Children and Families Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I simply want to ask a question. During the past Session, we have managed to achieve considerable integration between adult care, the health service and children’s care—looking after children’s carers. Why can the Department for Work and Pensions, or whatever department handles this sort of employment legislation, not also become much more integrated so that the whole package can be assessed appropriately? That may be too great a vision but maybe that should be the road we go along.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, my amendment, which is part of this group, is rather low-key compared to the sort of debate that we have just had. It seems in vogue, in terms of what has just been said, that we should seek a compromise position that all parties could support in this area. As my noble friend Lady Lister has said, this seems to have all the hallmarks of an irresistible force that is moving forwards. These are pressing and important areas of activity in our social arrangements. They are suffering badly because they have not received the attention they should have done in previous Administrations, including our own, but the benefits of and the opportunities for making something better out of it are so great that the argument surely carries weight and we should be looking very carefully at it.

I do not wish to comment further on that but I make an offer to the Minister: if he would like to see whether a discussion between the parties might help to provide a context in which some of the good will that has been expressed in the Committee today can be taken forward, I would be very happy to participate in it. Obviously, we would need to work out what we were going to do with such an amazing compact, should there be one, but it would at least be a step in the right direction.

Our amendment does not go anywhere near that, except to build on what the Minister mentioned in response to Amendment 267, which was, in his careful phrasing, “a research project” to get some basic material out about this area. Amendment 267BA is looking at a review that would be carried out by the Secretary of State, on the impact of the lack of paid leave on kinship carers and special guardians left in the workplace, so it is narrower. I appeal to the Minister to see in that the opportunity to take another step down this path, which, like my noble friend Lady Lister, I hope is not too long. I hope for a little of his caring and listening mode on this occasion. I thought it was only in response to my noble friend Lady Lister and others that he adopted it, but perhaps this time he could listen to me as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, it is very difficult to follow the well presented case that has been made for action in this area, but I want to spend two seconds paying tribute to Lucy Herd, who is in the audience today. I was privileged to accompany her when she came to see the Minister and the Bill team and very bravely went through some of the things that had happened to her in her life and how she had coped with them. One wonders whether people really can dig so deep, and yet that is what she did; she turned the tragedy of the death of her deeply loved son, Jack, into a campaign that she is still waging and which we have heard about from my noble friend Lord Knight.

This situation cannot be right. We need to do better than we currently do as a society that says it cares about these sorts of issues. There is clearly a cost, but there are also other things that could be done at least to open the situation for discussion. If this happens to you or to your nearest and dearest, you should not then find during the trauma of what is happening that the rules are so adverse and difficult that you do not know where you stand in terms of your relationship to your employer or to anyone else or their agencies. Given the complications of what would happen and the timescales involved—because if there are inquests and other things they will span over a long period—this situation is clearly unstable and has to be resolved. I hope that the Minister will be able to help us

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I shall be very brief because I know that the noble Lord, Lord Knight, should be speaking elsewhere at this minute, I believe.