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Mr. Gary Streeter (Plymouth, Sutton) : Twenty-five years.
Highlighting the need for parents to show more affection to their children does not work and will not work. I recommend a bloody good kick up the backside. If parents will not show a natural interest in their kids, it is up to the Government to make the parents of persistent young offenders more responsible. Perhaps their child benefit should be suspended as and when their child is convicted. Failing that, perhaps those parents should face a custodial sentence. That would give them some future incentive to show some responsibility for their offspring. Children need role models and they need to respect authority. Sadly, the pathetic behaviour of negligent parents leaves many children with no role model and no respect for or deference to authority.
The problem of negligent parents has a knock-on effect in schools. Lord Elton, in his report on discipline for the Department for Education, noted that he was
"aware of research findings which link anti-social and aggressive behaviour in school to the quality of the child's upbringing and family relationship".
Mrs. Llin Golding (Newcastle-under-Lyme) : Can the hon. Gentleman tell why it is mostly boys and men who commit crimes? Does he believe that that is connected with the role model of the father?
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Mr. Evans : I would like children to look up to those role models that I respected when I was young--God, my father and the village policeman. They are the role models that I have in mind.
Pathetic parents lead to badly behaved children and that leads to trouble in schools. With the abolition of corporal punishment, however, schools no longer have an effective means of disciplining children. That loss of discipline has led to a loss of respect and a loss of control.
The recently deceased novelist, Sir William Golding, shot to fame with his first novel "Lord of the Flies". Little did he know that it would come to reflect the present anarchy in the classroom, where little hooligans are allowed to rule the roost, with brutal consequences. We have heard horrific reports of children being savaged by sadistic forms of physical and mental bullying. The power and authority of teachers, however, has diminished to the point where they are scared even to touch a child for fear of being suspended. We even hear regular reports of teachers being subjected to violent physical and sexual assaults by children who are, quite simply, out of control.
Mr. Jonathan Evans : My hon. Friend may be aware that the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and other charities have expressed great concern about bullying in schools. One of the difficulties that they face, however, is schools' refusal to recognise that that problem exists. Even when parents raise the issue, they have to fight governors and teachers who say that there is no bullying problem at the school. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is part of the problem to which he has referred?
Mr. Evans : One need only recall the head teachers conference to appreciate that they do not recognise what discipline is about. One need only observe the conference of the National Union of Teachers to discover what they think about discipline. Need I say any more? Naturally, I blame the parents who have failed to give problem children a proper upbringing, but I also blame the succession of Ministers who did not have the guts to re-establish a sensible framework for authority and discipline in schools by reintroducing corporal punishment. Generally speaking, that lot on the Opposition Benches seem to reject corporal punishment on the half-baked notion that they are protecting children. What a lot of rubbish. I believe that the absence of corporal punishment has allowed little thugs to bully and harm pupils and teachers.
Children are not stupid. They know that if they are not going to get punished when they do something wrong, they can go on doing it. That process of permitting delinquency has graduated from the schools to the streets. The Home Office has instructed the police to caution rather than prosecute juvenile offenders. On occasions, juveniles who have been caught four or five times committing offences have merely received four or five cautions. Where is the logic in that? We can caution youths until we are blue in the face, but unless we come up with an effective deterrent, those delinquents will carry on offending.
If anyone is interested in reading horror stories and has already read the most recent Labour party manifesto, I suggest the 1990 criminal statistics for England and Wales. I was shocked to discover that youths had merely been cautioned for rape, indecent assault on a female and
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conspiracy to murder. A staggering 2,071 youths aged between 14 and 17 had been cautioned for burglary. What is going on?Those young offenders should be properly punished for their crimes. We have been told that the borstals for youths will be up and running in three years' time, but my constituents ask me what we are going to do about those youths who are running riot today. Even when those special borstals are established, I doubt whether they will do any good. Those baby borstals will be about as tough as kindergartens. The staff will be instructed to comfort and cosset the offenders. I would not be surprised if the Home Office issued a circular to instruct the staff to provide offenders with a nice hot cup of cocoa before bed time.
Last May, The Sunday Telegraph reported on another Home Office circular, under the heading
"Are you enjoying your porridge?"
Apparently, the staff had been instructed to ask offenders whether they were having their underpants changed regularly enough, whether their cells were hot enough, cold enough, too noisy or too quiet. They were asked whether they could sleep at night. That is just what the new borstals will be like, because they will be run by socialist do-gooders.
I suggest that we drop the trendy socialist claptrap philosophy and return to a dose of discipline and authority. We need to urge my right hon. and learned Friend the new Home Secretary to take the bull by the horns and introduce a framework that will being those kids back into line. Let us reintroduce flogging--cat-o'-nine-tails if you like--because that will make those thugs think about crime. That would certainly have a better effect than one pointless caution after another, which lets thugs go out and rob and rape again. That is what is happening every day.
The socialist softies on the Opposition Benches may shake their heads, but they should bow their heads in shame, so should many on the Conservative Benches, at the fact that their soft soap slogans and slushy nonsense have landed us in a mess. By listening to their sort for too long, we have removed responsibility, authority and discipline from our society. The nation is now being held to ransom. A solution has emerged from an unlikely source--the European Community. My friends know my honest view of Europe : no, thank you. One practice of the Community that I would grasp with open arms, however, is national service, not necessarily in the armed forces, but in the community. Young people, men and women, could then learn the benefits of discipline, team work and a deference to authority. The Government should be encouraging young people to get out, get active and get stuck in. Children, sadly, no longer seem to have any sense of participation or involvement in events. That is particularly true of sport. Children just lounge around their bedrooms at every opportunity, playing computer games or watching television. When they get fed up with those computer games, they go out in the evening and hang around the streets and estates, where boredom, inevitably, leads to mischief.
Children should be encouraged to play more sport. School teachers have, sadly, become 9 to 3.30 merchants. They should hang their heads in shame when it comes to latchkey kids. In my day, when the school bell went at
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3.30, we were encouraged to participate in sport, whether it was cricket, hockey, netball, swimming, running or jumping. The teacher took pride in producing a swimming team. The whole school was made to stay back to cheer its side. That created team spirit and pride, rather than the dreadful individualism which seems to be affecting our nation, our youth and, dare I say it, our party.Sad to say, these days, the most vulnerable go home to an empty house while mum is at work. They have two hours to fill in, which, in itself, produces problems. It may even be necessary to pay teachers overtime to stay on at school, because a concentrated effort to encourage youngsters to participate in sport would be in the long-term interests of everyone.
As a youth, I played football and I was fortunate enough to make football my career. I only wish that more children could enjoy the excitement, sense of achievement and discipline felt when participating in sporting activities. The politically correct crackpots of the Opposition would probably disagree and argue that sport is too rough and too competitive. Perhaps that is why they cannot win a general election. Looking back on the Labour party's record, I think that it makes the English football team look successful. I would not be surprised if it appointed Graham Taylor as its new campaign manager--he could not be worse than the one it has got. Sitting opposite that lot day after day, I have had to conclude that they lacked discipline in their upbringing and are obviously a bunch of political delinquents. I do not wish to spend any more time on that lot because they are losers--there is no hope for them. Children are different. They have a life of potential and achievement ahead of them. It is up to us to guide them through the path to adulthood with care, attention and supervision--most of all supervision--and provide them with role models in authority and the use of discipline. The Government must free themselves from the clutches of the chattering classes and adopt a commonsense approach to the health and welfare of our children. We do not need to spend vast sums of taxpayers' money. All that is required is an occasional clip around the ear and a cuddle every night before bedtime. For the health care of our children, I give the Government three plus points and a gold star ; on the subject of our children's welfare, I would say of the Government that they are trying, but could do better. 11.14 am
Miss Joan Lestor (Eccles) : If the views of the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) have been formed as a result of his activities on the football field, I recommend that the Government ban the sport immediately. I cannot believe the speech that I have just heard and I do not intend to pick up on it in any way, except to throw out one or two general thoughts.
People call for activities for our young people at a time when youth service facilities are decreasing, many regions do not have recreational facilities and the aspirations that the Government describe as important cannot be met because of cuts in local authority expenditure. Therefore, to talk about activities in that context seems to undermine the philosophy that we should adopt. Some of us have fostered children or worked with children in need and children who have suffered in a way
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that it is hard for others to comprehend-- where children have been abused, ill treated, violated and moved from home to home never to be rehabilitated. After 12 or 15 years of such existence, many such children end up as delinquents who are antisocial and violent. But unless one traces the history of those children and learns the lessons of how to guard against a repetition of ehaviour. I do not think that most hon. Members would want that.We must learn the lessons of what has happened in the past. To be fair, I think that the Government have sometimes responded well to the problems. We can all remember the cases of Maria Colwell, Tara Henry, Jasmine Beckford and Kimberley Carlile, and a host of children who died because we let them down. We must always be sure that the structures that we set up as a result of the inquiries we undertake following the deaths and suffering of those children are watertight. We must constantly review the position.
Yesterday I was disappointed by the reply I received when I asked whether there was to be a review of all the structures involving children and young people in residential care. I was told that that would not happen in a major way. We must always review the provision. People slip through the net and we cannot know at all times what is happening in any home or organisation for children.
I was interested in the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) about boys. Persistent offenders are nearly always--although not always--boys. Why is that ? Is it because we expect too much of our boys, who find that they cannot meet those expectations and so become young offenders ? Is it because the status of young men in society is measured in terms of owning large cars and becoming providers, breadwinners and heads of families, and many boys believe that they will never achieve that status ? We should consider that aspect.
We should also study what is happening to young girls. But we must remember that we are talking about a minority of young people. An increasing number of very young girls are having babies. They do not have babies in order to obtain a house. Perhaps they do so because the only way in which they can achieve status in society is to become a mother. The lack of educational and work opportunities for many young girls results in an increasing number of them seeking refuge in obtaining some form of status by becoming mothers, which worries me. However, it takes two to make a baby and we should ask why the number of teenage pregnancies is increasing. What sort of society produces such a problem ?
We all know that unless we intervene at an early stage to help alleviate the problem of young people, the pattern tends to be repeated. I have fostered children for a long time. Happily, I have seen some of them adopoted or rehabilitated, but some were less fortunate. Of the less fortunate, those on whom I have managed to keep tabs over the years have, unfortunately, tended to become part of an ever-repeating pattern.
Mr. Jonathan Evans : The hon. Lady mentioned teenage pregnancies as though they might all be intentional. I also have some experience of child care work and I think that she will agree with me that most teenage pregnancies are not intentional.
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Miss Lestor : I was just about to comment on that. We kid ourselves that young people are well aware of birth control, but they are not. The hon. Gentleman is right when he says that many teenage pregnancies are not intentional. Many young girls who become pregnant decide to go ahead with the pregnancies despite the social difficulties which they know that they will face. We must address that issue. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we have not tackled the issue of family planning and birth control for boys and girls in our society. We could develop an argument on the subject of why teenage pregnancies are becoming more frequent. They were not so common years ago when less knowledge was available about family planning. The age of teenagers who become pregnant is decreasing. Parents are blamed for everything in today's society. All hon. Members with children have neglected them in some way or other. Being a Member of Parliament means that we have to neglect our children--we have to leave them to our partners as we are at Westminster most of the week, not with our children. If they are honest, hon. Members from both sides of the House, irrespective of political affiliation, will admit that sometimes they fail to get to a birthday party or some other event.
There are degrees of neglect of children, but the accusation of neglect must not be levelled simply at the poor, which is not fair. The poor care for their children as much as those who are better off ; it is someone's circumstances which can lead to neglect. To argue that parents do not care and should be put in prison is ridiculous and shows the lack of understanding about the neglect of children. All hon. Members--the majority of whom are men--are fortunate. The men, if they have children, have wives at home looking after them. I remember one Conservative Member who asked me who were the lovely little children who were running around me. I said with great pride that they were my grandchildren. He said that my response made him feel terrible as he would not see his children until Friday. When we talk about the neglect of children, we must be careful about what we say. People who are poor or unemployed care for their children just as much as anyone else, but they cannot afford to pay other people to assist them, as many of us can.
We must consider the impact of television, to which probably all children are subjected. People will say that only a minority become violent and behave in an antisocial way as a result.
All our children these days play video games and watch a great deal of television. It is important to find out whether what they see on television is reinforced in the family circle. If children see violence and are told by their parents that violence is terrible and that people should not behave like that, they will begin to question what they have seen. If, on the other hand, they are told that the violence is wonderful and manly, they will react differently. There is a generation gap : we did not play video games, so we do not know about their impact. In any event, how we react to what we see on the screen and how schools and other institutions in charge of young people react to it is all important.
There is not just one cause of antisocial behaviour by this minority of children. Our schools are not collapsing because of indiscipline. I repeat that the problem is confined to a minority. Most youngsters who are
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cautioned--85 per cent. of them--never offend again. It is unfair to maintain that there is a relentless tide of bad behaviour--Mrs. Wise : Perhaps my hon. Friend would like to hear about the experience of a member of my union--an elderly lady who took part in a television programme about young people. She listed several instances of good behaviour, but they were not included in the final programme. Only the criticisms were included.
Miss Lestor : I am not surprised. We hear about this minority all the time ; we concentrate on it. We have all had a great many letters, however, from young people in our constituencies asking how they can raise money for various good causes. They want to be involved. They are increasingly aware of environmental issues. We have all been to functions at which we have seen the good activities carried out by young people. Certainly, there is a problem with a minority, but that problem cannot be divorced from the social circumstances in which many of them find themselves. If we forget that, we sell these young people short.
Young people do not become violent out of the blue. We should remember how many of them become thugs after they themselves have been treated violently. Similarly, many youngsters who suffer sexual abuse go on to become sexually abusing adults--but not all of them do. A majority of the most violent people in this country have been violently treated themselves.
I am also worried about the fact that a large number of young people who end up in penal institutions used to be in local authority care, often taken into care to remove them from unsatisfactory homes. Perhaps the personality damage had already been done before they went into care, but there must be a link. Equally, a disproportionately large number of young people sleeping on the streets have been through the care system. We cannot ignore these factors or claim that social circumstances are irrelevant. There is a thread that runs through all these experiences and we should not just dismiss it and call for the return of the birch.
The National Association of Young People in Care will bear out what I am saying. We need to ensure that our structures for dealing with children and young people are not open to abuse. Children who have suffered at the hands of people in the care system, in which we have placed them for their own protection, will obviously encounter problems and difficulties later on.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) dealt adequately with many aspects of the Children Act 1989, but I draw attention to the decline in the school nursing service and the problems that that will entail. I recently asked a parliamentary question about the numbers of school nurses in post. In 1979, there were 3,810 ; in 1985, 3,110 ; in 1991, there were 3,050. Clearly, there has been a decline. Now, two health districts, Bath and Bristol, have said that they no longer intend to provide a school-based nursing service and that they intend to reduce universal school children health surveillance programmes. Doubtless the Government will say, as they have in the past, that the service is not needed so much--that children are healthier and are going to see their family practitioners. I question that and so does the Royal College of Nursing.
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Schools nurses in many areas see every child for a health interview at the start of his or her school career. That leads to the early detection of problems, on which advice can be given. It is therefore a great pity that the service is to be allowed to deteriorate. Statistics may show that more of our children are healthy--I am sure that that is true--but what an indictment of 14 years of Conservative Government it would be if there had been no progress on this front. More children are being immunised--we have stamped out many diseases during the past 50 years --but there will always be a minority to whom the overall approach does not apply. They will be the children who will lose out ; they are the ones who do not go to family GPs, whose parents may be poor and unable to take advantage of the service in their area. The Government and health authorities are selling children short if they allow the school nursing service to decline. In this country we are good at concentrating on pre- school health services for children. We have a good health visitor service- -long may it last : I hope that it will never be tampered with. After children go to school, however, the service is not so good.The British Dental Association and other organisations have expressed concern about children's teeth. The number of examinations carried out is declining. It will be said that children's teeth are improving because of fluoridation. That may be so, but too many young children still get caries and there is not enough early detection. That may be partly due to the cost for adults of going to the dentist, which may lead to fewer children accompanying their parents to the surgery. There is a wide variation in the prevalence of dental caries among five-year-olds. The highest incidence is in the northern urban districts and among poorer people with poorer diets. The lowest incidence is in the southern areas where people tend to be better off.
Mr. Corbyn : Does my hon. Friend agree that another problem has been the continual cuts in the school meals service, the abolition of nutritional standards in 1980 and the high price of school meals? More and more children are bringing packed lunches to school, often containing far too many sweets and far too little protein and fruit. It is simpler to pack sweets than to prepare sandwiches.
Miss Lestor : I was coming to children's diets, and advertising. Most of us have expressed concern about the decline in the school meals service. A recent survey in a school showed that children were bringing white bread sandwiches with jam or paste, chocolate biscuits, packets of crisps and drinks full of sugar. That may be the result of ignorance or of poverty. When we did away with decent school meals, we opened the door to all sorts of problems with our children's health. It is a great pity that the service has declined. Another related issue is the effect of food advertising on children. The dental health promotion, Community Dental Service, in Hampshire recently sent to me a copy of a letter that it had written to the nutrition section of the Department of Health regarding a chocolate drink, manufactured by Crookes Healthcare Ltd., a subsidiary of Boots, and sold under the brand name of Farley's. That drink is designed to encourage toddlers to sleep.
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Anyone who has ever had a baby knows that the biggest mythical phrase in the world is "sleeping like a baby", because they rarely do. I am sure that many parents have been attracted to that drink, for it says that it will soothe their toddlers to sleep. The drink is called Bed Timers and is aimed at children between the age of 12 months and four years. Bed Timers contains a total of 43.3g/100g of sugar. Almost half the content of that product is sugar.Other products that are on the market are just as bad. If hon. Members have ever sat in front of their television sets during half-term or at other times when children are at home and watched the advertisements, they will know that cereal and all sorts of drink advertisements are aimed at children and that children, just like us, are being brainwashed. Those who care about children's health should talk to the promoters of these products and ask them to take out the sugar. They should also ask them not to show these advertisements at a time when children are likely to be watching television.
Mr. Roger Knapman (Stroud) : Does the hon. Lady agree that good example and respect for the law are important? Will she therefore ask for another survey to be conducted? Five Opposition Members are in the Chamber, of whom two actively encouraged their constituents not to pay their local taxes. What sort of an example is that to young people in their constituencies?
Miss Lestor : We could talk about Chancellors of the Exchequer who have their legal fees paid by the Treasury and the rest of us. If the hon. Gentleman wants to go into this game, there is a whole string of issues that we could raise.
Mr. Corbyn : What about watches?
Miss Lestor : Yes, watches as well, but do not let us be silly. I began my speech on the assumption that we all care about what happens to children. What the intervention of the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Knapman) had to do with the sugar content in drinks I cannot imagine.
In 1990, a Food Commission survey found that half of all advertising during one week of children's television was for food and soft drinks--51 per cent., eight times higher than any other category. In just over 10 hours of viewing, there were 92 advertisements for food and drink, an average of nearly 10 an hour. The vast majority--78 per cent.--were for pre-sweetened cereals, sweets, crisps, fast foods and soft drinks. After the Government White Paper "The Health of the Nation", which includes the health of children, it is nonsense that our children should be subjected to such a barrage of influence on their diet.
We all know abut the dangers of heart disease later in life. I make the same criticism, in a different context, of the promotion of smoking in such a way as to attract young people to begin to smoke. These are issues that we rarely examine. Instead, we congratulate ourselves and say that for many children things are much better. Of course they are. However, for a minority of children--in some instances, a growing minority--things are getting very much worse. The problem is linked to unemployment, bad housing and poverty. The gap between the two is widening. That worries me very much.
Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire) : I take many of the points that the hon. Lady makes regarding soft drinks, but does she commend the Independent Television Commission for preventing in this country
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something that happens on a dreadful scale in the United States--the linking of cartoon films with toys that are available, the suggestion being that if a child does not have a particular toy that is shown on a cartoon there is something wrong with the child-- that in some way he or she is inadequate?Miss Lestor : A little bit of that is creeping into advertising in this country and it is to be deplored. I mentioned some time ago in the House that Benson and Hedges uses the puffin symbol to advertise cigarettes. The moment we begin to link positive images for children, characters that they love, with something else, we are on the road to disaster.
I welcome the debate. All of us who care about children have a duty to them and to all who look after them to make sure that the services that exist are provided to them all. Unhappily, as I have already said, the gap between children is widening. We cannot separate the social circumstances in which many children find themselves from many of the difficulties that they face. We must always be vigilant and ensure that when we pass laws we include all children in the provisions, not just the majority, for it is the minority of children who cause us concern and it is they who are suffering in a disgraceful way.
11.35 am
Mr. Roger Sims (Chislehurst) : I join in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis) on his appointment, and on the manner in which he has swiftly got to grips with his portfolio. He rightly covered a number of strong points, and he had some good stories to tell about children. He also highlighted problems that continue to have to be faced.
The hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) made a typically robust speech. Although I agreed with some of his criticisms, he would not, I am sure, expect me to agree with some of the others. Stripped of party rhetoric, however, no one doubts his commitment to children, and his sincerity.
Health and welfare is a vast field. It is impossible to cover everything in a brief speech, so I intend to confine my speech to a few issues that interest me, particularly those that stem from my involvement with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the magistracy and the Children Act. That Act represents one of the two landmarks in child welfare in recent years. There have been a number of admirable initiatives. I refer also to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, which was agreed and ratified by the United Kingdom.
Both the Children Act and the United Nations convention are admirable in their intentions and philosophy, but we must ensure that they are fully implemented. We must ensure that the philosophies that underpin the Children Act are implemented and that the philosophies that underlie the United Nations convention are implemented in other countries. One could give a list of problems that show that the convention is not being applied throughout the world. We must ensure that it is.
It is accepted here that children represent a distinct section of the national community. They have their distinctive problems and needs. There is a case, to put it no higher, for considering the appointment of an independent
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children's rights commissioner to act as a watchdog and to view the legislation that emanates from all Government Departments from the angle of the child.Organisations and individuals are appointed to look after the interests of various sections of our society--women, the disabled and ethnic minorities. Children are just as important, if not more important, a part of the community, and merit particular attention being paid to their needs.
A number of interesting initiatives that affect children have emerged in the past few years. Childline, set up by Esther Rantzen, enables children in trouble to pick up a phone and talk to people who may be able to help them. There is no doubt, from the thousands of calls that Childline has received, that this service has met a very real need.
The NSPCC has developed, alongside that service, its child protection line, which enables people who are concerned about certain children to voice those concerns, make contact with appropriate people and have action initiated. It also enables desperate parents to ask for and get help before problems that are emerging reach a tragic climax. The thousands of calls that both services receive show the extent of the problem and the need for those services. I believe that the Children Act may prove to be one of the most important measures passed by the last Parliament, and, indeed, by this Government. It is worth reading the words of the chairman of the Children Act advisory committee, the hon. Mrs. Justice Booth, who reported in the foreword to her annual report on the Act : "What can be said with confidence is that the enthusiasm and goodwill that greeted the Act have remained unabated."
The Government's report on the working of the Act generally supports that view.
Having said that, the report also points to the inevitable problems that have arisen, one of which has already been mentioned--day care. Paragraph 4.35 of the report says :
"Examination of correspondence from MPs and the general public confirmed that some local authorities were seeking to impose on childminders and daycare providers more stringent or higher standards than those recommended in the national guidance."
I must confirm that that certainly seems to be so. An admirable holiday play scheme operates in my constituency. With a few professionals, volunteers help to run schemes in school buildings during the holidays to enable children to occupy their time in a range of worthwhile educational and leisure pursuits. The scheme suddenly faced quite unduly onerous requirements on the qualifications of voluntary helpers, on health checks for every helper and on space, with no account being taken of the playground or playing field, all of which threatened the future of the scheme. A similar case arose more recently. I learned of a constituent who, for many years, has run an admirable and well-supported nursery group. She was visited by the inspection manager of the local authority children's division, who required a number of quite unreasonable changes to be made before the group, which had run so successfully and satisfactorily for many years, could be registered. The predecessor of my hon. Friend the Minister issued some guidance on 11 January. Paragraph 4.38 of the Government's report says : "The circular reminds authorities that, in the interests of children and families, they must strike the right balance
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between ensuring standards and encouraging development of provision. There is a presumption under the legislation that registration should be granted unless the authority has good reason not to register."I invite my hon. Friend the Minister either to issue further guidance or to emphasise that circular in the next annual report. We must ensure that the implementation of the philosophy behind the Act is not strangled by bureaucracy.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation conducted a survey into respite care for children. It found :
"The increased bureaucracy undermines the previous flexibility of services and is causing link families to leave."
It quoted from a respondent, who said :
" I feel that the requirements of the Children Act have placed some unnecessary burdens on carers, workers and users, making arrangements more inflexible. Existing good practice may well be eroded by such formality and form-filling.' "
It is important to strike a balance between what those who were involved with the Children Act wanted to achieve and what is happening on the ground.
Mr. Bowis : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this matter. He is right to say that, in practice, some well-run organisations, day centres, playgroups and so on have suffered from bureaucracy and an intrusive interpretation of quite well-intentioned rules. That is why we issued guidance in January.
I hope that it is working and that the debate may draw it to the attention of people who operate the Act. I hope, equally, that he and any hon. Member who is aware of instances where it is not working will draw them to my attention, because I want to pursue the problem and get the matter back on the rails.
Mr. Sims : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for responding so promptly to my point. I invite him to respond similarly, if not immediately, to the next matter that I want to mention--the continuing problem of the number of children who are on the at risk register but who have been unallocated. It is worth reminding the House that a child is put on the at risk register because somebody is concerned about what has happened or because of signs that they saw in the child or the family.
Paragraph 2.59 of the Government's report on the Children Act says :
"As at 30 June 1992 the total number of unallocated children was 1,543 or 2.9 per cent. of the total numbers of children looked after."
It notes that, in 31 authorities, all the children have been allocated. I am happy to note that my borough is included. That shows that it can be done, but some have a very poor record ; indeed, three authorities account for two thirds of the unallocated figure. We can argue the toss about resources and I have some sympathy with the point that the hon. Member for Wakefield made, but I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to put the strongest possible pressure on authorities that have so many unallocated children to organise their resources and get their priorities right.
The courts seem to be settling down to the new Act and I take this opportunity to pay tribute to magistrates who sit in the family courts. They are not the family courts that some of us would like to see, but we are getting there. Those magistrates had, in effect, to forget all that they had learnt and to be almost retrained.
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Some evidence shows that not all legal practitioners have become used to the new approach of the Children Act. They must forget the adversarial approach that they have used in the past and probably still continue to practise in other courts. It is not a question now of whose side they are on. There is only one side in family courts--the child's.I invite my hon. Friend the Minister to investigate the role and workings of guardians ad litem, who play a particularly important part in court procedures. He should consider whether they should be managed centrally rather than by local authorities. He will realise that local authorities often bring cases before the court. If they are also managing the GALs, it must, to some extent, compromise their independence, or at least the perception, if not the fact. It is interesting to note that some courts have been issuing explanatory leaflets to the parties involved, including solicitors, to assist them with the new procedures of the court. Perhaps there is a case for doing so on a national basis.
If children are likely to appear in court, they now have the advantage of the admirable child witness pack issued by the Department of Health, the Home Office, the NSPCC and Childline with support from the Gulbenkian Foundation. That was exactly what was needed, but not only for children. It would be a great advantage if something similar could be produced for practitioners, parents and others who are to appear in court.
The value of the television link in court, which enables a child to give evidence without physically having to be there, is already being proved. Recent provisions enabling videos to be admissible as evidence are also to be welcomed. There are still circumstances, however, in which a child has to appear in court, which can be extremely intimidating and traumatic.
I hope that the Minister, in conjunction with the Lord Chancellor's Department, will further consider the idea of pre-trial hearings at which a child could give evidence and be cross-examined in chambers--thus as far as possible avoiding the necessity of the child having to appear in court.
While on the subject of court proceedings, I must mention the recent case in which Judge Ian Starforth Hill referred to the eight-year-old victim of attempted unlawful intercourse as "not entirely an angel", As one of my hon. Friends says, that is disgraceful, and it was also the general reaction. Surely, when a child is abused by a adult, the child cannot and should not be blamed for the abuse.
A further dimension to the problem to which I feel I must draw the House's attention is the Attorney-General's sentencing guidelines on incest. The guidelines cite as a mitigating factor the apparent "genuine affection on the part of the defendant rather than any intention to use the girl simply as an outlet for his sexual inclinations."
It is well know that the genuine affection shown by the abuser, especially when the relationship between the abuser and the child is a close one, may have a traumatic effect on the child because of the profound betrayal of trust. I hope that the various Departments involved in this sphere will review all the sentencing guidelines on incest and provide more training for the judiciary in child sexual abuse and similar cases.
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Finally, I refer to the scandal of cases in which children have been abused and, in some instances, have died, but where no criminal proceedings have followed, simply because of the right of silence. A well known, relatively recent case was that of Kim Griffin, who died from dreadful injuries at the age of only two months. She had been in the care of her parents. The coroner's verdict was death by unlawful killing. No charges were brought. Both parents exercised their right of silence, so it was impossible for the prosecution to proceed. The parents were free to leave the interrogation to which they had not responded and, of course, they are free to have more children, which means that there is a possibility of a repetition of that sad event. The case, alas, is not an isolated one ; there have been a number of similar cases in recent years.Many people believe that the law must be changed. The NSPCC has presented a well-prepared dossier on joint enterprise to the royal commission. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend the Minister will make the valid point that the issue is being considered by the royal commission, but I am worried by press reports suggesting that the commision has already decided against any change in the right of silence rule. Whatever its views on the application of the rule generally, I suggest that there is an overwhelming argument for a change in its application in the cases that I have just described. We all accept that we have an overwhelming duty to protect the rights of the child. Surely, the younger and more defenceless the child, the stronger our responsibilities. If we fail to protect a child who has been neglected, abused, gravely injured or even killed, we must at least ensure that those responsible are punished, and that justice is done.
11.55 am
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