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Clause 5
Other inquiries held by Commissioner
Amendment made: No. 17, in
clause 5, page 4, line 13, after 'child', insert 'in England'.—[Margaret Hodge.]
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con): I beg to move amendment No. 14, in
clause 5, page 4, line 14, leave out 'direct' and insert 'require'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 15, in
Government amendment No. 181.
Tim Loughton: It is a pleasure to welcome you to the Chair, Dame Marion, not because the previous Chairman was no good, but because it is always good to see you in the Chair. You may have missed all the high jinks this morning, when the Government hijacked all our amendments, but they have not hijacked amendments Nos. 14 and 15.
We think that there is an anomaly in the language of subsection (1), which states:
''Where the Secretary of State considers that the case of an individual child in England''—
the last two words were added by one of the amendments hijacked in our earlier debate—
''raises issues of relevance to other children, he may direct the Children's Commissioner to hold an inquiry into that case.''
That appears to be contrary to all the warm words that we have heard from the Government in underpinning the supposed independence of the commissioner. We are therefore keen for the Minister to explain why—
2.49 pm
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
3.18 pm
On resuming—
Tim Loughton: We are keen for the Minister to explain why the Government found it necessary to use the word ''direct'' in subsection (1), in the sense of directing the commissioner to hold an inquiry into an individual case. No commissioner in the other countries of the UK—or, indeed, in the other nations of Europe where such commissioners operate—can be directed or controlled in the way suggested by that wording. It is in direct conflict with the commissioner's independence and is unnecessary, because the
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Secretary of State has existing powers to establish judicial-style inquiries and can invite the commissioner to carry out the work.
When the issue was raised on Third Reading in another place, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, the then Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, said:
''We do not envisage forcing the commissioner to do something against his or her will. Of course there would be discussion, debate and dialogue before any such direction was issued.''—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 July 2004; Vol. 663, c. 1440.]
In that case, why must the Bill contain the word ''direct''? The Government can use debate and dialogue to persuade the commissioner to use his or her independent power under clause 4, which we have covered, to establish a formal inquiry. There can be only one purpose in retaining clause 5 as drafted: to give this and successive Governments legal power to force—another word for ''direct''—the commissioner to undertake an inquiry against his or her judgment. Amendment No. 14 would replace the word ''direct'' with ''require'', which is more in the spirit of the independence of the commissioner, as the Minister will no doubt agree but have some technical reason for wriggling out of.
Turning to amendment No. 15, for once the Government have not tried to hijack our amendment but have come up with one of their own—No. 181. It seems to want to achieve the same purpose as our amendment but with a different formulation: it would insert ''as soon as possible'' rather than the slightly more longwinded phrase ''as soon as is reasonably practicable'' in the context of Secretary of State publishing reports that he has received from the commissioner.
I am perfectly amenable to being told, for technical reasons, that the Government's wording is more legally appropriate, but I am less convinced that they will be able to come up with a case against amendment No. 14, as the Minister would not want to be accused of being unduly prescriptive.
Mrs. Annette L. Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole) (LD): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Marion. With your indulgence, I would like speak to both clause stand part and the amendments.
I am inclined to resist the amendments, because they undermine the independence of the commissioner. That is such a vital point—
The Chairman: Order. Would the hon. Lady speak just a little more loudly so that we can all hear what she is saying?
Mrs. Brooke: I apologise, Dame Marion.
We want an independent commissioner, and omitting the word ''require'' and substituting ''direct'' would not achieve the purpose that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham intends. Having any requirement or direction conflicts with the commissioner's independence. Obviously, the Secretary of State, can make a request, and I do not see how the Children's Commissioner could refuse a request. A request does not need to be in legislation
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and I therefore feel that the entire proposal should be deleted. My hon. Friends and I will vote against clause stand part.
Mr. Dawson: I entirely agree with the hon. Lady. I cannot understand why this extraordinary clause is in the Bill, as it utterly undermines the independence of the Children's Commissioner. I am not aware of any other children's commissioner in the world who works under a requirement by which they can be made to undertake an inquiry by the Secretary of State. We want a commissioner who is a thorn in the side of Government and that cannot possibly equate with his being required to do something by Government. If the commissioner is to be there for children and to listen to them, I do not see how on earth the Bill can have a requirement in the clause.
Mr. Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con): I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's argument. Is it not better to have someone to whom the Secretary of State may direct such a request or a requirement for an inquiry, rather than merely leaving it in the hands of the Secretary of State to pick someone—perhaps a noble Lord or a former Cabinet Secretary—to undertake the inquiry on his behalf?
Mr. Dawson: Lord Laming did a thoroughly good job of the Climbie report but spent a colossal amount of time doing so. He could not have done anything with his time for many months other than conduct the inquiry, and that is part of my point. How can we seriously put a Children's Commissioner in such a position? He will make a commitment to children, timetable many meetings and discussions with the UK Youth Parliament, youth forums and young people throughout the country, and perhaps decide to work on a particular topic that young people have identified as important to them. Then he will suddenly have to say, ''I'm sorry, it's all off: meetings aren't going to happen, reports aren't going to be written and issues aren't going to be discussed because the Secretary of State requires me to do something else.''
That cannot possibly be right. If this is a Children's Commissioner, he should work to children's priorities, not the Secretary of State's. The Secretary of State might want to raise all sorts of important issues, but with all due respect he has a huge range of eminent people from which to choose to conduct such inquiries. If the Secretary of State firmly believes that the commissioner should take up a particular inquiry, he should not just direct or discuss the issue with him—let him darn well go out to the children and young people of this country and ask them if it is a priority for them that the commissioner takes the issue on.
The provision utterly compromises the commissioner's independence and is a fundamental flaw in the proposal. As I said to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Wales earlier, I firmly believe that it will undermine any efforts for co-operation with other commissioners across the United Kingdom, let alone Europe or the rest of the world. In particular, I cannot see the other UK commissioners, who have been given independence by their bodies, being willing to engage with somebody who does not
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have such independence or agreeing to any protocols on joint working that include someone who can be directed not by children but by the state to develop a line of inquiry. Clause 5 is completely wrong and should be dismissed.
The Minister for Children, Young People and Families (Margaret Hodge): I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Dame Marion. I am particularly pleased as you and I hold much in common. I gather that our photographs are next to each other in the school that we both attended, and until I looked you up I had not realised that you stood for election in my wonderful constituency in 1979, presumably when the late Jo Richardson won. I am delighted to work under your chairmanship. There may be a conflict of interest. We are probably the only two who ever went to that school.
Tim Loughton: Two what?
Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con): Two extremely successful women.
Margaret Hodge: Absolutely.
I want first to respond to the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole and my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson), because I am astounded by their contributions. We have spent a lot of time over the past day and a half discussing whether the commissioner should investigate individual cases. We are now talking about a situation in which there is an individual case of such national significance and import that the Secretary of State would want the commissioner to investigate it, and I suddenly hear the argument that we do not want the commissioner to spend all his time looking at individual cases. That is precisely the argument that I held in the opposite direction. I cannot understand it; I fail to see the logic of the argument that is being made by two people for whom I have enormous respect.
Our reason for saying that should the Secretary of State require the commissioner to undertake such an inquiry, there would be additional funding for it—I think that that was mentioned in an earlier debate—was to ensure that the commissioner's resources could not be eaten up in pursuit of a particular inquiry, however important it might be. We cannot have our cake and eat it. One can argue either that the commissioner should investigate no individual complaints—the Government have conceded that in both clause 4 and clause 5—or that he should be free to do so. One cannot argue that in one case he can but in another he cannot.
3.30 pm
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