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Ms Shipley: I understand that the Criminal Justice and Court Services Bill will cover a wide range of areas, including education, health, social care, accommodation, leisure and sporting activities, religious activities and the criminal justice system. Will the hon. Gentleman undertake that Opposition Members will support that wide-ranging measure?
Mr. Hammond: I was fortunate in confessing just before the hon. Lady's intervention that I had not had a chance to read the Bill. It would be unwise of me to give any undertaking without having read it in detail. I thank her for that information, and I shall read the Bill.
The Waterhouse report recommended an examination of the availability and adequacy of fostering. Being looked after should be seen as an interim step towards fostering and adoption--the optimum outcome for children in care who are unable, for whatever reason, to return to their natural families. Does the Minister agree that we should clear any ideological impediments to maximising fostering and adoption?
My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) has announced our policy that children in care should have a fostering and adoption plan and that the system should be overhauled to ensure that those plans are implemented on a fast track wherever possible. No one will be written off. There will be no admission of failure, and no toleration of consigning children in care to the category "unplaceable". My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis) is heading a commission set up by my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring to look into these matters. We will be happy to share its findings with the Government.
What are the Government doing? The Prime Minister responded to the Waterhouse report, and his spokesman said, in a Lobby briefing of 17 February, that the Secretaries of State for Health, for the Home Department and for Wales would meet that week to consider it. What are the Government doing to stamp out once and for all misguided, politically motivated interference in adoption and fostering, which we have seen too often in the past?
Mr. Hutton:
When the hon. Gentleman checks Hansard, he will see that I set out what we are doing on the overhaul of adoption policy and procedures. He mentioned his policy that every child who is being looked after by a local authority should have an adoption plan. However, he will be aware that the majority of children who enter the care of a local authority return to their family within eight weeks. What is the point of such children having an adoption plan?
Mr. Hammond:
I am not talking about children in short-term local authority care, who are expected to return to their natural family. My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring wants to avoid the creation or continuation of a category of children who are treated and regarded as unplaceable. As the Minister is well aware, such a category has existed and continues to exist. I am sure that he agrees that it is unacceptable. All children in care have to be regarded as being on their way to something better. Ideally, they would return to their family; where that is not an option--or not likely to be one--it is incumbent on the responsible authority to set up an appropriate plan for them to be fostered or adopted as soon as possible.
We have a responsibility to ensure that the system works correctly and appropriately at all stages, so that we provide support as early in the chain as possible. We must protect those who cannot be, or who are not, protected by their parents, but in our zeal to do so, we must always ensure that we do not undermine the parent-child relationship which serves so well in the majority of cases.
The married family unit remains the cornerstone of our social structure. In that context, I want to explore a little further the Government's response to the Waterhouse report. Interventions in the debate highlight the ambiguity
in what the Government have said so far. One of the central recommendations of the report was the appointment of an independent children's commissioner for Wales, whose duties should include
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. David Hanson):
I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman could tell House what discussions he has held with the National Assembly for Wales. Is he aware of the stage it has reached in its consideration of the appointment of a children's commissioner? He will know that Members of the Assembly are currently discussing that matter. What is his understanding of the Assembly's current position?
Mr. Hammond:
Although I wholly accept that the Waterhouse report addressed itself specifically to Wales, I am sure that it is understood in the House that the recommendations for Wales are equally applicable to the other countries of the United Kingdom. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister had an exchange to that effect. I accept that in Wales matters may be moving in a particular direction, but I now want to clarify whether the Government intend to follow the Waterhouse recommendations in England as well. Do they intend to limit the role of the children's rights director only to looked-after children?
The Minister should not regard my question as sinister or as having an ulterior motive. I merely want to understand where the Government are going. Other hon. Members have pointed out that children in care are not the only ones who have problems and who need protection. I do not urge the Minister to take a route that
would involve intervention in what goes on in a normal, functional family. However, he will readily realise that, beyond children in care, there are many children who are identified as at risk. Does the Minister think that the role of the children's rights director for England might be extended beyond children in care to cover other categories of children whose well-being is already the responsibility of the statutory authorities? Would it cover children who are identified as at risk, even though they might still be looked after by their families? I ask those questions in a genuine spirit of inquiry and would be grateful for some clarification of the Minister's intentions in that matter--especially for England.
Do the Government believe that the role of the children's rights director--or a similar position--might extend to other statutory authorities? For example, might it apply in the case involving a court welfare officer that I cited earlier? Statutory authorities other than local authority social services departments have a role in ensuring the safety and well-being of vulnerable children. I should be grateful for any clarification that the Minister can offer on that point.
The thoroughness and detail of Sir Ronald Waterhouse's inquiry mean that all the recommendations merit the closest scrutiny. It is clear that what is relevant, applicable and necessary in Wales will be so in the rest of the UK. I accept that the Government cannot answer for what will happen in Scotland, but I hope that they can assure us that the spirit of the report will be properly implemented in England and Northern Ireland.
A comprehensive programme is already in hand--through legislation and through non-legislative initiatives--to address the wholly unacceptable situation that has existed. One of the dark secrets of our society has been exposed; we are gradually becoming aware of its extent and learning from it. Working together, we shall ensure that looked-after children are safer in future than they have been in the past.
We must be honest with ourselves, however. As was noted during the proceedings on the Protection of Children Act 1999, promoted by the hon. Member for Stourbridge, we must realise that we shall never completely eliminate abuse, neglect or indifference. We certainly shall not eliminate incompetence--either from the statutes or from the family. We must strive constantly to combat it, while taking care that we do not destroy or undermine the structure of the family.
The majority of parents conscientiously bring up their children--although none of us are perfect--far better than the best, most caring and well-run statutory bodies. We must not create some Orwellian nightmare society in which the authority and rights of parents are undermined by well-meaning but misplaced excesses of zeal in addressing the tiny minority who--whether through wickedness, incompetence or indifference--put at risk the children in their charge. I am sure that the Government are alert to that danger, and will ensure that the action that they take is a measured and appropriate response to the situation.
We have a structure in place for identifying and intervening in situations where parents are failing. I believe that we need to focus more of the overall effort on refining and continuously improving that structure, and on moving further upstream to ensure proper support for families in all aspects of Government policy--national
and local--partly by providing proper, effective support to the voluntary sector, which can so often be effective and economic in helping to prevent family breakdown and its unfortunate consequences for children.
In view of the terrible revelations of the Utting and Waterhouse reports, I entirely understand the focus of recent Government policy initiatives on looked-after children, because we as a society have obviously failed in our duty to these vulnerable children in all too many cases. In doing so we are addressing the consequences of family failure, however, and it is right that we also focus a good proportion of our attention on doing everything possible to prevent children from finding themselves in that situation.
ensuring that children's rights are respected through the monitoring and oversight of the operation of complaints and whistleblowing procedures and the arrangements for children's advocacy;
and
examining the handling of individual cases brought to the Commissioner's attention . . . when he considers it necessary and appropriate to do so.
In response to a question about the report, the Prime Minister told my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition that:
All parts of the House will be anxious to take action as soon as possible to act on the recommendations of the report. The Care Standards Bill and the Children (Leaving Care) Bill give us an opportunity to do so. We shall respond as soon as we possibly can . . . We shall implement the recommendations as soon as we possibly can.--[Official Report, 16 February 2000; Vol. 344, c. 941.]
However, the Minister of State, Department of Health said:
My hon. Friend drew attention to the fact that Sir Ronald today recommended the appointment of an independent children's commissioner for looked-after children in Wales. Our proposal, to which my hon. Friend referred, to appoint a children's rights director to the proposed National Care Standards Commission captures the spirit of that recommendation.--[Official Report, 15 February 2000; Vol. 344, c. 926.]
The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) has already pointed out that the Waterhouse report does not limit the commissioner's remit to children in care. We need more detail about the children's rights director proposed under the Care Standards Bill to test the Minister's statement that the proposal does indeed capture the spirit of the Waterhouse recommendation.
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