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Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's time is up.
A number of hon. Members are hoping to catch my eye. If they can be concise with their remarks, I should like to think that all would be successful.
4.58 pm
Mr. David Kidney (Stafford): I want to report briefly on a conference that I held in my constituency of Stafford in April on a subject that is of national importance: positive parenting. It is the kind of subject on which much can be done locally and nationally to make a big difference to any society. That is what I want to achieve in ours.
Features of positive parenting include discipline, monitoring, supervision, warmth and affection and being emotionally responsive. Negative features of parenting would include authoritarianism, neglect, conflict and coercion.
We do not say as often as we should that parents do a great job raising their children, often in the face of multiple challenges. In the formative years from before birth until a child starts school, who will influence how new human life will turn out if not parents? That time is so vital in shaping the lives of little citizens, whose brain activity peaks at the age of three.
It is important to recognise that not all parents are birth parents. Death and other tragedies or misfortune may rob children of their parents, which means that grandparents, other relatives, foster carers or adopters bring them up. Social services sometimes have to provide staff to take the place of parents.
Most people who raise children value help and support from their friends and family but studies show that many parents are not aware of the implications of helpful and unhelpful parenting. Even those who are aware are sometimes at a loss to know how they or others can improve things. However, studies show that if parents are given the opportunity to develop their understanding of their babies and children's emotional world and receive help to learn new skills and more helpful ways of relating to their children, the insight changes their attitude and behaviour and improves their health and that of their children.
Parenting starts with the unborn child, and I have emphasised already that the early years are crucial. There are other key times in later childhood when help and support may be beneficial, such as when a child moves up a school, when there are hormonal changes and when children get their first boyfriend or girlfriend.
Education and support is available for parents, but its provision is patchy. There are parent support groups, parenting programmes, sure start initiatives, drop-in centres and helplines—the list goes on. Universal parent education and support services can encourage the spread of helpful parenting from one parent to another, which avoids any social stigma due to parents feeling that they are being singled out as inadequate in some way. I hope that it is obvious to hon. Members that more intensive help and support should be available for families who face greater challenges.
My aim is a public policy under which all parents can get advice and information when they need it and if they want it. Some parents might want to go further by attending parenting programmes or receiving home visits, at which more in-depth help and support may be given. Professionals in all walks of life, such as doctors, nurses, midwives and health visitors, will encounter parents and children who need help. The same mix of universal and targeted services should be accessible when parents and professionals agree that it would be useful.
Unhelpful parenting can lead to harmful outcomes, such as children not learning social skills or feeling emotionally excluded, stupid and incompetent, or frustrated and angry. Long-term consequences for children include: having little attachment to their family and schools; having no good friends; failing in love and having violent and unsatisfying relationships; poor confidence; low qualifications; and a poor work record. In serious cases, the consequences include antisocial and criminal behaviour.
Positive parenting means being warm, affectionate, caring, supportive, emotionally attuned and emotionally literate. It is worth society giving more help
and support to parents because it leads to good outcomes for the health and well-being of parents and children, the result of which is stronger families. It is worth it for the savings to society because children who do not settle well into school and have a tendency to be difficult and antisocial go on to cost society 10 times more than the majority who behave in a more usual way.The Government are willing to help and their good moves include setting up the parents' centre, which is a website that provides information for parents. They established the National Family and Parenting Institute, which is a think-tank for family and parenting issues, and Parentline Plus, which is a free and confidential 24-hour helpline—I must mention the fact that its number is 0808 800 2222. Such services show the Government's commitment. However, it is also important to provide universal services that support parents, because that will save us a lot of money. Universality does not mean that we must spend a lot, just that services are available to everybody who wants them at the level that they want.
Many provisions exist to help parents including Parentline Plus, the NFPI, Government services, health visitors, primary health care services, social services and the voluntary sector. I know of great work by Home-Start, Relate and church groups in my constituency—they are all very helpful. More demanding situations require parenting programmes and home visits from more resource-intensive sources such as health visitors with special skills, child psychologists and senior social workers.
We have to start somewhere, so I suggest that pilot schemes should be established. I volunteer my constituency of Stafford as somewhere to base an early pilot scheme. If the Government give me the money, I shall set up the scheme for them. The Government are soon to publish a Green Paper on children at risk and that could provide a good opportunity to make an announcement. I suggest that parenting is a good way to stop children being at risk in the future.
I shall end with the comments of my friend, Norman Crockett. I was a councillor for 10 years, but he served for 27. We were in the same ward and we sat every Thursday night in a draughty church hall seeing people at our advice surgeries. In our quiet moments, he would always say, "David, if all children in their formative years had the sure and certain knowledge that they were loved and wanted, we would live in a very different world and we could throw away the keys to prisons." The final comment might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I would like to think that Norman, who is now 90 and in a residential home, could see this change in public policy in his long and productive life.
5.5 pm
Mr. Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland): I would like to take a few minutes of the House's time to bring to its attention the plight of a countryman of mine who is currently on death row in Ohio. Kenny Richey, a 39-year-old Scot from Edinburgh, has been on death row since 27 January 1987 when he was convicted of killing a two-year-old girl in a fire. I very much regret that this case does not show the United States criminal justice system in a good light. In particular—this is relevant to the debates in the House on criminal legal aid—it shows the state-funded public defenders office in an especially poor light.
The case also highlights other inadequacies relating to the appellate system in the United States. Whatever the inadequacies there might have been in the trial, new evidence—principally forensic evidence—has been found subsequently, and it raises substantial doubts about the safeness of the conviction. That is not even disputed by the prosecution authorities in Ohio, and Prosecutor Dan Gershutz has said:
- "Even though this new evidence may establish Mr. Richey's innocence, the Ohio and United States constitution nonetheless allow him to be executed because the prosecution did not know that the scientific testimony offered at the trial was false and unreliable."
The events that brought Kenny Richey to his current position started in the early hours of 30 June 1986. A fire started in an upper flat in an apartment building in Ohio and flames rapidly spread and engulfed the flat before firemen were able to extinguish the blaze. Minutes later, the body of a child, Cynthia Collins, was carried out. The mother's position was that Cynthia's babysitting was to have been carried out by Kenny Richey, but his position has always been that he was too drunk to do any such thing and that he never made any such agreement. It also transpired that there is evidence that, when the mother of the child arrived at the hospital, she told the doctor that the child had set fires in that flat on previous occasions. That was known to the prosecution at the time, but the information was never imparted to the defence. As a former procurator fiscal depute in Scotland, I must say that an attitude that does not compel the prosecution to give to the defence every single aspect of information that could be of use is repugnant. Again, that is anathema to me.
Just about everything that could wrong with Kenny Richey's case, its investigation and prosecution did go wrong. Right at the start, the local fire chief decided that it was an accidental fire and, accordingly, all the furnishings and, vitally, the carpet were removed from the flat. It was decided only later that the case should be the subject of a criminal investigation, and the stuff was recovered from the dump to which it had been taken. Ironically, it was then stored next to a petrol station.
It also transpired that the prosecutor in charge of the case at that time was running for judge. He was dealing with the first capital case in Putnam county since the 1800s and, not surprisingly in these circumstances, the case against Kenny Richey dominated the local news for months. That obviously brought with it concomitant publicity for Prosecutor Basinger. He was eventually elected to judge, and a major plank of his campaign made it clear that he would be seeking the death penalty in the Kenny Richey case. In the election, the prosecutor promptly offered a plea bargain, indicating that if Kenny Richey would plead guilty to second-degree murder, he would receive a sentence of 10 years with the possibility of parole after six years. Not surprisingly, that offer was refused, so the case was sent to trial.
There were a number of difficulties, not least the fact that the lawyer of the public defenders' office who was assigned to Kenny's case was somewhat green. He
seemed not to take a great deal of care in the preparation of his case. He did not avail to Kenny the many opportunities that should have been made available to him. To take one example at random, he did not, incredibly, hire a fire expert to give evidence. Instead, he took in someone who was an expert in metal fatigue. He never challenged the state's report or carried out his own examination of the scene or the evidence. I understand that he advised Kenny Richey not to testify. Not surprisingly, Kenny Richey was convicted.There were forensic questions that should have been asked but were not. Not least, if, as it was claimed, paint thinner and petrol had been sprayed about the flat, why was none found on the clothes of Kenny Richey when they were forensically examined?
There is much that I could say about the case. However, I am mindful of the number of Members who wish to participate in the debate. I leave the last word with Kenny Richey, who said:
- "I want the opportunity to prove my innocence. I want a fair trial, and I'm not going to give up until I get it or they kill me."
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