Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a governor of Coram and a trustee of the Foundling Museum, both of which institutions work across adoption, fostering and, particularly, the care system. Overall, I welcome the Bill. I have one cause for regret and sadness, which is that my great friend, the late Lady Massey of Darwen is not here to take part.

I do not intend to get involved in Part 2, I think, but if I sense that children’s well-being and best interests are being drowned out by political and ideological skirmishing, I may not find myself able to remain silent. In particular, I say to the Minister that I wonder what her ex-headmaster, Bill Lucas, whom I believe she and her college colleagues called “Batman”, would think about the tenor and temper of some of the debate about schooling and what is in the best interests of children.

I will concentrate mainly on Part 1, and the simplest way to declare my interest is to say that I will be all over it like a rash. There are some issues with SEND, and I particularly commend the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and my noble friend Lord Carlile on their knowledge, focus and passion for that issue, which I am sure we will hear much more of in Committee. With Clause 17, on care leavers, there is still a danger that there will be a postcode lottery. There is a strong case for having a clear national offer regarding what care leavers can expect, rather than it being left to individual areas. In Clause 10, when it comes to regional care co-operatives, I beseech the Government to learn from what I think we all recognise is the failure of the creation of adoption regionalisation, which really has not worked and certainly does not benefit the children.

On Clause 19, trying to reduce the use of agency workers in children’s social care is very important. In particular, I suggest that the Minister and her colleagues might benefit from talking to the MP for York Central, Rachael Maskell, who is my co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Adoption and Fostering. She will tell the Minister exactly what has happened in York with the new head of children’s social care and the transformation that has happened there extremely quickly. It is an example of best practice and demonstrates what is possible.

We then come to early years, and I suspect that my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, who is speaking after me, will probably mention that in a minute. That is an important part of the Bill. The Minister and her colleague the Secretary of State came to the Cross-Bench meeting last week, and she may recall that the very first question I asked of the Secretary of State was, “Where are early years in this Bill?” The answer was, “It’s really, really important and we’re really focused on it”—but she did not really answer the question.

The question is, how can we increase the mental, physical and emotional well-being of children by the age of entry to primary education? In particular I think of the effect of technology on young minds and the work being done by the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Cass. I was at a meeting last week. My brain is still fizzing and overflowing from the quorum of professors—I am not sure what the collective noun is for a group of professors—and experts, including Jonathan Haidt, the eminent social science academic from New York University. The harm that is being done to our young people is staggering.

In today’s Times there is an article about what is happening in France, where a group of eminent academics and experts have exhorted the Government to try to prevent children before the age of six being exposed to too much screen time. It is absolutely detrimental, and it is happening in plain sight. Unless we do something about it, all the good work we are trying to do, particularly in increasing the effectiveness of primary schools, will be limited and demolished by the poor state of well-being of the children who are going there, unable to feed themselves, not potty-trained, inarticulate and with limited attention. This is happening in plain sight. We have to do something about it. It is more than a rash; it is a life-diminishing migraine.