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Mr. Ruane: The hon. Lady states that there have been too many inquiries in the past, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) has said that there were 17 inquiries into child abuse in the 1970s, 30 in the 1980s and 20 in the 1990s. Does she think that there should be an inquiry into those inquiries to find out why the recommendations were not implemented?
Jackie Ballard: As part of the Government's programme for the protection of children, it would be useful to have a compendium of all past recommendations to see where we have failed to deliver those which could have been useful. I am sure that that would be a long process.
Many actions are still needed in many care settings to drive up standards. I would include in that increasing the status of child care workers. Too often, residential social work has been seen as a second-best career, and not a particularly well-paid one. It is important that we have clear and consistent qualification requirements and on-going accreditation schemes. Staff should be able to whistleblow, or to report colleagues or managers, without damaging their own careers.
We have talked a lot about adults who have come forward in recent years to tell their stories of abuse when they were in residential care. We need a network of support and counselling for those adults. Just over a year ago, a constituent came to see me, alleging that he had been abused many years ago in a children's home in my constituency: a home which closed down a few years ago. Yet another inquiry--as part of a larger inquiry in Avon and Somerset--is going on into events at that home, and many people have come forward to say that they were abused in the home.
Just yesterday, a woman phoned my office, and we could hardly understand what she was saying because of her tears, and her obvious distress and anguish. We desperately need support, counselling and help for people such as that. It is not enough to set up the mechanisms of inquiries; people need on-going support for something that they may have suppressed for many years. It is only now that, after reading that an inquiry is going on, they feel able to come forward to talk of their experiences.
A number of hon. Members in the Chamber today served on the Committee scrutinising the Protection of Children Bill, as it then was. As has been said, there was
widespread party consensus on most of the issues. Yesterday, the Government published new proposals in the Criminal Justice and Court Services Bill that will place a statutory ban on people working with children in any setting if they have committed a serious offence against a child. There will be criminal sanctions if they break that ban. The measure should have widespread support in the House.
The hon. Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley) asked Conservative Members whether they supported the measure. That is a difficult question to answer, because it is encompassed in a wide-ranging Bill that includes a lot of other things that Opposition Members might not be able to support easily. However, I certainly support the measures in the Bill dealing with the protection of children. I believe that they will further strengthen the safeguards for children.
I especially welcome the widening of the definition of working with children to include voluntary settings. I am pleased, too, that it will be an offence for a disqualified person to seek to work with children. That was an issue that was raised during proceedings on the Protection of Children Act 1999, to try to minimise the risk of unsuitable people seeking work in less regulated sectors of child care. However, those provisions will apply only to people who have been convicted of harming a child and, for civil liberties reasons, I would not argue for extending the ban to non-convicted persons on suspicion only. As the hon. Member for Stourbridge knows, we had long discussions in the Committee on that Act about the civil liberties implications of preventing someone from working with children on the grounds of a reasonable suspicion that he or she might hurt them.
Children also need trusted people to whom they can turn if they are not happy with what is going on in child care settings. As other hon. Members said, children's complaints should be supported by independent advocates. That is especially important for children who have less of a voice to make their case. The position of children would be markedly improved by the appointment of a children's rights commissioner, as other hon. Members have commented.
The principal task of the commissioner would be to give advice and to keep under review the working of legislation affecting children. He or she would also have a key role in listening to children--not just looked-after children, but all children--and ensuring that their views were effectively represented to Government and other bodies. My party also strongly supports the campaign that has been launched by the NSPCC, Barnardos and others to that end. Waterhouse clearly recommended the establishment of a children's commissioner in Wales for all children. The creation of a children's rights director for England, as proposed by the Government, will safeguard only looked-after children. Many hon. Members hope that the Government will reconsider those proposals.
Children are too often at risk in their own homes, whether from someone who is paid to care for them or from their parents or other relatives. Too often, children in families do not receive the support they need and the Government are to be commended for introducing home start. However, it needs to be more widely accessible if it is really to provide the sure and safe start in life we want for all our children and the support that their parents need. I have said before in the House that being a parent is one of the most difficult jobs in the world.
We also need to acknowledge, as the hon. Member for Stourbridge pointed out in an intervention, that thousands of children a year witness or are subject to domestic violence. In the early days of the women's aid movement, the focus was on the battered wife and her needs. We are now much more aware of the impact on children of witnessing an abusive relationship. Research shows that children who grow up seeing violence in their daily lives, let alone experiencing that violence directly, are more likely to become violent themselves. A damaged child can become a damaging adult. Much more needs to be done by the Government and by statutory services working with the voluntary sector to produce a properly co-ordinated and resourced strategy for dealing with both the perpetrators and the direct and indirect victims of domestic violence.
The Government have taken some welcome initiatives in extending the statutory protection for children. However, there is still the question of people who have not been convicted of an offence against children and who are working in unregulated settings--as, for example, nannies in the child's home or as child minders. Child minders are registered and regulated, but at a local level only, not at a national level. We are all aware how cunning and credible child abusers can be and I believe that one more piece of the jigsaw is needed to minimise the chance of an abuser gaining access to children.
I am the chair of the parliamentary campaign for the registration of workers with young people and children. That is not a very sexy title, but we have shortened it to CRY. The campaign is supported by Labour Members and includes the hon. Member for Reading, East (Jane Griffiths), who was its chair before me. It is also supported by nanny agencies, the Chiltern and Norland colleges and the Professional Association of Nursery Nurses. Our key aim is to persuade the Government that there should be a national register of all those who work with children and young people. The Institute of Child Care and Social Education has prepared plans for the implementation of such a register. It would enable employers, whether public or private, corporate or individual, to check the background and see the information provided by an applicant, knowing that it had been independently checked out. A national register would prevent a person refused registration as a child minder, say, in one part of the country, from obtaining work in another area.
It seems that many of the workers named in the Waterhouse report are missing. They could still be working with children--they have not been convicted, and they may even have changed their names and faked their employment histories. A register could not totally exclude the possibility of child abuse but, by including police checks, a requirement for a minimum standard of relevant qualifications and a complete work history, it could enable employers to make better informed decisions.
Ms Shipley:
I have had extensive discussions with the hon. Lady, and I recognise that she is making a very genuine proposal, but she will know that I have some reservations about it. She is proposing the establishment of a positive register, which will list those who are deemed to be good people to work with children. Such a register would be huge. There are many thousands working with children who are good people and who are
I would be very wary of the positive register that the hon. Lady proposes, as it would be extremely difficult to ensure that all the people in it justified their positive identification. I am worried--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin):
Order. The hon. Lady is making an intervention, not a speech. If she wishes to make a speech, she must seek to catch my eye.
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