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Jonathan Shaw: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Willis: No, I am trying to get on because I want to allow others to speak.
One important benefit of the delay that appears to have taken place is the acceptance by the Minister that there must be a director of children's services and that
the integration of services will be obligatory. Local authorities will be allowed to develop their own structures and build on what is often excellent practice. The Minister rightly said that many local authorities have first-class structures that integrate children's and education services, and it would be wrong to dismantle those structures for a one-size-fits-all approach. I applaud the Minister for listening to the Local Government Association and local authorities, and changing her mind—if that is what we discover when the Bill is published tomorrow.The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham was right to be concerned about the interrelationship between the proposed legislation and the Data Protection Act 1988. We have given a cautious welcome to a national children's database and recognise that if information is to be shared, it must be collected—there is little point to the system unless information can be collected, stored and made available. How that will be done, to whom information will be made available, when it will be removed, and when it will become the responsibility of the individual are complex issues. It was sad that the Minister said absolutely nothing about that, despite the fact that several hon. Members intervened on her. If the Under-Secretary's excuse is simply that "the Bill will not be published until tomorrow", that is not good enough. Professionals have been asking about the issues every day since publication of the Green Paper, and the issues have been the subject of much of the correspondence that the Minister has received on the Green Paper.
As a former head teacher, I would be uneasy to have or to pass on information about a child that was not available to that child or to his or her parents, yet that is precisely the scenario envisaged under the proposed arrangements. I have no answer to that complex problem. Sometimes it is desirable not to hand on such information. People working in the field need clarity so that what happened in relation to the Soham case—an extremely serious issue—is not repeated. Clear guidance must be issued on what information can be released, to whom, and when.
Jonathan Shaw: I can understand why the hon. Gentleman did not want to give way when he was talking about criminal offences and directors of social services. He turned crimson, so I presume he realised that it was a stupid thing to say.
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that a head teacher who had information would be in a difficult position, but can he help the debate by giving an example in which he, an experienced and distinguished head teacher, had information that he would not have chosen to pass on?
Mr. Willis: On occasion, social services gave me information on what was happening in a child's extended family. On another occasion, a child was involved in explicit sexual activities, but there was a problem with the parent: the parent was violent toward the child and had, in fact, burnt the child with a poker. In such cases, there can be difficulties in releasing information that one would normally have given to a parent or a third party. Head teachers will be in the
position of having to make extremely difficult decisions. There is no easy answer to such problems, and I was honest enough to say that.The concept of information being given on a need-to-know basis might satisfy the spirit of the proposals, but it is wide open to misinterpretation. I hope that the Minister for Children will clarify how and when she proposes to give guidance to head teachers and others who might need to know. Will the right hon. Lady or the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for South Thanet, who will sum up the debate, let us know their thoughts about the disclosure to a young person of information held on that young person? At what point will young people have an automatic right to the information held on them? At what point will a young person aged under 16 have a right to that information? If our aim is to implement the UN convention on the rights of the child, giving information to children is crucial.
The Conservative motion is slightly misleading, in that it gives the impression that local authorities have not responded to the Laming recommendations and that the process of improving child protection services is simply waiting for the Children's Bill to be published. It would be wrong to leave the House with that false impression. We have some excellent social services departments and some brilliant professionals in the field. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham is right to point out the shortage of professional staff—whether the damage would be repaired by Conservative spending cuts or Government support is a matter for political debate—but that does not resolve the problem that the vast majority of those professionals, who are brilliant at what they do, are overworked and underpaid. The Liberal Democrats take this opportunity to put on the record our congratulations and thanks to them.
I wish to draw the Under-Secretary's attention to a specific commitment regarding the protection of children who are looked after. The Minister for Children made only a fleeting reference to such children, and although I understand that she could not say everything in her speech, we should not forget that, in practice, Victoria Climbié was a looked-after child. She was sent from the Ivory Coast to be looked after by her aunt and her aunt's boyfriend. In effect, she had little protection under the existing law, and it is crucial that such private fostering arrangements are effectively covered in the future. Surprisingly, the Green Paper does not refer to private fostering—if I am wrong, the Minister will correct me when he replies.
The vast majority of looked-after children are not privately family fostered; they are the 60,000 children who at any one time are the responsibility of the state. That group of children is without doubt the most vulnerable and the most complex to support. They do not fall into an easy single category, but have a number of common features: two years ago, a massive 96 per cent. of looked-after children had behavioural or emotional difficulties; 27 per cent. had a physical or mental impairment; 41 per cent. had been abused or neglected, and many will go on to live in abusive relationships; 10 per cent. had been taken into care through family dysfunction; and 31 per cent. had not
received basic health screening, dental checks or inoculations. Life holds out no great hope for looked-after children.
Mr. Dawson: I appreciate the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman makes his remarks, but I hope that he will refer to work by Mike Stein of York university, which indicates that the future for young people in care is much brighter than he suggests. Young people leaving care are, in the main, extremely resilient, and a fairly small proportion of care leavers have the sorts of problems that he describes.
Mr. Willis: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there is hope, but we must recognise that a significant number of young people—55 per cent.—leave care without a single GCSE between them, and that 26 per cent. of them have statements of special educational needs. One in three of our current prison population was a looked-after child. The statistics are chilling, and that so many youngsters who are looked after succeed is an enormous credit to the people who looked after them, our social services and our care homes. It will be desperate if the Children's Bill does not address the minority of youngsters who do not succeed.
Thank God that many children in care do not catch the headlines like Victoria Climbié, Maria Colwell, Jasmine Beckford and Lauren Wright, and the Bill will change the lives of many looked-after children. The real issue is to make sure that the 60,000 children in care have a rosy future free of abuse. Hopefully, tomorrow's Bill will set them on the right path.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Several hon. Members are trying to catch my eye. If their comments are brief, all may be successful.
6.13 pm
Jonathan Shaw (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis). We have spent quite a lot of time together on the Higher Education Bill.
I shall begin by quoting the introduction to Lord Laming's report, which concerns little Victoria Climbié:
- "The food would be cold and would be given to her on a piece of plastic while she was tied up in the bath. She would eat it like a dog, pushing her face to the plate. Except, of course that a dog is not usually tied up in a plastic bag full of its excrement. To say that Kouao and Manning treated Victoria like a dog would be wholly unfair; she was treated worse than a dog."
Of fundamental significance are Lord Laming's comments on organisational failings, principally in communication between people with responsibility for Victoria Climbié. In paragraph 1.21 on page 4 of the report, he said:
- "Having considered the response to Victoria from each of the agencies, I am forced to conclude that the principal failure to protect her was the result of widespread organisational malaise."
As has been said, there is a general consensus about child care legislation. Having worked in child protection for 10 years, I find it satisfying to have been involved in the passage of legislation over the past few years, including the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 and, particularly, the Adoption and Children Act 2002. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) served with me on the Special Standing Committee that considered that measure, and it was stimulating to hear the evidence of 29 agencies, which helped us to formulate a good Bill. There were controversial provisions, not least adoption by unmarried couples, an important issue about which we had a vigorous and passionate debate, but the measure is a good one. We hope that many of the 54,000 children who are in foster and residential homes can find permanent, loving families, and we should all strive for that goal. That is what vulnerable children want us to talk about, and that is what we should endeavour to pursue in the House of Commons.
There are, however, always lessons to be learned. The Government have been criticised for the delay in the publication of the Green Paper, but I hope that the reason for that delay is their wish to get it right. Something to emerge from all the inquiries is the need to get things right, and taking time over the Green Paper is important, as it will include far-reaching organisational changes. We hope that we can put our hand on our heart and say that it provides the necessary structures so that we will not have in future to read comments like those made by Lord Laming.
It is vital that proper procedures be in place for people at the coal face and in supervisory positions to follow. We can provide the framework, but the solutions must be delivered at the local level. We must do everything that we possibly can to ensure that that process is inspected rigorously to ensure that lines of communications are clear to all the agencies and individuals involved in working with children.
We should not lose sight of the fact that the front-line job of child protection is not easy. I can think of mistakes that I made as a social worker and of the consequences for the children involved. Were they my fault or the fault of someone supervising me? Yes, they
probably were. However, serious pressures and strains are placed on social workers who deal with very complex cases involving very complex families. I remember a situation that arose when I was 23 and a newly qualified child protection social worker. One cold, damp night, I had to visit a family where the stepfather was a huge man who was extremely aggressive and always chose to speak to me at great volume about an inch away from my nose. I went to the tower block where they lived and rang the doorbell of their flat. As I did so, two thoughts went through my mind: "I hope they're not in", because I knew what I would have to endure from that individual; and, "I hope they are in, so I can see that the child is still safe." On Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays one worries oneself sick—I remember those sleepless nights. That was not the most extreme of cases, but it is a common experience that social workers face every day of the week. It is important to remember that as we discuss this sensitive issue.The Government can stand on a proud record in terms of the legislation that they have introduced. I well remember the passage of the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, because my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) and I—the old former corduroy wearers—served on that Committee. It raised the age of leaving care to 21, or 24 for youngsters who stay in education and training, which took a lot of persuasion from many hon. Members and care organisations. It sent an important message, especially in light of the fact that 75 per cent. of young people leave care without educational qualifications—I mean, no qualifications at level 1, not grade A to C GCSEs. It is appalling that education has failed so many children in care.
I remember taking part in meetings with children who were being excluded from school. Such a child might have had a whole series of foster carers and schools, and was being excluded again. What would the prognosis be in those cases? The most important thing that has changed since I sat in those meetings is that the issue has been given a much higher priority. We now have not only the quality protects programme, but the code of admissions for oversubscribed, popular schools, the main criterion of which is that children in public care should go to the very best schools—the popular schools—not those that have huge numbers of surplus places for the reasons that we all know about. That is important.
I congratulate the BBC. I watched one of its plays recently and thought that the portrayal was realistic. I was worried that it would be filled with doom and gloom. That is obviously the experience of some, but not all young people. It is important to remember that. When those young people are achieving and feeling positive about their lives, they do not want to be associated simply with being a child in care and the 75 per cent. statistic. We must bear it in mind that many achieve much, through the work and efforts of social workers, teachers and foster carers, but mostly through their own efforts.
The Government have made considerable advances through legislation and they have changed the atmosphere. However, we are considering vulnerable children, and I welcome the choice of debate by the hon.
Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. I am sure that that also applies to many vulnerable children and those working in the field.
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