakdown? Evidence shows that children on the at-risk register are eight times more likely to be living with a natural parent and their current partner than the general population. Children living in households with unrelated adults are nearly 50 times as likely to die of inflicted injuries than children living with two biological parents. Will the review consider the contribution that robust prevention and early intervention can make to safeguarding children?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, on my noble friend’s last point, I know that he is aware, and extremely supportive, of moves that this Government are making to focus more on early intervention and on the first thousand days of a child’s life. In terms of whether the review will look specifically at family breakdown, I am not aware of that although clearly that appears relevant in this case. If it is different to that, I will let my noble friend know.

Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, it is natural for me to want to start at the protocol—which the noble Lord, Lord Curry, has just mentioned—to the European Convention on Human Rights. In 1977, I lost the action under that protocol that the UK Government took in relation to corporal punishment in schools, so I am reasonably familiar with that provision. In this connection, under the human rights legislation, it is still the law here that the Government—the state—have a duty to ensure that the teaching is in accordance with the religious and philosophical convictions of the parents. That is a very strong right.

Of course, it is difficult. If you have parents with different religious convictions, how do you go about it? There is a European Court of Human Rights case that deals with this—it is even older than the one that I lost. It deals with statutory provisions introduced in Denmark. One of the arguments used against the provisions was Article 2 of Protocol 1. The court said this, which I think is very useful:

“The second sentence of Article 2 implies on the other hand that the State, in fulfilling the functions assumed by it in regard to education and teaching, must take care that information or knowledge included in the curriculum is conveyed in an objective, critical and pluralistic manner. The State is forbidden to pursue an aim of indoctrination that might be considered as not respecting parents’ religious and philosophical convictions. That is the limit that must not be exceeded”.


In relation to the state’s duty, it points out later on that, although it is always possible that something may go wrong,

“competent authorities have a duty to take the utmost care to see to it that parents’ religious and philosophical convictions are not disregarded at this level by carelessness, lack of judgment or misplaced proselytism”.

That is a very useful way of looking at this. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham said, religious convictions vary: different people have different convictions. Therefore, if you are to teach according to those convictions, you have to be mighty careful. The answer appears to be that you do it in such a way that is “objective, critical and pluralistic”.

The mailbag that I have had has been mainly from people objecting to the replacing of the withdrawal right with an option to request withdrawal and asking me very strongly to vote against these regulations. I have decided not to do that, because these are very difficult matters that are required to be dealt with. Your Lordships will know that my primary concern is the best interest of the children, and it is very important that that be safeguarded. As has been said, we live in very dangerous times, and children grow up in difficult situations with many temptations, grooming and what not. It is mighty difficult to deal with these without help. I strongly support what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, about the need for teachers to be very well provided for in this. I cannot think of a more difficult area than this in which to teach.

Another point has been brought to my attention by experienced doctors in this area. The health implications of various aspects of this matter can be very serious indeed. Accordingly, it is important that that aspect should be taught and is compulsory under these regulations. That is extremely important, but extremely difficult for teachers. I notice that the assessment says that there will be no effect on any other department, but I would have thought that the Department of Health might have a strong interest in providing the necessary help to teachers to be able to deal with these serious issues.

So far as I am concerned, what has been said to me is mainly about withdrawal, and I do not see that withdrawal has much bearing on the protocol. The protocol is not on requesting withdrawal but on teaching in accordance with the religious conviction of the parent. That is where the difficulty arises, as the court saw. Therefore, it has to be objective in every respect.

This is a very difficult area and a great deal of thought has been given to it. I am glad to think that there is time for even more thought in the light of all that is said today and what was said in the debate in the House of Commons before the perfect solution is found.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great honour to follow my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern and I agree with much of what he said.

I will touch on three issues: first, on the specifics around parental rights to withdraw children, much of which has been spoken about already; secondly, on whether the Government will help to develop the relationships and sex education curriculum through an innovation fund; and, thirdly, on the role of the inspectorate, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, mentioned earlier, in applying the new curriculum requirement.

On the first point, can the Minister clarify whether the Government’s intention is the same as was stated in 2017 by the then Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families during the passage of the Children and Social Work Act:

“We have committed to retain a right to withdraw from sex education in RSE, because parents should have the right, if they wish, to teach sex education themselves in a way that is consistent with their values”.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/3/17; col. 705.]


That would mean, for example, that if for reasons of religious belief a parent withdraws their child from sex education up to age of 15, the right of withdrawal will be respected. Currently, the proposals seem to put the final decision firmly in the hands of head teachers not parents, as they are given a power of veto on parents’ wishes. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee quoted the draft guidance, which states that,

“except in exceptional circumstances, the school should respect the parents’ request to withdraw the child, up to and until three terms before the child turns 16”.

However, no attempt is made to define “exceptional circumstances”. We need definition of this phrase and specifics, otherwise these will be defined on an ad hoc basis. Any business contract including such language would be rejected by a good lawyer because of the vulnerability that it introduces. I understand that this is guidance, not legislation, but guidance is where the specifics should be.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee suggested that the House might wish to invite the Minister to provide further clarification about how the ability of parents to withdraw their children will operate in practice in relation to different age ranges. I do so now because, after these draft regulations were laid before Parliament, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee received evidence from over 430 members of the public. All expressed concern about the regulations and many made it clear that they were Christians and that their concern arose out of their religious belief.

The committee set out the main issues raised in these submissions, including,

“a very widespread concern to protect the right of parents to educate their own children on matters such as relationships and sexual health”.

One particular quote stood out to me:

“The assumption seems to be growing that it is the state which educates children, assisted by parents. It should always be the other way round. It is the parents’ job to educate, train and guide their children”—


And, as the right reverend Prelate emphasised, those relationships should be formed at home—

“and the state should not take this upon itself”.

Children: Welfare, Life Chances and Social Mobility

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, on initiating this debate on the importance of early intervention in children’s lives. I find myself often supporting her in her debates. Today I wish to highlight a promising measure to prevent children being removed from their parents and brought into local authority care.

Outcomes for care leavers remain poor, with Home Office reports finding that a quarter of the male prison population and 70% of sex workers have been in care. A key driver of such awful trajectories is that being in care often has detrimental effects on a child’s ability to build strong relationships, the consequences of which can stay with them for the rest of their lives. So, with education department statistics showing that 90 children a day are being taken into care, successful measures to divert young people away from the system are desperately needed.

I bring to the attention of the House once again a scheme with proven effectiveness in diverting children at risk of going into care—away from the system and into the boarding school estate. As I mentioned in my maiden speech, I myself greatly benefited from a place in a boarding house at a local state grammar school. The opportunity to form dependable relationships was invaluable. I still often recall one master who was a huge encouragement to me at a time when my family circumstances and educational attainment—two aspects which were not unrelated—were both pretty dire. Of course, boarding will not be suitable for all children, but many would benefit.

The issue of boarding school partnerships has arisen in this House before, and I will highlight three areas in which the expansion of such schemes can boost a council’s ability to help children form stable and enduring relationships and improve prospects for both social and academic achievement. First, the provision of a place in a state or private boarding school can be a game-changer in the risk levels children are facing. The Boarding School Partnerships report found that 71% of looked-after children who were given a place at a boarding school showed a reduction in their individual risk profile—a measure which determines the level of support needed to keep a child safe—and 63% of them moved off the risk register completely. The report gave a powerful example of the scheme’s success: a child who was taken into foster care at the highest risk level and given a placement at an independent school in order to support a difficult family situation. After nine years of boarding he was appointed head boy and, a high achiever both academically and in sports, was applying for university. This intervention genuinely transformed his life.

Secondly, for councils to improve the welfare and life chances of children on the edge of care, the provision of consistent relationships, a stable routine and a good education are key. Norfolk County Council has placed 52 vulnerable children in 11 state and independent boarding schools over the last decade, and its results have proved that this works. Achievement in education improved as, on average, children who took the placements attained higher results in their GCSEs than children in care nationally. These provisions can also make a significant difference to the whole family: a boarding school placement can help build a family’s resilience and ability to cope. Nine of the 17 children who had been in care were able to return to their biological families.

Thirdly, the scheme is also cost-effective. Norfolk County Council spends an average of £56,200 per year on children in its care. The highest boarding school fees paid were £35,000, making the scheme financially, as well as educationally, beneficial. This intervention is therefore a sustainable model that does not ask local authorities to increase spending from already stretched budgets. The effectiveness of the intervention is commended by the 40 independent schools—including some of the UK’s top-performing schools—taking part in the government-backed scheme. The Department for Education should also be commended for taking note of these results and launching the Boarding School Partnerships information service to link local authorities with boarding schools, to identify more young people on the edge of care who would be eligible for bursaries and scholarships.

The results show that these interventions are socially, educationally and financially viable; the provision of boarding school places for children at risk must become a mainstream solution to improve the life chances and social mobility of the most vulnerable children. Can the Minister update the House on the progress local authorities have been able to make in providing more boarding school placements for children on the edge of care, as a result of the Boarding School Partnerships information service?

Sure Start

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Noble Lords]

Too long!

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned family hubs. Several councils have preserved their children’s centres by turning them into family hubs where families of older children aged from nought to 19 can also receive support, thereby integrating and improving help for more families. Beyond the early years social mobility peer review fund, which is focused on improving early language outcomes, what support are the Government providing to local authorities to encourage the development of family hubs?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we should all acknowledge the great work that my noble friend Lord Farmer is doing on families and on raising awareness across government. We have announced the Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential fund, which will help local authorities develop strategies to improve outcomes in early years, including through the effective use of children’s centres. Family hubs are part of that. We will be looking to ensure that these innovations are recognised and shared, and we want to spread these successful approaches. We know that a number of local authorities are already moving towards this model of support for children and families, but it is up to them to decide how to organise and commission services.