Education and Adoption Bill

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, first, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, to the House, as I am truly grateful to him for having been instrumental in creating a Minister for Children in 2003 after I had campaigned for one for over 20 years. He, like me, believes that we should have joined-up policy across all government departments when it comes to children. I look forward to his contribution to this House, as I am sure that it will be stimulating and forward-thinking.

I always say that childhood lasts a lifetime so we must make sure that we give every child the best start in life. I therefore welcome the Education and Adoption Bill because it will bring that kind of stability into children’s lives, and I thank the noble Lord for bringing it to the House. I also like the new measures to improve the adoption process, because they will help those children who do not have that good start in life to have a better one. However, the Bill also presents a key opportunity to highlight the need to improve the system for children in care and to pay attention to their mental health needs. I will cover these points later.

I particularly welcome the Government’s proposal to create regional adoption agencies, as it will provide more choice and speed in matching children with their adoptive families, which is a positive goal. Improved matching will not only mean that children join their permanent families quicker, but that significant aspects of their needs are well matched—such as their racial, ethnic, and cultural needs—and that the importance of staying with their brothers and sisters is taken into account.

Regional agencies could well provide the environment for these positive developments for children. It is therefore vital that the partnerships formed include local agencies such as CCS Adoption—I declare an interest as its patron—as it possesses specialist knowledge and expertise. The strong encouragement of government to ensure that local authorities and voluntary agencies work together is to be applauded, as that is essential if the best outcomes for children are to be achieved.

However, there are strong indicators that other action is urgently required to improve permanency planning for very vulnerable children. Figures show that there has been a 15% drop in the number of such children placed for adoption in 2015, mainly because there is a significant lack of confidence in and confusion about making long-term plans for this group of highly vulnerable children. We must ensure that all children have the benefit of a loving, stable and lifelong family life, as the noble Lord has said. The Government must therefore urgently address the wider issues affecting permanency planning for these very vulnerable children.

How will the Government ensure that the new system improves outcomes for harder-to-place children such as older children, sibling groups and children from BAME backgrounds? How will the new system ensure transparency and accountability? How can we be sure that when the Secretary of State transfers powers from a local authority to a regional adoption agency, it is in the best interests of the children affected?

I now turn to the question of what is missing from the Bill, as raised by the NSPCC and Barnardo’s. I declare an interest as a vice-president of Barnardo’s. Children placed for adoption account for a very small percentage of children in care overall, so I am extremely disappointed that the Government have not taken the opportunity of this legislation to restate their commitment to improving support for all looked-after children.

To give noble Lords some idea of the scale of this problem, last year only 5% of children in care in England were placed for adoption. According to Barnardo’s, in total there were over 68,000 looked-after children, with many experiencing three or more different placements in a single year. This disrupts a child’s educational achievement and broader development. After leaving care these young people continue to face significant challenges. They are twice as likely as their peers to live in the most deprived areas of the country and experience homelessness, and their risk of a suicide attempt is five times higher. I am proud to say that the coalition Government made good progress in this area, partly through “staying put”, which allows children in foster care to stay with their foster families until the age of 21. However, this does not address the fact that too many care leavers are still underprepared to live independently without access to the support they need.

Care leavers who are in or want to return to education can receive support up to the age of 25. However, that leaves those not in education—who are usually the most vulnerable—without the support they need. Without a personal adviser they do not have access to advice on how to adjust to living independently, finding a job or managing the pressures of early adulthood. Providing access to a personal adviser up to the age of 25 could transform the life chances of some of the most vulnerable in our society. It will allow them to gain skills, to work, to support themselves and to be healthy. It will also avoid reliance on public services later in life. So I urge the Minister to reflect on the importance of improving support for this vulnerable group.

Due to abuse or neglect, 45% of children in care have a mental health disorder, compared with 10% of the general child population. However, the mental health needs of children in care often go unassessed and unidentified, and therefore there is a lack of mental health support. Again, I urge the Government to reflect this in the Bill and to include specific mental health measures.

There are many reasons why children in care fail to get the support they need if they have mental health problems, and there is often a failure to make appropriate referrals. The NSPCC has therefore recommended that all children entering care receive an automatic mental health assessment in addition to the physical assessment they currently receive. They should then immediately get the vital support needed to help them deal with mental health issues and contribute to their improved well-being.

The NSPCC recently released figures showing that more than a fifth of all children referred to local specialist NHS mental health services, including children whose problems stem from abuse, are rejected for treatment. These children could face serious long-term mental health problems because of a lack of support. This is a ticking time bomb, because these findings come as reported abuse across the UK is soaring. With the right support, children in care can overcome mental health illness issues and improve their life chances in the long term. Adoption can be the right solution for a child, but it will not be so for all children, and we need to act now. We must ensure that there is improved support for all options for looked-after children.

As the Bill moves through Parliament, I hope the Minister and the Government will consider these points in the constructive spirit in which they are intended, and that they will take action to improve the lives of children in care with mental health issues. It is extremely important that we think about these children, who are some of our most vulnerable, the role of the state as their parent, and how we can ensure that they are seen as a priority within current allocated funding and given the better support that they need.

I wish the Bill well and give it my utmost support: here’s to the safe passage of an important Bill.