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6.40 pm
Mr. Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire) (Con): I am glad to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) who continues to advocate the interests of children—not least through his
membership of the Health Committee—and who does so very well in relation to the interests of children in Southend, as evidenced by his remarks.My hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who opened the debate, reminded us of the circumstances in which Victoria Climbié was treated and died. Indeed, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw) reminded us of the true horror of those circumstances. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West referred to the fact that if agencies had done their job and done many of the things that constitute good practice—in fact, not even good practice but basic practice—circumstances might have been different. As the Minister said, however, many agencies that encountered the family did not necessarily speak to Victoria. It is in that context that we have returned to the subject.
As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham made clear, we initiated debates in our own time last year and we have also used the medium of Back-Bench debates. We have initiated this debate and we will continue to do that, because of the centrality of Parliament's responsibility to ensure that the many resources and the obligations that we place on agencies across the country are being properly discharged.
That returns us to the point made by my hon. Friend in his opening speech: it is not good enough simply to have checklists and guidance. There are organisations—not just central Government—that issue internal guidance and, in theory, require people to behave responsibly. That is not enough. We must ensure that people are behaving responsibly. There are people in the social services system who find it tough. Following the publication of Herbert Laming's report, Cambridgeshire social services has given a great deal of time and attention to the improvement of children's social services in recent years, not least in the wake of the tragic Rikki Neave case.
Of course, social services said, "We've gone through a major audit to show ourselves that we are meeting basic practices." "Irritation" is too strong a word, but there was sometimes resentment at resources having to be consumed again by social services doing what they believed they were doing properly. None the less, they accepted that, and people have to accept it time and again. The Government issuing checklists and guidance is not the end of the story—nor did Herbert Laming ever intend it to be. That is why he said that such things could be done within three months. The point is that we have to know that the report is being followed up. That is the purpose of our debate.
Roger Casale (Wimbledon) (Lab): I welcome the cross-party spirit of the debate, but surely the hon. Gentleman recognises that Government intervention— [Interruption.] At least there was a consensus when the debate started. Surely he recognises the fact that Government intervention can make and is making a difference. That is certainly the case in my local authority area, where children's social services were threatened with special measures. Government support and Government intervention, as well as strong local leadership, have helped to turn things round. We should recognise and celebrate examples of such positive
intervention where we find them and seek to build on that best practice. Surely the hon. Gentleman recognises that such intervention is succeeding.
Mr. Lansley: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is clearly talking about his constituency's set of circumstances. Of course, intervention can be necessary, and resources are necessary, but resources are not sufficient. What Laming also made perfectly clear is that in the central Government context within which resources were being determined, many local authorities were spending over the standard spending assessment, while Ealing, Haringey and Brent were not. They were making their own choices, and, to an extent, they were making the wrong choices. It is not just the central Government context for resources that is relevant but the conduct inside local government.
I have only a few minutes left, and I want to be clear about some of the issues that have arisen from the debate. Unfortunately, because of time, there have been too few contributions to the debate, and I wish we could have had more. I know that other Conservative Members would have spoken had we had longer. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) did, however, contribute, making a point about the detention of refugee children on which no one else really touched. There is a problem. Oakington immigration reception centre, which is situated in my constituency, has children accommodated in it, and it is perfectly proper that they should be accommodated there. Legally, however, those children are accommodated in the detention state. It is therefore not simply a case of removing that from the legislation but of checking the circumstances. Alternatively, legislation could be introduced that is designed to make it clear that Oakington is an immigration reception centre rather than a detention centre, which has not happened.
The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough also made a point about delays in the national service framework. I was not aware that the Minister referred to the national service framework for children, because she is in the Department for Education and Skills, and apparently the Under-Secretary of State for Health is going to talk about the national service framework. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and I have a more joined-up approach to these matters, as do the Liberal Democrats, clearly, as there are not enough of them to be disjointed. Although we have had the acute hospital services segment of the national service framework, more is to come, and it is much delayed compared with what we had hoped for. There is everything to be said for some of these issues being brought together at the same time. As we are creating a legislative framework and putting in place children's trusts, clearly, we must know what sort of standards we are aiming to meet, because structure follows function. We therefore need to know what functions are to be met in local authorities to be sure that local authorities are putting in place the right kind of children's trusts.
The Minister said, and reiterated in an intervention, that there was somehow no planning blight—local authorities and the Government have been working in a seamless fashion towards the introduction and presentation of the Bill being introduced to the House of Lords today. Well, local authorities have been working
hard to persuade against what the Minister originally intended to do. It is simply not true, however, that there are not local authorities which for a considerable period—more than a year—have been having to decide whether to do what they think is right in terms of integrating services in their area while trusting that they will not be told to put a one-size-fits-all solution in its place and pick it all apart or whether to wait. Some have been waiting, so there has been planning blight in some respects, and it would be proper for the Minister to accept that.In relation to the children's fund, I am astonished that the Minister can admit in the privacy of Westminster Hall that the Government got it all wrong but can come to the Chamber and pretend that it was a triumph and that they put in extra money. They put in extra money because the Department—of course, as the Minister explained in Westminster Hall, the mistakes were made by the Department, not by Ministers—permitted "over-programming" of expenditure, which is the polite word used in the Department, and the carrying forward of underspends. The net effect is over-commitment, so she is now having to cut in the first instance and then put in extra money. The Minister pretends that the money is not going to be reduced, but it is £160 million in 2003–04 and £110 million in 2004–05. It is perfectly clear from evidence that is now emerging that the Department is including in the amount for 2004–05 money originally promised for projects that will now not be provided. The Minister who is to reply certainly ought to be able to reply to that.
The point that we have made time and again is that the necessity of implementing Herbert Laming's report, as well as information, referral and tracking pilots and many other things, requires action. Lord Laming had a timetable for action, which needed not just a checklist and the issuing of guidance but legislation, enforcement and audit to follow that up. We will press the Government to deliver those until the happier day when we can take responsibility for such matters, and deliver the services that children need and deserve.
6.50 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr. Stephen Ladyman): I shall begin at the end. I agreed with one or two things in that speech, but I disagreed with one or two others. For instance, the suggestion that the Liberal Democrats were "joined up" simply because there were so few of them was a mistake: it takes only one Liberal Democrat to be disjointed, as the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) has demonstrated on many occasions.
I did agree with one thing that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) said, or at least implied—that three elements are involved in protecting vulnerable children: resources, powers and best practice. We must ensure that all three work together. No doubt we shall deal with the powers in many debates in the coming months following tomorrow's publication of the Children's Bill. We have already begun to identify best practice, and to roll it out around the country.
The hon. Gentleman was also right to say that issuing checklists was not the end of the story. We never suggested that it was. That is why we have worked so hard: that is why we have produced a Green Paper and
a Bill; that is why we have had a thorough consultation; and that is why we are going to publish a document on the way forward. We realise that getting all those three elements right is the way to improve services, and to secure the level of protection that we seek.The hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) mentioned funding, as did the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). Conservative Members really should not debate the funding of children's services with us, because they start from a weak position. It is all very well for them to come up with sophistry in their recently published document suggesting that under a future Tory Government education, for funding purposes, will somehow apply to children's social services. That is not what the shadow Chancellor said by any manner of means. What he said would, in fact, lead to a cut of some £2.5 billion in local government funding, the brunt of which would fall on children's social services. If that is not the case, I look forward to the next time we debate older people's services, because it will have to fall on those.
Let us compare the records of the two parties. Personal social services funding has increased by 30 per cent. in real terms since 1997; in the last period of Tory Government, it increased by 0.1 per cent. But the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough should not be too smug. His party has not committed a single extra penny to children's social services. Indeed, its leader has specifically excluded any such increase, although he has managed to find £1.8 billion for free personal services for pensioners with savings. The Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives entered into a battle of wits to see who could portray their party as the one that will support children, but it was a battle of wits fought by unarmed opponents.
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