Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 2 and 9, both of which I have added my name to. Based on my own experience, I believe that the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, is extremely important. Too often, in the understandable wish to make children safe, we overlook the importance of previous and sometimes current links to children’s family and a wider group of people who are important adults in their life. That is even where parts of that family have been highly dysfunctional and may not have always treated them well. There is often still a link with that family which is very important to the child.

These children often wish that their immediate family had treated them better, but they do not necessarily wish to sever all their links to family and the wider world outside of what they experience in care. Very often, there are people in their family and among a wider carer group with whom they have made quite a strong bond and relationship and have a desire to maintain that contact. I suggest to your Lordships that it is critical to a child’s own sense of self-worth that they are not given the impression that they do not matter to this wider family and group of people who have been important in their life. I think it is critical that the Government take seriously the spirit of the amendment proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and are willing to incorporate that spirit in some form in appropriate words on the face of the Bill.

I have added my name to Amendment 9, proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, because I strongly support it. I think he has worked extremely hard trying to persuade the department that there is merit in his approach. I think there is very strong merit. Children in residential care are often the most needy and vulnerable. All too often they have a history of failed placements and a strong sense of being let down by the adult world. They are often used to adults walking away from them or dipping in and out of their lives, rather than building strong relationships with them that last over time.

When they come into residential care and find a key worker or a personal adviser to whom they can relate, it is often very important for their sense of self-worth that the system tries to foster that relationship and assists its continuance, not only while they are in care but when the child leaves residential care and moves to independent living, which is a very difficult thing to carry out. Many of us find it difficult to encourage our own children to move to independent living well into their 20s, so imagine what it is like for a young person leaving care. Maintaining that relationship with a key worker, personal adviser or adult who is connected to the child when they are in care may, in some cases, be the ingredient that determines success or failure as they move into independent living.

This is a massive issue for many of these young people, and I think that the Government would do well to listen to both the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and to take seriously their amendments.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to make one simple point in support of Amendment 2, although it probably relates to Amendment 9 as well. In discussing the previous group of amendments, we talked about the mental and emotional health of children, and the Government’s amendment was about the promotion of mental as well as physical health. I cannot think of anything that could do more to undermine the mental health of children than to be torn away from relationships that are really important to them. Therefore, in the interests of making a reality of government Amendment 1, I hope that the Minister will feel able to accept Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 9. Subsection (1) of the new clause proposed in it refers to subsection (2). Clause 1(2)(c) of the Bill refers to,

“persons aged under 25 who are former relevant children within the meaning of”,

the Children Act, and it is that part of the Bill that I wish briefly to address.

I agree completely with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, about the importance of relationships to children and young people. On Thursday last week, I attended a briefing organised by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the Children’s Society at which I heard from two care leavers, both of whom spoke very passionately about their experiences. One young lady, who was 18, has now left care. However, she was removed from her foster placement one day after her 18th birthday, which seems unnecessarily hasty and somewhat insensitive. To date, no personal adviser has been appointed for her and she has no one to officially advise her. She made the very valid point that she and others in care really need advice, particularly on their likely financial responsibilities, before they reach 18 and not afterwards, as all money stops at 18. I will return to this aspect of financial advice in later amendments.

It is important that children in local authority care have someone they can turn to at all times. Children not in care have parents and relatives whom they can turn to and confide in. Looked-after children deserve parity with their peers, and I fully support the amendment tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, and the noble Lord, Lord Warner.

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[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, this amendment seeks to include a duty to promote access to legal advice and representation for children in care in order to safeguard and promote their welfare and future life chances. It seeks to do that on the face of the Bill.

Local authorities, in their role as corporate parents, have a particular obligation to promote meaningful access to legal services for the children in their care. Recent evidence presented to the Refugee Children’s Consortium suggests that it is not enough for access to legal advice to be included in a child’s care plan. There should instead be an active duty to promote access whenever needed. For example, children may need access to legal advice in regard to accessing appropriate education in their area if they have special educational needs; to have a voice in family law proceedings that concern arrangements for their care; to regularise their immigration status; or to claim compensation where they are a victim of crime, including human trafficking.

In the concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child’s recent periodic report, it was noted that some children in care do not feel listened to, and that unaccompanied, migrant and asylum-seeking children may not receive independent legal advice. I am particularly concerned that children are missing out on opportunities to resolve their immigration status before they turn 18 because of the limited provision of legal advice and the difficulty of finding independent and reliable advice providers. A child without a way to regularise their immigration status in local authority care becomes a young person without support at 18, and now will be able to appeal against deportation only once they have been returned to their country of origin under the terms of the Immigration Act 2016.

My reason for proposing this subsection is that it is yet another example of where the solution does not seem to lie in the hands of the Department for Education alone, but requires co-operation and co-ordination with the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. I therefore hope very much that the Minister will feel able to accept the amendment and turn it into a government amendment in due course. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of this amendment, especially in relation to unaccompanied migrant children. I will not repeat what I said in Committee, especially around the regularisation of immigration and citizenship status, but will simply emphasise—here echoing the noble Lord—its importance from the perspective of meeting our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In an earlier report, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I was then a member, underlined the importance of access to qualified legal advice and representation to compliance with Article 12 of the convention, which stresses that children must be,

“provided with the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings”,

affecting them. The Equality and Human Rights Commission highlighted this as a priority issue for implementing the concluding observations of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the noble Lord referred. It calls on the Government to expedite the promised review of the LASPO Act to assess its impact on children. Here it is echoing the committee itself.

In yesterday’s Written Statement on the UNCRC the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families encouraged colleagues to reflect,

“the voice of the child fully in the design and implementation of policy”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/10/16; col 23WS.]

In the light of that, I hope the Minister will be able to respond positively to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for this amendment and for his contribution and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister.

In local authorities where the ethos of corporate parenting is strongest—for example, in North Somerset and Trafford—the views of looked-after children and care leavers are at the heart of how local services are created and delivered. Along with the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families, I applaud the way in which many local authorities, through their children in care councils and care leaver forums, listen and respond to the views and needs of this vulnerable group.

The corporate parenting principles are designed to ensure that the local authority as a whole has regard to the need to act in the best interests of the child whenever it carries out functions in relation to looked-after children or care leavers. Considering this together with the existing functions to ensure that the rights of children and young people are promoted, I do not believe that amending the principles in the way suggested is necessary. However, I am aware of the report on advocacy services for looked-after children by the Children’s Commissioner, which highlighted that 55% of looked-after children were unaware of their right to independent advocacy support. Local authorities have a duty to provide assistance for advocacy services for all looked-after children, children in need and children in care, and this includes making them aware of this provision. I do not believe that further legislation would help here.

We need to work directly with local authorities to improve good practice and raise awareness. I will commit to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that we will do so. Some local authorities are already very good, but others are not; as the Children’s Commissioner made clear in her report. It is about raising the game of the poorer authorities to meet their existing responsibilities. Indeed, while I sympathise with the underlying intention behind the noble Lord’s amendment, I believe that it may risk introducing an unhelpful adversarial dimension to the relationship between children and young people and their local authority as corporate parent, which I am sure the noble Lord would not wish to see.

The framework for care planning and the transition from care to adulthood that exists already gives children and young people routes for voicing their views. These include court-appointed guardians, their social worker and a named IRO who follows their case, meets the child privately before the formal meeting to review his or her care plan, and also advises the court.

A key role of IROs is to resolve problems arising out of the care planning process. Every local authority should have a formal process for IROs to raise concerns and to ensure that those concerns are respected by managers. This is referred to in our guidance as the local dispute resolution process. An IRO has the statutory power to refer the case to Cafcass at any stage if he or she considers it appropriate to do so. He or she may consider it necessary to make a concurrent referral to Cafcass at the same time that he or she instigates the dispute resolution process. There is clear guidance on this point in the Children Act 1989 statutory guidance on care planning and in the IRO handbook. That handbook, which is statutory guidance that local authorities must comply with, also makes it clear that each local authority should have a system in place that provides IROs with access to independent legal advice. Skilled independent advocates who speak on behalf of looked-after children also work with the legal service. They provide the independent advice and assistance sought by this amendment.

Local authorities are required under Section 26A of the Children Act 1989, which deals with advocacy services, to make arrangements for the provision of assistance to looked-after children and care leavers for advocacy and representation support, and local authorities must make these arrangements known publicly, as they see fit. I am not therefore convinced that adding a further principle on a specific area as regards services or support, which is already the subject of a statutory duty, is necessary.

The corporate parenting principles and the needs articulated in Clause 1 are about improving the culture and ethos of local authorities so that, as far as possible, children are treated with care and as a good parent would, so that the children do not feel that they are being looked after by an impersonal corporate body. The way to do that is not to create expectations of legal representation for all looked-after children and care leavers when disputes can be resolved without escalating it to lawyers. That means using IROs and advocates effectively and making better use of children in care councils, which all local authorities will have. I hope that the noble Lord will feel sufficiently reassured to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I support the amendment. However, I would like to put a very specific question to the Minister to which I would welcome a reply. The Minister will recall that, when you stand at the Dispatch Box, you speak for the Government, not just your department. When this Bill began, there was another Government he was speaking for, but he is now speaking for a new Government. That new Government have expressed great concern about helping those who are just getting by. This group of people are barely getting by and in some cases are not getting by. What this amendment does is provide a proposition which this Government—not the previous Government —need to consider. Can the Minister say whether this issue has been put to the new Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions and DCLG? It would be very helpful to know whether this Government have considered this issue at a ministerial level and what their view is.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, what I would like to say follows on very well from the noble Lord’s very pertinent question. I am happy to support this amendment, which was moved so ably by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel.

A recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation document called We Can Solve Poverty in the UK, which was the product of a long and wide consultation, states:

“The prospects for young people leaving local authority care should be an overarching priority for government. Despite positive policy and legal developments, they continue to face unacceptably high risks of destitution and poverty”.

Destitution in 21st-century Britain for an extremely vulnerable group of young people really is unacceptable. As the noble Lord said, they are not getting by. In many circumstances, it is simply not possible for them to get by.

This amendment addresses some of the key policy drivers behind these very serious risks. The Government are rightly requiring local authorities to promote the best interests of care leavers up to the age of 25, yet their own policies fail to do so. I can see no justification for what surely must constitute double standards. There is a degree of acknowledgement of the arguments put earlier during the process of the Bill and of this case in Keep on Caring, which is very welcome, but I urge the Minister to go further today.

As already noted, no doubt cost will be cited. However, the costs are not prohibitive. Also, this needs to be considered in the context of another Joseph Rowntree Foundation report regarding the costs of poverty. It calculated that around two-thirds of total local authority expenditure on children’s services is attributable to poverty-related problems.

At earlier stages of this Bill, I quoted yet another Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, which looked at the links between poverty and the abuse and neglect of children. I quoted that report, which said:

“Poverty often slides out of focus in policy and practice”.

This amendment puts poverty back into focus and it addresses the severe poverty experienced by many extremely vulnerable care leaders.