Children and Families Bill

Debate between Elfyn Llwyd and Edward Timpson

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I would like to speak briefly to amendments Nos 5, 6, 7 and 8, which seek to introduce greater flexibility and understanding of the 26-week target for care proceedings. Nobody in this place would deny that that target is very helpful and we hope that, in most cases, we will be able to meet it. But we know—for example from the Norgrove report—that, on average, cases take up to 61 weeks: 48 weeks in family court proceedings. The Justice Committee, of which I am a member, held an inquiry into the operation of family courts. In its evidence to us, Barnardo’s made the point:

“Two months of delay in making decisions in the best interest of a child equates to 1% of childhood that cannot be restored.”

For this reason, both the all-party group on child protection and the Justice Committee welcomed the Government’s aim of reducing unnecessary delay in the care system.

Care must be taken with regard to the target as well. Clause 14 provides the starting point for courts in setting a time for cases; proceedings should come to an end within 26 weeks, as I mentioned. But there is some ambiguity as to when courts should deem an extension appropriate. As the College of Social Work and the Family Rights Group have argued, there is a genuine risk that the proposed 26-week limit could result in too much focus on procedure and not enough on the welfare of the child.

The vast majority of cases will be concluded within six months, but deciding on permanent options can take longer for some children, not always due to problems with the court process or unnecessary delay. Social workers will attest that situations can change in the course of proceedings; for example, when relatives present themselves as possible carers late in the process. The Family Rights Group has pointed out that, under the new limit, if family members are late in offering themselves as carers there may well not be enough time for the relevant assessments to be carried out.

Equally, placing a child with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins or other siblings can reinforce aspects of a child’s identity. In many cases, however, relatives will be reluctant to offer this option if they think that there is still a chance that the child will be able to be returned to his or her parents.

I anticipate that Government Members will point out that the safeguard for granting extensions to cases is robust enough to allow for complications to be ironed out. Sadly, I have it on good evidence that judges are, in some cases, already imposing a 26-week deadline on proceedings even before the limit has been introduced. It is crucial that time considerations do not supersede the welfare of the child concerned. What is more, some intervention programmes take longer than 26 weeks due to parents undergoing treatment for substance misuse issues and similar problems. The pilot boroughs—Hammersmith and Fulham, Westminster, and Kensington and Chelsea—have estimated that 25 to 30 per cent. of all cases will take longer than the 26-week limit.

Intensive family programmes, such as the NSPCC’s infant and family team, are another example. The programme was developed in the United States and is now being piloted in the United Kingdom. A four-year evaluation of the programme in the US showed improved outcomes for children and adults in all groups that undertook the programme. I will be unable to address that point as fully as I should like in the time allotted, but one of the motivations behind the amendments I am speaking to—by the way, I am hugely indebted to the NSPCC for its assistance in this matter—is that some cases should be exempted from the limit from the outset. Although the Bill as drafted would allow for incremental eight-week extensions, practitioners in the field have warned that they would need to know at the beginning of proceedings how much time they have to work with the family, in order to secure the best possible outcome.

Equally worryingly, practitioners warn that social workers could be deterred from seeking extensions other than in highly exceptional circumstances, as the “specific justification” test in clause 14(7) may be perceived as a barrier in borderline cases. That is why amendment 5 would allow courts to exempt certain cases from the 26-week limit from the very start of proceedings if evidence relating to a planned intervention or programme requiring a longer period was presented to the court, or if the court considered it necessary to permit additional time to safeguard the child’s welfare.

Amendments 7 and 8 relate to clause 17, which introduces significant reforms to the way in which courts scrutinise care plans. I do not have time to go into the context; all I would say is that I, too, am disappointed that our time is limited today. These are very important matters. I have skimmed through what I was going to say—I am grateful that I was able to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker—and I know that the NSPCC and many other organisations will be bitterly disappointed that we have had to truncate such important debates in this way.

[Mr Timpson]

This group of amendments covers a wide range of issues relating to the care and protection of children. As I will be unable to address all the points made, I will endeavour to write to all hon. Members in response to their amendments and the questions they posed, particularly the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who has been very convivial and constructive during the passage of this Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has raised a number of important areas of debate, particularly in making some powerful points about returning home from care. I will look at those points extremely carefully and am happy to discuss them with him on another occasion.

I want to focus on a number of issues about which I have some important points to make. They are: care leavers, young carers, fostering for adoption, child witnesses and sex and relationships education. On carer leavers, new clause 4 considers “staying put” arrangements, where care leavers live with their former foster carer after they have left care. Many hon. Members have expressed their support for new clause 4, and I would welcome the opportunity to discuss how we can extend those arrangements. The legislative framework relating to care leavers is comprehensive and clear. I have written to all directors of children’s services asking them to prioritise “staying put” arrangements. We have also issued practical guidance on tax and benefits issues. We are monitoring “staying put” arrangements and reviewing local progress through Ofsted inspections and feedback from care leaver groups. If no progress is being made, I will consider whether legislation is required, but I do not believe we should make that change only two years after changing the statutory framework.

On young carers, in Committee we heard heart-felt arguments about the need to do more for young carers. I promised to reflect carefully on the arguments for legislative change. Since then I have discussed the matter with the Minister for care services, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), and we have agreed that our joint aim is to ensure that young carers are protected. We firmly believe that taking a “whole family” approach to the assessment of care needs will be the key to achieving just that. I have now given the matter careful thought and, with the changes being introduced by the Care Bill for adult carers, I am persuaded that the time is right to see what we can do to remove any barriers that may be preventing these vulnerable young people and their families from receiving the life-changing support they need.

I have asked officials to look at how the legislation for young carers might be changed so that rights and responsibilities are clearer to young carers and practitioners alike. We will also look at how we can ensure that children’s legislation works with adults’ legislation to support the linking of assessments, as set out in the Care Bill, to enable “whole family” approaches. We will ensure that interested parties, including hon. Members, are consulted on that work.

There is a strong consensus about the policy intention behind fostering for adoption: that children should be placed as early as possible in a stable placement. Amendment 33 would mean that clause 1 would bite too early for concurrent planning. I listened to the concerns raised in Committee about the impact on kinship carers, but there is no intention that kinship carers should be overlooked as a consequence of this clause. I am pleased to reassure hon. Members that I am giving consideration to amending the clause to be clearer that local authorities must first consider placing a child with relatives and friends before they consider a “fostering for adoption” placement. This is an issue that I expect to be returned to in the other place, and I know that Members will welcome that reassurance. I know that hon. Members will also be pleased by today’s announcement from the Secretary of State for Justice on child witnesses. That represents an important move forward.

On personal, social and health education, we all recognise that this is an important issue, but we do not have unanimity on what constitutes the best approach. The expectation that all schools should teach PSHE is outlined in the introduction to the framework of the proposed new national curriculum. It is not a statutory requirement, however, as we strongly believe that teachers need the flexibility to use their professional judgment to decide when and how best to provide PSHE in their local circumstances. The Government do not believe that the right of parents to withdraw their children from sex and relationships education should be diminished in the way proposed. We see no need to amend the existing legislation, which provides a clear and workable model for schools and parents. Moreover, the new provision would place a disproportionate burden on teachers, who would have to make and defend decisions on what constitutes “sufficient maturity”—

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Elfyn Llwyd and Edward Timpson

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Llwyd]

Mr Justice Ryder, who is in overall charge of this area, gave evidence to the Justice Committee not long ago and the hon. Lady should rest assured that he is on the case. There has been progress of late in that area, but I am sure that there will be greater progress. I thank her for that intervention.

In evidence to the Justice Committee’s inquiry, Barnardo’s stated:

“Two months of delay in making decisions in the best interest of a child equates to 1% of childhood that cannot be restored.”

Thus, the principle of introducing a 26-week time limit is obviously to be welcomed. However, as the Family Law Bar Association noted in its evidence, the practical consequences of the provision might result in further delay in the courts, because cases will still be likely to take longer than 26 weeks to complete and so will be repeatedly referred back to the court for extensions. The evidence of the NSPCC drew attention to the importance of granting adequate time to work with families in cases where intervention projects are utilised, such as in the family drug and alcohol court in London, without the extra burden of having to apply for extensions.

The Committee recommended that the draft provision should be amended to allow judges some leniency to identify cases that are likely to take longer than 26 weeks and to exempt them from the 26-week time limit. That may well reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and expensive extension hearings. I urge the Minister to think further about that, as I am sure he will.

The Justice Committee was concerned about the provisions on child arrangements orders in clause 12 and recommended a number of alterations. It is important to remember that the UK has had equality of parental responsibility since 1989. That principle was introduced to reduce conflict in courts over contact arrangements and to remove the perception that there are winners and losers in such disputes. The Committee was unconvinced that merely changing the wording from “contact order” and “residence order” to “child arrangements order” would eliminate the perception that there are winners and losers in the family courts.

The Committee was also concerned that the changed wording would cause confusion in foreign jurisdictions and recommended that the Government reconsider the practical difficulty in interpreting the clause in the context of international law. The concept of “rights of custody” is well established in The Hague and in EU legislation. There is justifiable concern that the introduction of CAOs could cause confusion about the nature of parental responsibility, unless the orders specify that the person with whom the child is to live has rights of custody.

My greatest concern and that of the Committee relates to clause 11. We heard a debate about this matter earlier and the Minister became animated when we came to it. The explanation of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) comforted me. The Government accepted the Committee’s recommendation that the title of the provision should be changed from “shared parenting” to “parental involvement”. However, the Government did not accept that the term “involvement” should be defined in the Bill to remove any implication that involvement equates to a parent’s right to a set amount of time with a child.

In their response to the Committee’s report on the Bill, the Government stated:

“Whilst it is not a specific policy intention to change the outcome of court decisions in particular cases, we anticipate that the amendment will encourage parents to adopt less adversarial and entrenched positions in relation to the care of their child.”

I hope that that is right, but evidence suggests that, to the contrary, the change might prompt people to assume that they have rights and could lead to courts undermining the paramountcy of the welfare of the child, inferring instead that equal access to both parents will have a beneficial impact on all children. As Gingerbread pointed out in its briefing on the Shared Parenting Orders Bill, which failed to be passed during the last Session, there would be problems with

“any form of legal presumption that assumes a particular outcome—that is, a parenting arrangement of near equal or equal time—before the consideration of a child’s best interests”.

[Mr Timpson]

I appreciate that this is a Second Reading debate, but it may be worth the right hon. Gentleman acquainting himself with page 21 of the explanatory notes, which deals with the issue and states explicitly:

“It is not the purpose of this amendment to promote the equal division of a child’s time between separated parents.”

That is clear in the explanatory notes and was made clear when I gave evidence to the Justice Committee.

[Mr Llwyd]

I am afraid that does not explain why some corners of the press still believe that to be the case. I accept what the Minister says, however, and I certainly accept the useful explanation given earlier by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham.