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Mr. Ruane: The hon. Gentleman mentioned consensus, and I do not want to break it, but I want to put matters into their historical context. Paragraph 47.18 of the summary document states that
- in 1979, the new Government announced its intention to reduce substantially the number of bureaucratic controls in order to give local authorities more choice and flexibility.
Mr. Hammond: My instinctive answer is no. As I was going to go on to say, Waterhouse has exposed and uncovered dark and shameful secrets that have been buried in our society, probably for a long time. As those shameful secrets are exposed and examined, it is important that we work together to address them and to expunge such activity from our society.
The Waterhouse report is shocking. It will have shocked many hon. Members in the most genuine sense of the word, but there is no doubt that it describes only the tip of an iceberg. The Minister confirmed that 32 other police inquiries into child abuse are under way, but we should also look on the positive side. What has been exposed so far has been acted on. Things are changing for the better. Waterhouse said so, and he described the Children Act 1989 as the springboard for many improvements in children's services.
However, no one who has read the Waterhouse or Utting reports could possibly dispute the obvious and imperative need for still greater safeguards in the future. No one could fail to be dismayed that what is described as care should have failed so dismally to provide for so many children.
Taken together, the Utting and Waterhouse reports identify what was in some cases the deliberate exploitation and abuse of children. The Waterhouse report is a catalogue of physical and sexual abuse. However, as the Minister also said, the reports also identify the
systematic failure of the statutory services to deliver the protection that they are charged to deliver. Sometimes, that failure was the result of political misguidedness, but more often it was the result of bureaucratic incompetence that harmed those whom the statutory authorities were supposed to help.
The Minister referred to the haphazard arrangements for access to child care services. I should be interested to hear, when the debate is wound up much later on, whether that indicates that the Government are minded to consider the arguments for standardisation of assessment throughout the system to prevent such problems of haphazard access and differing thresholds.
Yet there is no doubt in my mind that society as a whole has gradually woken up to the problem in its midst. There is a consensus on this issue, which we are taking forward. A growing awareness of these problems in the 1980s led to the Children Act 1989. The Secretary of State for Wales has said that the far-reaching changes of the past decade resulted directly from changed perceptions introduced by the 1989 Act. That sea change in attitude placed children at centre stage. Their well-being became the paramount consideration when arranging the affairs of families and the responsibilities of the statutory bodies dealing with them.
The commissioning of the Utting and Waterhouse reports in the summer of 1996 by my right hon. Friends the Members for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) carried forward the recognition and awareness of the problem. It demonstrated the determination on all sides of the House to address the problem, deal with it, and to expunge this shame from our society.
The Family Law Act, the Sex Offenders Act and the Police Act all became law in 1997 and provided the foundation for legislation introduced by this Government, such as the Protection of Children Act 1999. There has been a continuum of legislation and initiatives to deal with what was gradually being revealed to the nation and to the politicians charged with its conduct.
In anticipation of Waterhouse and in response to Utting, I am glad to say that this Government have continued that approach and have delivered further improvements to services for children. I am happy that the Government are building on what my right hon. Friends the Members for Richmond, Yorks and for Charnwood started in 1996 with the commissioning of those reports.
There has been abuse in our care system and a failure to perform the statutory duty of care with which local authorities are charged. That is especially shocking to all of us, as we share a responsibility for ensuring that bodies charged with caring for the vulnerable and taking on the role of parents discharge those responsibilities effectively and with appropriate diligence. We have to acknowledge that it is an indictment of us all that, over the years, that has not been the case.
We must also acknowledge that most abuse suffered by children takes place in the home and at the hands of a family member. I would be the first to accept that, but we must retain a sense of proportion. Our starting point must be that the vast majority of parents are supportive and proper guardians for children, and that the family is by far the best environment in which to care for children.
Ms Shipley:
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, according to widely accepted figures, one woman in seven experiences violence in the home in this country? Where that happens, there is a high probability that children will also experience violence in the home. That adds up to a very large number of children, and makes it clear that families in this country have real problems. Although the family is an important unit, and we support it, it is problematic and not always perfect. Violence in the home is unacceptable.
Mr. Hammond:
I agree entirely, and I do not wish to suggest that the family is a perfect unit. However, it is the preferable unit for raising children appropriately, and I shall return to the points that the hon. Lady made when I speak a little later about the arrangements for support of the family.
Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South):
I accept the point that has just been made, but instead of lowering and modifying society's standards and mores, should not we in this House aim to raise those standards and provide the funds needed to cope with the problems that arise when things go wrong?
Mr. Hammond:
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, and I agree with what he says. I shall shortly be arguing that although we support what the Government are doing in dealing with the issues of children in care and ensuring that they are properly safeguarded, it is also important to look upstream, at the way in which families become dysfunctional. We must give families every possible support and encouragement so that children do not have to come into contact with the statutory care system in the first place.
We recognise the problems that can exist within the home, but we believe that family life is the optimum way to bring up children. It makes sense to support families to try to avoid the possibility of children coming into contact with the care system. Once they are, however, we must maximise the use of fostering and adoption to ensure that they return as soon as possible and as often as possible to something as close as possible to a normal family life. I shall develop that theme a little later.
In seeking to ensure the well-being and safety of children, we must look through the chain at how they come to need the support of the statutory care system, and then look at what the Government are doing to address each of the areas that I shall outline.
First, it is axiomatic to me that we should encourage and support the family in general, and proper and appropriate parenting in particular. In that way, we will enhance the opportunity for the greatest possible number of children to be brought up within the family context without the need for statutory authorities to be involved. Secondly, we must target particular help on vulnerable families, making appropriate interventions early enough to support families in crisis and seeking to avert family breakdown. Thirdly, once family breakdown becomes inevitable, we need to have effective and appropriate mechanisms for identifying children at risk and taking rapid and effective action to protect them when their families, for whatever reason, can no longer do so.
Fourthly, as the Minister outlined in some detail, we need to ensure that there are proper safeguards for children who are looked after or are identified as being at risk. We must at all costs ensure that children do not go from the frying pan into the fire, which is clearly what happened to some of the children described in the Waterhouse report. Fifthly, effective programmes must, wherever possible, place children back into family situations through the mechanisms of adoption or fostering.
I hope that those aspirations are uncontroversial. I hope that every hon. Member would agree that care, in itself, must not be seen as a parking ground where children end up, but that everything possible must be done to make it an interlude in their lives--a safe and secure interlude--on their way back to something better.
We have made much of the consensus on the issue, and I have no wish to disrupt that consensus. However, the duty of the Opposition is to identify areas on which the Government should focus more or differently. I have criticisms of the Government's performance when it comes to encouragement and support for the family. Their support for the family is, at best, ambivalent. The last recognitions for marriage in our tax system have been withdrawn. There seems to be a general agenda of downgrading the value of conventional family relationships. I do not propose to engage in a debate on section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988. However, last night on television I saw a Minister refusing to acknowledge that marriage is the preferable relationship in which to bring up children, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary in every study that I have seen.
It is a debate for another day and another place whether individuals should have different views about the appropriateness of various relationships. That is not our purpose today. However, we have been talking about a child-focused, child-centred agenda. Whatever else people may say about unconventional relationships, the evidence is that when we look at the world from a child-focused point of view, the argument for conventional marriage between two parents of the opposite sex is overwhelming. I hope that at least in relation to their child protection programme, the Government will recognise the logic of such a child-centred, pro-family, pro-marriage approach.
I was contacted yesterday by a constituent who is involved in a divorce case. She was told by a court-appointed welfare officer that her concerns about the safety of her four-year-old child in the hands of her ex-husband arose from her "abnormally stable family background". The court welfare officer then authorised unsupervised access. The father is now awaiting trial on a charge of indecently assaulting the child. That is the sort of attitude that we must tackle and change if we are genuinely to protect children in our society.
The second area that I highlighted was help for vulnerable families--those at risk and in difficulty. I have discussed this with the Minister, and I know that he understands the value of the work of the voluntary sector in supporting families in difficulty. I have seen at close quarters the work of home start in my county of Surrey. It is an effective, low-cost solution to supporting and enhancing the care of children within families. However, financial pressures on local authority social services departments and the ending of joint funding initiatives have put pressure on many of those voluntary services and some of them are under threat. I hope that the
Minister will recognise the good sense--economic and common--of ensuring that those relatively modest local voluntary initiatives are supported. Investment in them is hugely beneficial and greatly reduces the burden on the statutory authorities further down the line.
Thirdly, we must ensure that rapid and effective intervention mechanisms are available when children become at risk. We must recognise that, from time to time, families become dysfunctional. I acknowledge the Government's initiatives in seeking to improve the responsiveness of social services and, when appropriate, clamping down on failing authorities which have not discharged their duties.
Support and appropriate intervention are the most sensitive issues. There is always a danger that in seeking to be effective, the statutory authorities will become heavy-handed and undermine rather than support the family. The challenge for us is to ensure that we protect children without eroding the role of parents in society.
The focus of much of what the Minister said started from the point that I have now reached in my analysis, when the family has broken down and the child is taken into care for his or her own protection. I understand why Government thinking is focused on this area, especially in light of the findings of Utting and Waterhouse. However, that focus addresses the consequences of failure rather than directing resources at seeking to avoid failure in the structure of the family.
Our prime responsibility is to ensure that safeguards for children in care are adequate to ensure their safety and well-being. The Government have rightly targeted legislation at that. Sometimes we are dealing with the problems of a culture of abuse, but more often there is simply a culture of despair. The quality protects initiative rightly focused attention on that culture of failure and despair, and we support the Government's initiative to change it. Statutory authorities looking after children must encourage a positive, forward-looking vision for the children in their care.
We support the broad objectives of the Government's legislative programme. The Minister mentioned three Bills--the Care Standards Bill, the Protection of Children Bill--now the Protection of Children Act 1999--and the Children (Leaving Care) Bill. We support the underlying objectives of each of them, but we have some concerns. The Protection of Children Act passed through the House last year, but Members have not yet questioned in detail the Government's intentions on the other two Bills. We rely for information on debates in the other place. I have a few questions about those Bills.
Is the Minister entirely satisfied that the arrangements proposed in the Care Standards Bill will allow inspection to focus properly on areas that are seen to be failing? Is he sure that the system will not bear down inappropriately on good performers but instead will focus on improving and, if necessary, dealing, perhaps dramatically, with those who are failing? Is he satisfied that the care standards commissioner will be sufficiently independent? The Minister is aware of widespread concern that we are shuffling seats, and that the same people will take on essentially the same roles under the different title of the
commission. What reassurance can he offer that the commission is a genuinely new initiative that will break with the past arrangements that so often failed us?
Can the Minister assure us that the regulations that will govern provision for children and the standards by which they will be judged will focus on outputs, not inputs? Will they measure the quality of care delivered, rather than the nuts and bolts provided to deliver that care? Can he assure us that the proposed inspection of child minders and day care centres will not place a burden on those operations, which might lead to a reduction in provision--a concern expressed in other places?
Do the Government propose to follow the recommendations of the Utting report by extending the Children (Leaving Care) Bill to people aged 18 to 21? When does the Minister expect to do that? Resources are tight, but it has been estimated that the cost would be modest. If we seek to emulate for children leaving care the support and protection that they could expect from natural parents, it seems logical to extend the Bill as soon as possible. Do the Government intend to use voluntary agencies to maintain contact with children once they have left care, rather than consigning the job entirely to statutory bodies?
The Protection of Children Act 1999 is on the statute book, and the Minister has told us when he expects to implement it. I asked him about the availability of certificates from the Criminal Records Bureau because I understand that they are not expected to be available until next year. I find it difficult to see how the protection afforded by the Act can work effectively in the absence of the certificates. Perhaps the Minister would clarify the point.
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