Vulnerable Children

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, for introducing this debate and for the burning conviction with which she spoke in opening it.

I should declare an interest as I was for nine years president of YMCA England, which, of course, finds itself in the front line of working with all the issues we are discussing. In correspondence with YMCA about this debate, it made the following rather interesting point about the report, which it greatly welcomes:

“The Children’s Commissioner’s report alarmingly shows that a substantial amount of work is needed if we are to have a true picture of how many vulnerable children exist in England. Given the scale of uncertainty, it begs the question if society does not know the number of vulnerable children, how can we be close to ensuring that we have the appropriate resources in the right places when they are actually needed?”.


This is a huge challenge.

It might be appropriate at this stage, in view of all that has been said, and particularly as we approach Christmas, to send a message of good will and solidarity to those local authorities which really care about children and are struggling to provide and play their part amidst all the cuts and restrictions placed upon them. Similarly, in a world in which we have such an irresponsible public press, we should put on record our admiration of dedicated, hard-working, committed social workers across the country, who are grappling with these issues on the front line.

The Chief Inspector of Prisons said something truly disturbing in his report this year: that no prison he inspected,

“was safe to hold children and young people”.

As the Howard League for Penal Reform points out, as we come up to Christmas, thousands of youngsters will be locked into just that situation: suicide, self-harm, drugs, and all the rest. That is to leave to one side what happens to vulnerable young children on arrest, who too often experience the nightmare of Tasers, spit hoods and total isolation in police cells.

What are we doing to our children? All this reflects the failure of society. The point that they are so often the victims has been stressed already in this debate. I took a particular interest in the work of the YMCA with young offenders, and I repeatedly came to the conclusion that it would be an absolute miracle if the people I was talking to in institutions had not ended up there; in one form or another their lives had been total nightmares. How can we think that we can solve this in the institution, when it is short of resources, the money available to it is being cut back, and all the rest? The origins of the problem lie in society. It starts with us, in this very House.

The truth of the matter is that many of these children have never been loved. That cannot be solved by institutional arrangements; it has to be solved by the values of society and of the people who work within the system. However, if you have a society dedicated to acquisitive principles, selfishness and egocentricity, how can we begin to get this right with our own children?

I will make one last point in this excellent debate. I believe deeply that there is a moral and social challenge that every one of us in this Chamber, and society as a whole, has to face up to: it is the sickness of our society that is producing this nightmare. We read Dickens—but now look at ourselves. We have one hell of a job to do in changing society around.