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Mr. David Hinchliffe (Wakefield): The hon. Gentleman is making some interesting points; I have listened carefully to him. He used the term "competent adult". We will need to explore in Committee the issue that he is rightly raising. One concern that I have, not about the Bill but about the entire principle of how we follow through with young people leaving the care system, is that a number of young people--I know many from my work background--will never be able to cope without some assistance. The cut-off point is 24 years old--perhaps we need to make it 64; I do not know. The hon. Gentleman has touched on some important points, but the issue of competence must be explored in detail in Committee.
Mr. Hammond: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I look forward to exploring that issue with him in Committee. I do not claim to be an expert on all aspects of the subject, but I have racked my brains and cannot think of other examples of mentally competent adults, who have committed no offence, who have not fallen foul of the criminal justice system, being subject to such monitoring by statutory authorities.
The hon. Gentleman's point is that there will be some for whom the duty to re-establish contact will be clearly wrong and intrusive, and others for whom we will all feel that it is right. I suspect that the difficulty--we shall explore this in Committee--is definition. Unless there is some statutory procedure to define incompetence, which would render someone subject to continuous monitoring by the statutory authorities, the matter might be difficult to deal with.
Ms Shipley: The hon. Gentleman used the term "assertive outreach" and queried it. Would not a decent parent take exactly such a positive, assertive approach? A 22 or 23-year-old might well think that he is an adult and out on his own, but would not a parent say, "I want to help my child"? Surely that is what my hon. Friend the Minister is attempting to enact.
Mr. Hammond: The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. My own children are too young for me to claim any direct experience of the best way in which to deal with teenagers, but I was talking to a parent of late teenage children just last night who said that, if the child is determined to go their own way, the sensible parent very often stands back and waits for the call for help. I accept that that will not always be so, but we must recognise the significant difference between a regime that we can legitimately implement to look after children and one that seeks to track and monitor adults. I merely flag up the issue; it is not fundamentally fatal to the principles behind the Bill, but we will want to consider it in Committee.
I hope that the Minister agrees that, although a care leaver who is an adult should have access to such additional support, he must be respected as an adult and not stigmatised as merely an overgrown child. If the care leaver makes it clear that he does not want to be traced, contacted or planned for by somebody in a distant office, his wishes must be respected.
Mr. Frank Dobson (Holborn and St. Pancras): Does the hon. Gentleman therefore agree that, in fairness to the staff who might be involved, the House would need to acknowledge that the social worker and managers concerned would not be belaboured by officialdom or the newspapers if one such young person decided that they wanted to be excluded from the system and turned into a rent boy a year later?
Mr. Hammond: The right hon. Gentleman of course makes a good point. We will explore that in Committee. The idea that I had in the back of my mind was some exit procedure from the powers and responsibilities--but it should never be a permanent exit. I am sure that we would all want to assert that someone at the age of 19 who felt that he wanted to be left alone, that he was an adult and wanted to do his own thing--perhaps to go abroad--must always have the option of picking up the telephone, dialling the number and knowing that help was there when it was wanted. That is the way in which a responsible parent would respond.
The problem with the Bill as drafted is that it places a requirement on local authorities to use reasonable endeavours to re-establish contact with an adult care leaver. I understand that, under the quality protects programme, guidance to local authorities is that such
contact should be made at least four times a year, at three-month intervals. I can envisage circumstances in which to be contacted every three months would be regarded as unnecessary and intrusive, for example, by an adult who had moved on from care, succeeded in putting that stage of his life behind him and was moving ahead in the world. I hope that the Committee will be able to explore that issue.
Mr. Dawson: I accept the tenor of the hon. Gentleman's remarks, but does he accept that he is in danger of creating a loophole that would enable the sort of local authority that, scandalously, encourages young people to leave care at 16, to renege on the responsibilities that the Government are trying to impose?
Mr. Hammond: Obviously, one does not want to create loopholes for irresponsible local authorities. A balance has to be struck, but I hold dear the rights and liberties of individual competent adults in our society, so I urge the House to think carefully about how we deal with people who, legally, are adults.
The second issue we must address is the balance between rights and responsibilities. By creating new and significant obligations for local authorities, we, by definition, create new rights for 16 and 17-year-olds who are in care or who are care leavers, and for young people aged 18 and over who have been in care. The hope is that many more will take advantage of the opportunity offered by that additional support to pursue further and higher education or training. Those who cannot or who choose not to do so will be supported and helped to find work. The object is to simulate as nearly as possible the support that a child could reasonably expect from his own family at that stage of his life.
Families are all different, but many--perhaps most, and certainly mine in my younger days--expect children and young people to acknowledge certain obligations in exchange for the support and maintenance they receive. Few of us will not remember being told at some point, "If you're not going to buck up your ideas, don't think you're going to lounge about for ever under my roof". So should it be for the children and young people covered by the Bill.
During the Bill's passage, I intend to seek assurances that it will be made clear--perhaps through regulations or directions issued by Ministers--that local authorities' support, for example, for continuing education must be matched by a commitment to learning by the child or young person, much as an averagely demanding parent would expect from his child. We should not expect local authorities, any more than parents, to continue to support a child in education if that support is abused--for example, by persistent truancy or disruptive behaviour in school or college.
Mr. Jonathan Shaw (Chatham and Aylesford): We were all young once. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that all young people make mistakes and that it important to allow care leavers to make those mistakes and have another go? We should not tell a young person, "You've got one chance and if you don't co-operate, you've
blown it." It is important that we give young people leaving care many different options and allow them to learn by their mistakes, like most young people do.
Mr. Hammond: I agree--no one would be minded to say, "One strike and you're out." However, let me develop my argument further, as it might answer the hon. Gentleman's points.
We must repeatedly ask ourselves what a child who was living with his family would reasonably expect from a parent in similar circumstances, and what the parent would reasonably expect of the child. In the case of a child covered by the Bill, the answer would seem to be compliance with the agreed pathway plan.
Dr. Peter Brand (Isle of Wight): Does the hon. Gentleman recognise a certain contradiction in his speech? He is saying that local authorities ought to have the same obligation as good parents. He was objecting to authorities having the power to monitor children and young adults, but now he is suggesting that authorities should have the power to compel. Care should not be conditional; it should be available.
Mr. Hammond: The hon. Gentleman has missed the essence of the point. The scope of the Bill was extended in the House of Lords, so we are dealing with two distinct groups: children under the age of 18, who are the legal responsibility of the local authority, which is their corporate parent, and adults over the age of 18, who may need support and assistance but who are legally adults, competent in their own right and entitled to be treated with the respect that that brings.
I am concerned that it is not clear from the Bill what remedies or sanctions will be available to a local authority, for example, to deal with a 16 or 17-year-old who persistently truants from school or college--who simply refuses to get on with learning--has his pathway plan changed so that he can go into training, refuses or fails to attend, has the plan changed again to say that he will be supported to find work, and fails to make appropriate efforts to do that. I hope that only a tiny minority would do so, but the local authority must have some sanction. No benefits will be payable under the system, so there is no question of those being withdrawn.
My understanding of the Bill is that the obligation on the local authority to maintain and support children in that age group is not subject to exclusions. I fear that that may send the wrong message to the minority of young people who do not want to play the game: the message that 16 or 17-year-olds who are minded to do so can reject education, training and work while the local authority retains the obligation to support them. If that is the case, it does not pass my test of what the reasonable parent would require of a child.
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