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7.50 pm
Mr. David Kidney (Stafford): It is fair to say that this is a brilliant Bill, packed full of excellent measures. I welcome it as representing the coming of age of public policy on children and young people looked after by local authorities. The way in which we have let down vulnerable young people, time after time, has been catastrophic for them because it has damaged their ties to family and the wider community, and it reflects badly on our society as a whole.
I am pleased to tell hon. Members that I do not intend
to take them on another tour of the Bill's contents as other speakers have done; instead, I shall set the Bill in two of its immediate contexts and raise two specific points that have already been raised but which, even in a debate of such high quality, have not been focused upon. The two contexts are quality protects and the Care Standards Bill, both of which have been mentioned many times in the debate.Quality protects was launched in September 1998. It is important to remember that the Bill relates to children and young people in care and leaving care, whereas quality protects has a far broader application, covering all local authority services for children, including those for young people looked after by local authorities. Let me illustrate the sea change that is already taking place as a result of quality protects, by referring to Staffordshire social services.
Even before quality protects began, a leaving care team was in place in Staffordshire, and the social services department was already moving in the direction in which that programme later pushed everyone. In May 1998, before the launch of quality protects, I organised a conference in Stafford to discuss how better to support children leaving care, and the local social services department was a strong supporter of the conference. The department picked up and ran with several recommendations on best practice that emerged from the day, which put it in a good position later, when quality protects was launched.
Staffordshire social services department's most recent publication sets out its response to quality protects. It says:
- A lot has started to happen for children and young people we look after.
A project called Sustain provides immediate help to youngsters in placements that are in danger of breaking down; it tries to save the placement and keep the children safe. Planning is carried out to avert the need to receive children and young people into care, to keep them with their families and to support them in the community. Finally, there are effective links with education and health services in Staffordshire. Those examples of local action remind us that while the Bill is being implemented, quality protects will be running alongside, developing and pushing local authority social services in the same direction.
That brings me to the Care Standards Bill, which deals with much more than children. Where it does deal with children, it relates specifically to those living in residential care homes and to fostering agencies and voluntary adoption agencies. The intention is to protect vulnerable people from abuse and neglect and to promote a consistently high standard of care in all care homes. All children's care homes will come within the remit of the new National Care Standards Commission and its inspection regime.
When the Government were under pressure to establish a children's rights commissioner, the concession they offered to those pressing for such a post was to promise that the new commission would appoint a children's rights director. That brings me to the first of the two issues that I want to highlight, which are, first, the arguments surrounding the children's rights commissioner, and secondly, advocacy for children and young people. I am but one of many voices calling for a commissioner to be appointed.
Dr. Brand: Does the hon. Gentleman share my surprise that although 13 speeches made on Second Reading of the Care Standards Bill focused on the need for a children's rights commissioner, amendments based on the Children's Rights Commissioner Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) were not accepted by the powers that be?
Mr. Kidney: I was not so much surprised as disappointed. I intend to urge Ministers to think again.
In discussions with Department of Health officials about the reasons behind the objection to a commissioner, the official response to my arguments in favour of the post being established was that with all the other developments already in train, nothing additional would be gained by such an appointment. I do not agree. First, the post of commissioner would secure the advances now being made against future watering down or neglect. Secondly, it would provide a focus for children and those who are concerned for children and want to help them. Thirdly, a commissioner would be an authoritative figure to provide guides to best practice, to pull up those who fail to do what they should do, and to be either the whistleblower or the person to whom a whistleblower turns to draw attention to something wrong.
Earlier this year, in a debate in Westminster Hall, the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton), said of the proposed children's rights director:
- In recognition of its role in safeguarding children, the national care standards commission will appoint a children's rights director, whose job it will be to ensure that children's rights and welfare are at the heart of all its responsibilities for regulating children's services.--[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 3 February 2000; Vol. 343, c. 253WH.]
Have the Government given any further consideration to the creation of the post of a children's rights commissioner? Am I right in thinking that the Bill's long title precludes an amendment being made in Committee that would create such a post? If I am right, what is the role--if any--of the new children's rights director established under the Care Standards Bill in ensuring that children and young people can gain access to the new rights granted under this Bill?
The Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), told me earlier that the director would be able to help children who are
in residential care, who are fostered through a fostering agency or who are adopted through a voluntary adoption agency. However, I am sure that a moment's reflection would enable her to think of many children covered by this Bill who do not fall into any of those categories. Those who come to mind immediately are children in care who are placed with their own parents or relatives from their wider family, and also those mentioned in the Bill--eligible, relevant and former relevant children who were in care.Many young people must be out of their foster placement or children's home by their 18th birthday, despite the assurance that the Minister gave my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson), and I suspect that under the proposed set-up none of them would have access to the children's rights director. That would be a loophole, and would lead to a terribly uneven application of the brilliant suggestion that there should be someone for children to turn to. That is why I think that there must be a children's rights commissioner.
Finally, on advocacy for children, many years ago Staffordshire contributed the expression "pindown" to the lexicon of child abuse. Young people were restrained in residential homes by having their outdoor clothes taken away and being locked in their rooms. No advocacy services were available for those young people--apart from access to the traditional lawyer. Eventually the practice came to light because of a solicitor's legal action on behalf of some young residents. How much better it will be when children and young people have ready access to trained advocates, be they paid professionals or well trained volunteers. They would be non-lawyers who were ready and able to stand by children and young people and articulate their points of view for them.
Advocates are not needed in every situation, nor for every young person, but the greater the vulnerability and the more difficult the task of speaking up for themselves, the more compelling is the case for providing that service. A number of organisations concerned with the welfare of children and young people have put to the Government the case for an advocacy service. They are a powerful coalition of some of our more respected organisations, and I support their call for the Bill to include a provision for advocacy services. Will the Minister tell us whether the Department is now persuaded by the force of those arguments and is willing to incorporate the provision in the Bill?
A great story is waiting to be told about the Government's tremendous effort to improve public policy towards children, from the attack on child poverty to the drive to raise educational standards. High up in the list of achievements will be the civilised, decent measures taken to care for the most vulnerable children, which include some of those looked after by local authorities. For quality protects, for the Care Standards Bill and for this Bill, I say a hearty, "Well done" to the Government.
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