Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Meston

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, noble Lords often say in this Chamber that it is a pleasure to follow whichever noble Lord or noble Baroness. I cannot say it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, because, given the depth and detail of what she says and the experience she brings as a former judge—and she always speaks without a note—it is not a pleasure but humbling to be given the role of speaking in her wake, as it were. She is, as ever, extremely impressive and adds so much to our debates.

I want to speak to Amendment 506B in my name, on the use of accommodation for deprivation of liberty. When a child is in a secure setting, there is a robust framework for reviewing the suitability of arrangements for deprivation of liberty, including through the appointment of independent persons. Where deprivation of liberty orders are used in other accommodation arrangements, the same safeguards may simply not be there. So there need to be additional safeguards, including, as recommended by the Children’s Commissioner, a record in the looked-after child census, including the type of setting and the length of and reasons for restrictions placed. Also, wherever possible, independent advocacy should be provided for all children where a deprivation of liberty order is being considered or is in place.

Clause 11 provides a statutory framework for children to be deprived of their liberty in accommodation other than a secure children’s home through amending Section 25 of the Children Act 1989. The intention is for there to be parity with secure children’s homes in terms of access to legal aid. But the current position for parents and anyone with parental responsibility in these cases is that they are entitled only to means-tested legal aid. Such means tests are very restrictive; research by the Law Society has demonstrated that even those living in poverty can fail the financial eligibility test for legal aid.

Many parents are therefore left to navigate these complex legal proceedings on their own. The result of these court hearings is significant for children because it could lead to a child being put into a placement that is many miles away from their home environment and their local network of support—mirroring the arguments that we heard in the last group of amendments. Additionally, deprivation of liberty orders are increasingly being used to place children in unregistered accommodation —I will not go there again—due to the lack of secure children’s home places.

According to figures published by the Family Court Statistics Quarterly, there were 1,280 applications to the High Court for deprivation of liberty orders for children in 2024, of which 132 were for children 12 years of age and under. That total figure represents a 120% increase since 2020-21 figures, which themselves reflected a fourfold increase since 2017-18—again, according to the Law Society. By way of comparison, there were 261 applications for secure accommodation for children in 2024.

The noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, mentioned the Nuffield Foundation; the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory found that almost 90% of parents and carers were not legally represented at any hearings in applications made under the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction for deprivation of liberty orders. For an event of such importance to those families involved, that is surely a worryingly high figure and is just unacceptable.

It is surely a basic human right for no child to be deprived of their liberty, particularly into an unregistered placement, without their parents having access to legal advice and representation. There should always be access to non-means tested legal aid for parents and carers in these cases, and Amendment 506B would provide for that.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I speak as someone who has had to make these orders, and in doing so I recognise that these amendments are of great importance, shining light on the deprivation of liberty jurisdiction which has persisted in England and Wales for perhaps too long. In an article in the Observer just a year ago, there was trenchant criticism from the former President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby. He wrote:

“When a system is routinely locking up vulnerable children in highly inappropriate settings because they are too difficult to look after, something is clearly going very, very wrong”.


He described this as a

“moral failure – by the state and by society”.

As has been explained, the existing statutory provision for secure accommodation orders made under Section 25 of the Children Act now covers only a few of those with complex needs and those requiring accommodation because they have to be protected from exploitation or present a risk to others. That is because “secure accommodation” is a term which describes only registered children’s homes specifically approved by the Secretary of State, of which, as we have heard, there are only a limited and increasingly insufficient number available.

With the severe shortage of places and the rising need for accommodation for those whose welfare requires some restriction of liberty, that need has had to be met by applications to the High Court for authorisation under the court’s inherent jurisdiction. As places cannot be found in suitable registered homes which are Section 25 compliant, the High Court then has to consider whether an unregistered placement is in the child’s best interests. All too often, the local authority, the child’s guardian in the proceedings and the court have to struggle when considering what is available. The court is faced usually with a short-term crisis, planned for in the short term, and limited services available, and is battling to keep the child safe. In doing so, one is usually presented with only one unsatisfactory option. As the MacAlister report put it,

“Courts do not take such decisions lightly. Deprivation of liberty orders are often made following a nationwide search for homes, and often after the child has experienced multiple home breakdowns … the harrowing circumstances set out in these High Court judgements are a window into the dysfunction of the care system”.


In practice, if a DoLS is justified, the court has to look at the distance from home, the adequacy of education provision, if any, the adequacy of staffing and the nature and level of any workable restrictions required.

I take one slight issue with something the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said. In my experience, children do participate, at least in some hearings. They sometimes attend in person, but, as we all know, they are often placed far too far away—certainly from the court dealing with it—and sometimes they attend remotely. In my experience, one hears children who are depressed, agitated, traumatised and often very worried. In those circumstances, the court is looking not for what is best but for what is available and what is least worst, trying to keep that child safe.

The shortage of provision and the resultant use of deprivation of liberty authorisations have been known about for a long time and have been the subject of strong criticism from the higher judiciary, which has seen what was meant to be only a last resort become the norm, described by the Supreme Court as an “imperfect stopgap”. The judiciary has felt dismayed that its concerns appeared to be unheeded by Governments and Parliament. It has also been concerned that the courts were having to do what the state really should have been doing without recourse to the court in most cases.

The scale of the problem has been repeatedly highlighted by the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, whose excellent work has been referred to during this debate, but also by others, including the BBC and responsible journalists elsewhere. I recognise that Clause 11 creates a new statutory regime and the concept of relevant accommodation, extending the places in which children can be confined. Much of what I have heard from Ministers on the Government Front Bench today has been very reassuring, and a recognition that the Government are getting to grips. Of course, it remains to be seen whether what can be achieved will be a sufficient response to the difficulties created by these orders, and to the independent review’s call for more flexible and innovative types of provision of care for children.

I support the amendments to improve what the Bill intends to achieve, in particular Amendment 124, which would require it to be stated that a deprivation of liberty has to be a last resort. Amendments 120A and 127 expressly provide for education and for therapy. Amendment 123 provides for regular reviews—not by the court, which is what happens at the moment, but by the authorities responsible for that deprivation of liberty. There is much to be said also for Amendment 132 on the involvement of the independent reviewing officer. I will also support Amendment 506B, providing for the availability of legal aid.

I questioned what in reality Amendment 122 would achieve, simply because we are where we are because of the severe shortage of registered children’s homes, of which there were 29 in 2002 and there are now only 13, which has, of course, forced reliance on unregistered placements that are often expensive. I think the answer to my question is that the expectation is that there will be improved registration of homes and an extension of the availability of homes to address what the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, called the underlying need to increase capacity.

Finally, in respect of government Amendment 128, I ask what this will all mean for cross-border placements. There are awful stories of children from Devon and Cornwall having to be placed in Scotland.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Meston

Thursday 12th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Russell. I will speak to Amendment 145 in my name. To be honest, I am pleasantly surprised that the Public Bill Office accepted the amendments in this group as being within scope, because the Bill seems to studiously avoid adoption. A search that I carried out revealed that the word “adoption” appears only four times in the Bill’s 137 pages, and three of them are as part of other legislation that is referred to.

That is disappointing because the Bill offers an opportunity to improve outcomes for adopted children, some of whom are among the most vulnerable in society, alongside measures for children in kinship care and foster care and care leavers. That is a package, or a jigsaw, all of whose parts interact, and, frankly, I do not understand why one part is virtually absent. There is overwhelming evidence that adoptees are not currently getting the support they need to provide them with an equal chance to thrive, and that is unfortunate. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell said, it is a relatively small number in the greater scheme of things, but I still do not see why adoptive families are not given the credit they deserve for the important job that they do.

The review mentioned in my amendment would consider the adequacy and effectiveness of adoption support and highlight current gaps in the system. Every year, around 4,000 children in the UK are placed in adoptive families, and government data shows that around 80% of adopted children in England last year will have suffered abuse, neglect or violence before adoption. Before being adopted, children spend an average of 15 months in care, often moving through several foster families, and many lose everything that is familiar to them along the way because of that process. Meanwhile, adoption gives children a chance to build some stability as part of a loving, safe and nurturing home. Evidence is quite clear that outcomes are better for children who are adopted than for those who grow up in residential care. The early trauma that they suffer may well be with them for the rest of their lives, and they need the support that can be provided via adoptive families.

Currently, there is a duty under the Adoption Support Services Regulations for a local authority to provide adoption services and to provide information. Often, adoptive families point out that there is a failure to provide information about the support that is available. Individual agencies, on behalf of the local authority, typically give information on their websites about the support they offer, but it does not always work out that way in practice. The support and information vary, and it has to be said that cuts to local authority budgets over the years of Tory Governments have resulted in reduced support for adoptive families, because local authorities are simply not able to provide what they want to provide.

The Adoption Support Services Regulations require updating so that they reflect the changes that have taken place in adoption over the last two decades. They have not been updated since 2005. That includes the regionalisation of adoption agencies in England. The charity Adoption UK has produced evidence that out-of-date regulations can, and in many cases do, impact on family court proceedings, and thus potentially on the time it takes for an adoption order to be made.

The agencies themselves are not Ofsted inspected, meaning there is a lack of accountability and consistency in the system. The thematic inspection of a handful of regional adoption agencies carried out by Ofsted in late 2023 highlighted some of the challenges for those agencies and partner local authorities in achieving the services that adoptees and their families require. The noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, will be aware of that; I do not know whether she wants to contribute to this debate, but she will be aware of the outcome of those inspections.

Adoption UK’s meticulously gathered evidence has consistently shown that there are gaps in support. Its adoption barometer survey, which the noble Lord, Lord Storey, referred to, reveals that the proportion of adoptive families who said they are facing severe challenges or reaching crisis point is up from 30% in 2020 to 38% in 2023.

I was going to say something about the adoption special guardianship support fund and the other amendments. I am not going to do that now, as other noble Lords have covered that perfectly adequately.

Without effective support services, adopted children are at a higher risk of returning to the care system, with a lack of ongoing support leading to placements too often breaking down. The impact of such breakdowns on the cost to the Treasury is fairly obvious. I do not think it is right that adoption should be pushed to the margins in this way, when adoptive families play such a vital role. I come back to the point I started on: it is a bit of a mystery to me why adoption is not much more prominent in this Bill.

The review that I am advocating in this amendment would consider whether the services provided by the adoption agencies and the existing regulations and guidance covering adoption are fit for purpose. I do not expect this review to be in the Bill, but I would like to think that my noble friend will consider carrying it out as an initiative of the department. As I think everyone accepts, there are gaps in the provision that need to be filled.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, briefly, I support what the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Watson, have said, on the basis of my experience as an adoption judge.

First, in respect of what the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said about the variability—as it has now emerged—of regional adoption agencies, I suggest that that is something the Government should be reviewing carefully. Secondly, I want to emphasise the point he made about the sheer awfulness of disrupted and failed adoptions, particularly in cases where so many hopes have been pinned on the adoption and so much trouble has apparently been made in preparing the child and the adopters.