Family-strengthening Policies
Lord Farmer Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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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(2 years, 5 months ago)
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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(5 years ago)
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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(5 years, 6 months ago)
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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(5 years, 10 months ago)
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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.
Boarding School Partnerships
Lord Farmer Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Farmer
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the Boarding School Partnership information service; and how many children who would otherwise have been taken into local authority care have been given places in state boarding schools as a result of the service.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, Boarding School Partnerships launched last July and it is independent of government. The service provides information to local authorities on how to make placements in boarding schools. Statistics on referrals into boarding are not collected centrally, but I can report that this year the web portal averaged 700 regular users, 44% up on 2017. Between May and June this year, there was a 50% increase in unique visitors to the website.
Lord Farmer (Con)
I thank my noble friend the Minister for that encouraging reply. What plans do the Government have to stimulate further the use of boarding schools as an alternative to local authority care?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, Boarding School Partnerships, working with Norfolk County Council, has recently published its findings on the outcomes achieved by vulnerable children following boarding placements. This showed benefits including improved educational outcomes and a reduction in risk of children going into care. Earlier this month, we organised a conference to bring boarding schools and local authorities together to publicise these research findings. Over 50 local authorities were represented at this conference and, while it is not suitable for all children, we strongly urge local authorities to consider boarding as an option.
Manifesto to Strengthen Families
Lord Farmer Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Lord Farmer
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the policies recommended in the Manifesto to Strengthen Families, published on 6 September 2017; and what steps they plan to take in response to those recommendations.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, it is crucial that we seek to ensure that all children grow up in stable, nurturing families. As my noble friend knows, this is a wide-ranging, cross-cutting area. This Government have a broad set of policies to support families, including our childcare and early years offers, through to the DWP’s programme on parental conflict. We are considering the manifesto’s recommendations and will respond in due course.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. I know he is enthusiastic about family support. He spoke about it in his maiden speech during the debate on it. In my efforts to rally support for a strengthening family strategy, I have had several conversations with Ministers and civil servants who have expressed frustration at the lack of clarity about who leads this vital agenda. They are concerned that they are stepping on to other Ministers’ territory, which is preventing any real progress being made. When will the Government appoint a Cabinet-level overlord who can co-ordinate family policy across government?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, as I mentioned, the Government are actively considering the recommendations set out in my noble friend’s manifesto. In my preparation for this Question, I spoke to an official in Downing Street who had had at least six conversations with my noble friend. Officials are treating this very seriously. The model of a specific brief—such as an equalities brief—being attached to a Cabinet Minister is a good one and deserves careful scrutiny. We shall continue to engage with my noble friend on this issue. I know he has also recently met my honourable friend the Minister for Children and Families Nadhim Zahawi and discussed elements of the recommendations with him.
Vulnerable Children
Lord Farmer Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, it is indeed an honour to follow the highly knowledgeable noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, in this debate. I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, on securing this debate and for bringing the high numbers of children who are vulnerable, in one way or another, to the forefront of our attention.
The point of tracking the numbers of those at risk of having outcomes we would not want for any of our children is to prevent and address harm. It is essential that we break the terrible cycles that too many children are caught up in and seem destined—doomed—to repeat. As the former police borough commander for Southwark, John Sutherland, writes in his autobiography Blue:
“I see patterns repeat themselves right across the capital: domestic violence, alcohol-fuelled violence, serious youth violence, knives and guns, drugs, organised crime, the abuse of the vulnerable, the impact of mental illness, the stories of endless distress, in this city that is my home”.
He describes how the devastating files on these children’s families, which reveal endless brokenness and complexity, mirror the repetitions of failed interventions on the part of the state. Getting support and help to these families as early as possible, long before another generation is old enough to be added to the crime statistics or counted among the indicators of risk identified by the Children’s Commissioner’s team, must be our highest priority.
I would therefore challenge the way that the 32 groups of vulnerabilities have been placed into one of four different types. An estimated 670,000 children—the second-highest number—are grouped in type 4, “Children with family-related vulnerabilities”. However, the issues faced by children in many of the other groups have their roots in family relationships, and without being explicit about this the focus will not be in the right place.
To clarify, all the groups in type 1 relate to the 580,000 “Children directly supported or accommodated (or previously accommodated) by the state”. The DfE and Welsh Government figures show that more than 60% of children in care are looked after due to abuse and neglect in their birth families. These are family-related difficulties. The 370,000 in vulnerability type 2, “Children and young people whose actions put their futures at risk”, are all in groups which indicate a strong likelihood of a lack of safe, stable and nurturing relationships in their birth families; ditto, many of the 806,000 children suffering from mental health disorders under type 3, “Children with health-related vulnerabilities”, given the association between dysfunctional and conflictual families and children’s poor mental health.
I am not splitting hairs by challenging this typology. A lack of willingness to recognise explicitly the role families play in mitigating or multiplying the vulnerabilities of childhood helps to drive the data collection difficulties the Children’s Commissioner refers to in her foreword:
“We can trace in minute detail in this country the academic progress of a child from age 4 to age 18 and beyond. Yet when it comes to describing and assessing the scale of negative factors in a child’s life which will hamper their progress, we flounder. This has to change”.
If change is to be effected, we must face up to the barriers that have prevented it to date, significant among which is the reluctance among successive Governments to recognise the need to strengthen families in response to the litany of dire statistics in her report.
This reluctance lies in the mistaken assumption that the public have no appetite for addressing family breakdown. However, as I said in last week’s Budget debate, despite, or perhaps because of, almost half a century of high rates of family breakdown in the UK, support for policies to strengthen families remains strong. Almost three-quarters of adults think family breakdown is a serious problem and that more should be done to prevent families breaking up. More than 80% of adults think stronger families and improved parenting are important for “addressing Britain’s social problems”.
That is why I published A Manifesto to Strengthen Families with several colleagues here and well over 50 Members in the other place. We debated it last month, so I will simply restate now that supporting families cuts across every part of government and requires a high level of cross-departmental working and therefore leadership at the highest level. We need our Prime Minister to append responsibility for family policy on to the portfolio of a senior Secretary of State, in the same way that equalities is led from the big-hitter Department for Education. Without a champion, this vital but neglected agenda and the families which need support will fail.
A Manifesto to Strengthen Families
Lord Farmer Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Farmer
That this House takes note of A Manifesto to Strengthen Families, published on 6 September.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, it is with a great sense of purpose and, indeed, determination that I open today’s debate on A Manifesto to Strengthen Families. It has more than 50 signatories from honourable Members on Conservative Benches in the other place and a solid showing from noble Lords here, many of whom are speaking today. I am sure that all will wish to join me in welcoming my noble friend Lord Agnew to his place on the Front Bench. Given his outstanding track record in business and educational improvement, he will, I am sure, rise admirably to the considerable challenge of making his maiden speech while responding for the first time to a long debate as a Minister. He is very well placed to do so, given his evident passion for tackling disadvantage.
I am grateful to him and all noble Lords who have taken the time to contribute to our deliberations today. They are long overdue: it is almost 10 years since my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes led the last debate on the importance of strengthening families, following the launch of the Centre for Social Justice’s landmark report Breakthrough Britain. It is fitting, therefore, that my noble friend Lady Stroud is here to add her considerable weight to our debate—I trust she will take that in the spirit intended—as she was instrumental to this report’s delivery.
Published mid-2007, Breakthrough Britain highlighted the role family breakdown plays in driving poverty and further entrenching disadvantage. Prior to it, our social and political commentary had become stuck in the groove of orthodoxy that said financial hardship caused families to fall apart and, as a result, family policy had been reduced to a three-word slogan, “End child poverty”. Yet shortly before the Labour Government came to power, Tony Blair told his party conference that a strong society cannot be morally neutral about the family, and referred to:
“The development of an underclass of people, cut off from society’s mainstream, living often in poverty … crime and family instability”.
He described this as a “moral and economic evil”. The first ever Green Paper on the family, Supporting Families, published shortly after Labour came to power, did not shrink from addressing family instability, to Labour’s great credit. However, policy proposals to tackle relationship breakdown within it were largely abandoned and family stability became the elephant in the room of social policy, despite it being a root cause, as well as an effect, of poverty. It hits the poorest the hardest, compounds existing disadvantage and is a potent driver of wider social breakdown.
My own involvement with the Centre for Social Justice, and my work in this House, are deeply rooted in a desire to address root causes of disadvantage, and I am encouraged that current government policy is pushing in this direction. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Freud, when he was Minister for Welfare Reform, committed the Government to developing,
“a range of non-statutory indicators to measure progress against the other root causes of child poverty, which include but are not limited to family breakdown, addiction and problem debt. Anyone will be able to assess the Government’s progress here. The Government are saying, ‘Judge us on that progress’”.—[Official Report, 9/12/15; col. 1585.]
In April, several family indicators were published, including parental conflict, parental worklessness and parental mental ill-health. These are all essential for building a picture of the number of children growing up in families where relationships are under such strain that children are highly likely to suffer ill effects. Certainly, that is what research on the outcomes of adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, on later life teaches us. However, there is one ACE, parental separation, that used to be captured in the family stability indicator but seems to have been quietly dropped. How can we judge the Government on their progress against family breakdown as a root cause of child poverty when we no longer measure it but instead use the proxy of parental conflict? Will the Minister explain why the family stability indicator does not sit alongside the other parental indicators?
The manifesto we are discussing today makes it clear that parental conflict devastates a child’s emotional world and is a cause of mental ill-health, even if it manifests itself not in violence or verbal aggression but in a pervasive and permanent atmosphere of coldness, indifference and hostility. Couple counselling should be available through children and young people’s mental health services if parental conflict lies behind children’s mental illness.
However, research by Amato and Booth shows that low-conflict divorces can be as harmful to children as high-conflict but stable relationships. Children do not understand why a split has happened. They blame themselves and assume that relationships are inherently unreliable. Additionally, they almost invariably lose daily contact with one of their parents and, if they stay with their mothers, their incomes are more likely to drop. The first Children’s Commissioner for England, Sir Al Aynsley Green, said that children’s biggest fear was that their parents would split up. We have one of the highest divorce and separation rates in the OECD and one of the highest rates of children growing up without both birth parents. These truths make us very uncomfortable. They also make us very uncompetitive. Rightly, we have a Chancellor who is determined to boost our nation’s productivity and ability to live within our means. Well-functioning families are wealth generators, which make a considerable contribution to society. However, when families falter they often become welfare consumers, and relationship difficulties that affect mental and physical health can make it incredibly hard to perform well at work.
The cost of family breakdown has been set at a shade under £50 billion per annum. However, many indirect costs accrue to every department of government. For example, high demand for local authority care has an impact on prison budgets, as a quarter of prisoners were looked-after children. Some of the greater need for counselling in schools, children’s mental health services and housing stems from fractured families. They will also be less available to supplement social care for elderly people.
These costs are ultimately borne by the Exchequer, so the Chancellor has the greatest interest in demanding that each Secretary of State brings forward plans to strengthen families. Government-wide challenges need cross-departmental co-ordination. Our manifesto recommends that a senior Cabinet Minister take responsibility for driving family policy in the same way that the Secretary of State of a big existing department champions qualities across government as part of their wider brief, is aided by an equivalent to the Government Equalities Office and has a dedicated budget.
To change the structure of government in this way would be a clear signal that this country no longer pays lip service to the importance of families. At every election there are warm words on the subject from across the political spectrum but, to date, Governments of all colours have delivered very little when they hold the reins of power. This week, the President of the Family Division of the High Court pointed out that too many Whitehall departments were responsible for children and that,
“there is no department and no secretary of state whose title includes either the word ‘families’ or the word ‘children’”,
and implied that the current structure was failing those who needed it most.
We have been encouraged by the response from Ministers since the manifesto was launched, and I think they have got the message that we are not going to go away. David Burrowes, the highly respected former honourable Member in the other place, has been appointed executive director to ensure take-up of the manifesto recommendations, whether at a national or local government level. There will be an annual progress update and, as policies are implemented, we will add more to a rolling programme of family-strengthening measures.
The input of noble Lords to this process would be very much appreciated. In the process of rallying support from our Benches, the ideas were sharpened by signatories’ decades of government and front-line experience. Now they are published, all those involved in the manifesto are keen to draw on cross-party expertise. Reversing our damaging family breakdown trends will not be achieved by one or two terms of government—it will take a generation.
I conclude my remarks by focusing briefly on three areas in the manifesto in which I am personally much invested. First, in this Session I will bring forward a Private Member’s Bill, the Family Relationships (Impact Assessment and Targets) Bill, which will make it a statutory obligation for all government departments to carry out a family impact assessment on all their policies and expenditure. At present, we have the non-statutory family test, introduced during the coalition years. I have found a lack of clarity in some departments about whether this is still government policy, so it has by no means become embedded. Moreover, officials are under no compulsion to publish the results and findings from impact assessment exercises, which makes a mockery of transparency and accountability.
Secondly, the manifesto refers to family hubs, about which I have spoken several times in your Lordships’ House, the introduction of which was Labour Party policy just before the 2015 election. Family hubs are local one-stop shops that particularly help children in need, offering families with children aged from nought to 19 early help to overcome difficulties and build stronger relationships. Such provision is typically co-located with superb early years healthcare and support, such as in transformed children’s centres, supplementing and not supplanting those vital services.
We have recommended that the Government put in place a transformation fund and national task force to encourage local authorities to move towards this family hub model, working closely with charities and local businesses. These should build on the experience of councils, such as on the Isle of Wight, that have pioneered family hubs effectively. Barking and Dagenham is also making hubs part of a major local authority reorganisation, in which housing and other departments have been subsumed into a community solutions department that draws in community assets—not “doing to” people but “doing with” people.
Finally, policy 14 encourages police and crime commissioners to work with local schools to ensure that any child who experiences domestic abuse gets the support they need, after a bad night at home, from the minute they go through the school gate. In his book Blue, former borough police commander for Southwark, John Sutherland, recounts how for those young men who go on to cause serious harm,
“it all began behind closed doors—hidden in their homes and their childhoods. It’s one of the undeniable conclusions of my professional life”.
Gang formation is partly driven by children and young people seeking out comfort and security from their peers because they did not find it among the adults in their lives. Schools are ideally placed to offer that but, unless children’s emotional pain as a result of experiencing or witnessing abuse at home is picked up early in the school day, it can result in inattention in class, other forms of disengagement and, at worst, them mimicking that abusive behaviour. Instead of experiencing care and sympathy, they will likely be reproached and feel rejected.
Over 25 police forces have adopted this Operation Encompass model, which requires them, after a call-out to a domestic violence incident, to share data in a timely way with schools. It needs to be every force and every school, with the ultimate aim of stamping out domestic abuse for good.
In summary, this Government urgently need to develop a strategic approach to strengthening families. We recently heard in this House that the Farmer review recommendations in this manifesto are already being implemented by the Ministry of Justice. Can the Minister encourage us that this welcoming spirit towards similar policies will be evident from all government departments?
Lord Farmer
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on his maiden speech and on giving us such an encouraging government response to the debate. It is clear that he will make a huge contribution to government in his role at the Dispatch Box.
The debate has been excellent, with a lot of constructive contributions. I thank all noble Lords who have contributed. I make the point that I made at the beginning: the family manifesto that has been produced is an ongoing work. It is progressive and rolling, and I am sure that your Lordships’ involvement today will be both a great help in continuing the thinking behind the manifesto and a challenge to the Government as they read Hansard for what was said today. A lot was added to the debate; I do not have the time to go over individual contributions, but I want to mention the word “counterculture”; I think the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford used it. We have been living in an age that is focused on the individual. To repeat what I said at the beginning, it will take a couple of Governments at least to turn around this culture on the individual and focus it more on the family unit as the basic social unit.
I thank all noble Lords. There have been a lot of additions. We have had emphasis on military families. We have a new Secretary of State for Defence today. We will be knocking on his door and talking to him about how to look after the peculiar pressures military families are under.
I come back to the Minister and thank him for his news about what is going on in DWP on parental conflicts and for the fact that a policy will be developed reducing that. I am also very encouraged by Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, when she said she was all for family hubs. If that is coming from the top we might get somewhere. Talking about family hubs, I mention the criticism of Sure Start children centres from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. I tried to touch on that; the Minister also did. Apart from the fact that money is scarce, there is the whole idea of joining in with the community, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and using voluntary organisations, but also of developing Sure Start children centres into a family hub for children aged zero to 19, in particular for the category of children in need. Families can go there to find out where to go for the problems they may have.
I do not have much time. I again thank all noble Lords for an excellent, constructive debate. It had a lot of ideas in it. I am quite encouraged by the current mood in government to recognise that families are very important to strengthen. We cannot go on having the record we have in OECD countries and, as we heard earlier, our record in Europe. It is appalling. We need to refocus our minds and hearts on strengthening family relationships. It will be to the benefit of the whole of society. I beg to move.
Children in Need
Lord Farmer Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Farmer
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that local authorities put an action plan in place for all children in need that will improve their family relationships and resolve other difficulties sufficiently for them to be stepped down from that status.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, our statutory guidance, Working together to safeguard children, is clear that, where a child is found to be in need, support should be provided to address those needs in order to improve their outcomes. Where the outcome of the assessment is the continued involvement of local authority children’s social care, the social worker and their manager should agree a plan of action with other professionals and discuss this with the child and their family.
Lord Farmer (Con)
I thank my noble friend the Minister for his reply. At his suggestion, I visited Feltham’s Reach Academy, where staff are working with the local authority to develop a family hub. Parents with children aged nought to 19 will get any early help they need so that they can partner with the school to help deliver outstanding pupil outcomes. This could be transformational for children in need. What are the Government doing to encourage the development of family hubs?
Lord Nash
I am delighted that my noble friend visited Reach Academy in Feltham. It is an outstanding example of the success of the free schools programme, and I am pleased that it has also been approved to open a second free school. I know that my noble friend has done a great deal of excellent work with the Centre for Social Justice on the concept of family hubs. Obviously, the earlier we can help children the better, and this is why we are encouraging so many primary schools to open nursery schools, through the free schools programme and otherwise. A number of local authorities have introduced family hub-type models, and I hope we will see more of them. However, ultimately it is up to local authorities to decide the best local solution.