Children and Families Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I will be reasonably brief on the three amendments to which I have added my name, although all the amendments in the group are admirable. I also very much thank the Minister for his helpful letter and proposed amendment. There has been little time to take it in and I look forward even more to what he will say at the end of the debate.

As my noble friend Lady Massey said—and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, expanded forcefully on—the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has made it clear that national human rights institutions for children, including children’s commissioners, should be established in compliance with the Paris principles, which were adopted more than 20 years ago by the UN General Assembly. These minimum standards provide guidance for the establishment, competence, responsibilities and composition—including pluralism, independence, methods of operation and quasi-judicial activities—of such national bodies. These recommendations underpin the amendments that I am supporting. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has said:

“It is essential that institutions remain entirely free to set their own agenda and determine their own activities”.

It has also stated:

“The appointment process for ombudspersons for children should be open, transparent and appropriate”.

With regards to the commissioner’s funding, the Bill currently affords the Secretary of State absolute discretion in deciding the amount, timing and conditions. Currently, too, this has the potential significantly to undermine the commissioner’s independence. The Committee on the Rights of the Child is clear:

“In order to ensure their independence and effective functioning, NHRIs must have adequate infrastructure, funding … staff, premises, and freedom from forms of financial control that might affect their independence”.

Also, as Amendment 257 states, the appointment of a commissioner has to be seriously considered from all sorts of perspectives. I have met the commissioner whom we appointed and, if I may say so, it is an extremely good appointment.

However, what is said in Amendment 257 is equally important:

“The Secretary of State shall appoint an individual only if the Secretary of State reasonably considers the individual”—

and this is the bit that I want to stress—

“has adequate experience and knowledge relating to children’s rights, including the involvement of children in decision-making; and … is able and willing to act independently of Government”.

The active involvement of children in decision-making is the area that I want to stress, because that is essential in today’s world and I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me on that point, quite apart from any others.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I have also put my name to three amendments and support the others in this group. It is absolutely crucial that the appointment of the Children’s Commissioner is taken very seriously, particularly that it should be somebody who can be genuinely independent of Government. May I suggest—perhaps unpopularly to any Government —that it requires someone who is prepared to be a thorn in the flesh. We do not want anyone who would be a yes-man or a yes-woman. Splendidly, the present Children’s Commissioner is certainly not that. I know her well and I have huge respect for her, but she does not have enough funding to do what she has to do and she certainly cannot do anything else.

If I may relay a short anecdote: the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, and I managed to be persuaded by the Government not to pursue an amendment in an earlier Bill on getting a children’s legal advocate for trafficked children, on the basis that the Children’s Commissioner would investigate what happened to a child who was identified as trafficked from the moment of identification to the point at which the child would be able to be settled, one way or another. That promise was made outside the Chamber. The Children’s Commissioner then said, “I cannot do this job. I do not have the money”. The noble Lord, Lord McColl, and I went to see her and discussed it with her. There was, with the Children’s Society and the Refugee Council, a shortened, abbreviated and, despite all their efforts, inadequate investigation, because it did not do what the Children’s Commissioner would have done, which was to take it from day one of identification through to the moment when the child would be settled. They did their best with very limited funding.

This was absolutely the sort of thing that should have been done by the Children’s Commissioner and the Children’s Commissioner would like to have done it, but the resources were not there. This is just one example. I know we lack money and that this is difficult, but children matter—they absolutely matter—and the Children’s Commissioner matters. He or she must be independent and properly appointed as somebody who really knows what he or she is doing. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has just said, the Children’s Commissioner must be able to consult the children and bring their voice into decision-making—as this commissioner has done in an excellent way. For those reasons, I strongly support these amendments.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, we have heard some very powerful arguments in favour of strengthening the process of appointment and the independence of the commissioner. I am not going to rehearse all the arguments that have been put very ably by my noble friend Lady Massey and everybody in the Committee. Now that we are several years on and there has been a review of the role of the Children’s Commissioner, it is right that we take this opportunity to see how that role can be strengthened. It is the right time to do this based on our experience and the outcomes of that review. I support the amendments in this group in general and will speak to Amendments 255A, 258, 259 and 261 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Jones.

Amendments 258, 259 and 261 reflect other amendments in this group, by stipulating the involvement of various parliamentarians and requiring the Secretary of State to consider their views on the process and the detail of appointments, or to have their consent to appoint. All those issues reflect the concern of the committee to make sure that there is a wide involvement of different groups, so that we get it right.