Children and Families Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, some interesting points have been made by the previous speakers, but one of the things none of us has mentioned so far is the valuable and important role of social workers in this exercise of matching children with appropriate, loving parents.

I worry that by being as prescriptive as putting something like this on the face of the Bill or making guidance hugely prescriptive, we are limiting the opportunities of social workers to be flexible and professional about their assessment. If we need to do anything, perhaps it is strengthening that kind of perception and understanding within social worker training. I have confidence that, if the Government choose to remove this, it does not mean that social workers will not look at each child’s background very fully; and not just the backgrounds of children who are easily identified as from a minority. The assumption that all Caucasian children, for instance, have no difference in their needs is quite ridiculous.

If we are prescriptive about applying considerations to do with parental connections only to the lives of children from ethnic minorities, we are not giving social workers the right to make the proper professional judgments. For example, if a Quaker family adopts a child from a Catholic background, it is just as important for them as it is for people of mixed ethnicity. I am concerned that if we are prescriptive and put something on the face of the Bill and are also prescriptive in the statutory guidance, we may make the situation worse in some cases.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, in Committee I spoke in support of Amendment 2. I quoted the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member, in its legislative scrutiny report. This led to some debate about the implications of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child for this clause.

I want to read from the letter that the chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights wrote to the Minister following our debate in Committee. He expresses disappointment at the Government’s refusal to accept the amendment. He writes: “In your response”—to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss—

“you said that ‘the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child does not require children to be placed with someone who shares exactly the same ethnicity but someone who respects it.’ That is correct, but what the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child does expressly require, in Article 20(3), is that ‘when considering solutions, due regard shall be paid … to the child’s ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic background’. Removing the statutory provision which gives effect to that obligation, without retaining those considerations in the welfare checklist, is incompatible with that provision of the Convention.

Unless the Government accepts the amendment when it is brought back at Report stage, it seems to us to be inevitable that this aspect of the Bill will be the subject of criticism by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The Government is currently finalising its Report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, for submission in January 2014. My Committee will ensure that the issue is brought to the attention of the Committee when it examines the UK’s Report”.

Would it not make sense to listen to experts such as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the NSPCC? It has said that the amendment would,

“ensure that reference to ethnicity in the Adoption and Children Act is better balanced rather than it being given prominence in its current standalone form, and that it is appropriately recognised given its significance. We welcome the updating of statutory guidance … and are keen to work with DfE to input into this. However, while the detail of the guidance is certainly important it will only go so far in ensuring this is appropriately taken into account and could send a contradictory message as to its importance having removed this from primary legislation”.

That is one of the concerns—that having expressly taken this out of the legislation, and if nothing is put back, it will send out a message that whatever the statutory guidance says, this is not important. But it is important, and I really hope the Minister will think again. I know that his reading of the UN convention is different, but the Joint Committee on Human Rights is expressly given the duty to advise Parliament on the human rights implications of legislation. I hope the Minister will take seriously this rather strong advice given by the Joint Committee.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I was not planning to speak in this debate at all but I feel strongly that we need to support my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss. I want to mention only one case—that of a really superb set of parents who adopted two children across the racial barrier; that is, two African children. You could not find better parents. They were both involved in the mental health services and were devoted to these two girls. It seemed that the thing was perfect. But both those girls committed suicide in their late teens. If we are to neglect the advice of the UN convention, we need to beware. It is no accident that these issues are emphasised so clearly, and no accident that our extremely experienced noble and learned friend, Lady Butler-Sloss, has tabled this amendment. We should support it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I was pleased and proud to add my name to this amendment. I do so having been pleased to support the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, in their past attempts to deal with this gap in the way that we deal with young people who may have been trafficked. Both the noble Lord and the noble and learned Baroness have done an immense amount to improve the lives of young people who have been trafficked and changes are being made. However, as both have said today, there is still this gap.

If we think of our own children, not having been trafficked or been the victims of slavery, but put into a similar situation in a foreign country, unable to understand the language and for whatever reason having to deal with a multiplicity of different agencies, they would not cope. Today we are talking about children who are not just vulnerable, but probably traumatised, who may have suffered degradation in some way, yet who are still supposed to deal with a multiplicity of agencies. It is deeply unfair to expect them to do so.

This amendment would ensure that these children had one person—a constant in an ever-changing world—who they could trust and to whom they could turn whenever they felt it necessary. On the day when we have been paying tribute to Nelson Mandela, a man who was full of compassion, this is a matter of compassion and of fulfilling our obligation to these children who have suffered. Yes, as the noble and learned Baroness pointed out, these are foreign children, but that fact does not matter. These are young human beings who, for whatever reason, are now in this country and we have an obligation to ensure that they are properly cared for. One of the means of doing that is to ensure that they have a person there who can be their advocate and their support.

As noble Lords have said, there are agencies, people in the voluntary and charitable sectors, who are willing and able to provide this service, and, as the noble and learned Baroness said, it is not a question of another bureaucratic tier. This is something that does not exist and needs to exist. Not only will it not cost a lot of money, in the end it could actually save money, because it means that these children will not fall through all the gaps and into crisis, as they might have done. This is a means of saving money. We have an obligation to do our best for these children and I am pleased and proud to support this amendment.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, referred to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. In Grand Committee I picked up that reference and spoke briefly about what the Joint Committee had said about the Scottish experience of guardianship, which went broader but included trafficked children. In response, the Minister expressed a degree of scepticism, perhaps, about that experience. Once again, the chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights has followed up our debates with a letter to the noble Baroness. I shall read part of that letter. It stated:

“I would like to draw your attention to the recommendation made by my Committee in its First Report of this Session, on the Human Rights of unaccompanied migrant children and young people in the UK, (HL: Paper 9 and HC 196), which dealt with guardianship and on which the Committee had taken evidence. This states (at paragraph 175):

‘We welcome the findings from the Scottish Guardianship Service, which demonstrate the value that a guardian can add for unaccompanied asylum seeking and trafficked children. We recommend that the Government commission pilots in England and Wales that builds upon and adapts the model of guardianship trialled in Scotland. The guardian should provide support in relation to the asylum and immigration process, support services and future planning, help children develop wider social networks, and ensure that children's views are heard in all proceedings that affect them. The Government should evaluate the case for establishing a wider guardianship scheme throughout England and Wales once those pilot schemes are complete’”.

The letter from the chair to the Minister continues:

“In your contribution to the debate in the Lords you suggested that the Scottish scheme had had mixed results, that it had not 'cracked' the problems that it was intended to address, and that it would add another layer of complexity”—

other noble Lords have talked about this—

“ to how these things are currently handled.

The results of the guardianship scheme, however, were largely positive, as was evidenced fully by the independent report undertaken by Professors Heaven Crawley and Ravi Kohli (who both advised my Committee during its inquiry into unaccompanied migrant children). These positive results led the Scottish Government to endorse the Guardianship Service, and support it with funding for a further three years at £200,000 per year”.

I would add here that Aileen Campbell, the Minister for Children and Young People in the Scottish Government, has said:

“The Scottish Guardianship Service gives asylum seeking children a voice and makes sure every young person involved understands and participates in decisions that affect them”.

The letter goes on:

“There is of course no question that the issues surrounding guardianship are complex and that it took time for the Service in Scotland to bed down and achieve some enduring coherence for vulnerable children in difficult circumstances. However, the independent report, in large part, is very clear that Guardianship was a safeguard for unaccompanied migrant children, and its design and implementation were exemplary”.

The report throws some light on this question of an additional layer of complexity. It found:

“The young people saw Guardians as helping them to understand what others did, especially when there were ‘too many people’ in their lives. This is an important perception by the young people of a key element of the Service—namely that the Service played a key role not because there were too few professionals in their lives, but because sometimes there were too many. The noise generated by these constant engagements and expectations, where young people were required to repeat some form of their story to an endless queue of professionals”—

a point that the noble Lord, Lord McColl, made—

“needed to be reduced to a sound that young people could hear, sometimes in sequence, and sometimes in a harmonised way. The Guardians did this”

in a number of ways. The letter concludes:

“My Committee believes that the Government should look at this again”.

I really hope that the Government will look at this again. There have been some very powerful speeches in support of the amendment and I very much hope that noble Lords will not be fobbed off again.

[The Lord Bishop of Truro]

My Lords, I support the amendment and declare an interest as chairman of the Children’s Society. The noble Lord, Lord McColl, has already mentioned the report, Still at Risk, published jointly by the Children’s Society and the Refugee Council.

The amendment raises an important matter. Doubts over a child’s age, their lack of documentation or uncertainty about their immigration status impede a child’s ability to access effective support to meet their welfare needs. For example, 10 of the 17 young people mentioned in the study had their ages disputed. Some had undergone multiple age assessments before it was agreed by the authorities that they were, in fact, children. Disputing a child’s age has serious safeguarding implications for them and can put them at serious risk. In the Still at Risk report, it was found that failure to recognise that they were children or victims of trafficking resulted in three of the young people who were interviewed being sent to adult prison, and two to an immigration removal centre. Several of the young people in the study did no know which country they were in because of the tight control exerted over them by their exploiters. The guidance on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states:

“Agencies or individuals whose interests could potentially be in conflict with those of the child’s should not be eligible for guardianship”.

The Children’s Society and others believe that local authority children’s services are indeed such agencies. A common problem for separated migrant children, including child victims of human trafficking, who may have entered the country without documents or on false papers is that their age is disputed by the Home Office and by local authorities, and that these agencies are unwilling to support them. Until the age of a person is verified, they should be treated as children, not adults, for the purposes of accessing support.

The case for guardians, as set out in the amendment, is supported by many international and domestic bodies, including the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Council of Europe expert group on trafficking and, most recently, the Joint Committee on Human Rights in its inquiry into unaccompanied migrant children and young people. That is supported in the long-standing position of the Refugee Children’s Consortium, a coalition of more than 40 non-governmental organisations working with children caught up in the immigration system. I urge the Minister to think carefully in the response to the amendment, which is an important initiative that is much needed by the research called for earlier.