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Mrs. Maria Miller: I am sure that many people listening to the debate will share my disappointment that the Government still hark back to eight years ago and the records of bygone days, rather than starting to talk about their own record. They should do less of that and instead take account of their record and be responsible for it.
The amendments in the group are important and I am sure that they will be debated further in the other place when it considers the Bill. The debate on the role of parents has been useful. I was glad to gain agreement from the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) on the fact that it is quite extraordinary that the Bill makes no reference whatsoever to the role of parents. I hope that that can be thought about a little further.
It is clear from the Minister's comments that, perhaps unsurprisingly, we are not going to agree on targets. We feel that a target culture is not helpful in always driving the right outcomes, but we will have to agree to differ on that point.
I want to pick up on the Minister's response on the pooling of resources. I am pleased that she is satisfied that we can leave a slight open-endedness when ensuring that partner agencies are compelled to take part in discussions and provide staff and resources locally for child care. I hope that she is right that that will be sufficient to secure the support that is needed. Knowing the financial position of my primary care trust in north Hampshire, which is £14 million in deficit, I find it difficult to see how great priority is going to be given to the matter in the future. I am sure that all those issues will receive further discussion in the Lords.
Returning to our discussion on "mind the gap", which has taken up most of the debate on this group of amendments, I am pleased that the Prime Minister agrees with us that it is levelling up that is important. We are entirely happy with the idea of reducing the gap between people who are disadvantaged and those who are not, but we believe that that is best done by raising aspirations. People listening to the debate will find it difficult to understand why Government Members take such exception to our argument. As a parent, I understand why many parents throughout the country believe that we should have better aspirations for our children—whether we come from the most wealthy or the most deprived areas of the country. We believe that if we put raising aspirations at the core of the Bill, we will make it better.
Peter Bottomley
: As the Minister rightly said, I was not here at the beginning of the debate—I was chairing
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a churches meeting elsewhere—but I want to pick up a specific point on assessment. To talk about well-being by itself is useless to parents. I do not know how one would count it or measure it. If we go back to the Court child health report or the Plowden primary school report, we see that everything in them is measurable and there are procedures for assessing them. I hope that the Minister will reflect on what she has said and, if she will not accept the amendment now, talk to her officials and get better advice than she has offered to the House.
Mrs. Miller: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point; I wish that he had been able to make it a little earlier.
Edward Miliband: I want to give the hon. Lady one last chance to redeem herself in the eyes of the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin). Given the words from him that I read out in the House, does she not agree that an amendment that would remove the words "reduce inequalities between" is a problem for her and, if she persists, she may well have to explain herself to the right hon. Gentleman on Monday.
Mrs. Miller: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I was trying to give him one last chance to say something new, but he failed to do so.
I am entirely in accordance with my fellow Wessex MP, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset. We are entirely at one in our need and our desire to reduce the gap, but we are saying that it is about raising aspirations, not some vague notion of reducing inequalities.
These issues are not mutually exclusive. We can reduce the gap between those who are less well off and more in need, and those who are not. We can do that most effectively by raising aspirations and raising standards, and that is what we would like the Bill to focus on. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Beverley Hughes: I beg to move amendment No. 15, in page 10, line 17, at end insert—
'(6A) "Childcare" does not include care provided for a child who is detained in—
(a) a young offender institution, or
(b) a secure training centre.'.
This is a technical amendment that corrects an error—an omission from the definition of child care in clause 18. It will ensure that young people in young offender institutions and secure training centres will not be considered as being in child care. That means that local authorities will not be under a duty to secure sufficiency of provision or to assess provision under clauses 6 and 11 respectively. It is clearly not appropriate to describe young people in those institutions as being in child care. The amendment will ensure clarity in the Bill and I commend it to the House.
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Peter Bottomley: I do not think that the Minister has justified her amendment. We know that the children who are most likely to be casualties are those in care. We know that the children in care who are most likely to be casualties are those in secure institutions. The Minister is shaking her head. Does she want to tell me that I am wrong? If not, I shall work on the basis that she agrees with me. It is the children of the state who have the most awkward lives and are likely to face the worst constellation of difficulties as they grow up.
If the local authority has no responsibility for the welfare of the child in the circumstances that the Minister described, who will carry out that duty effectively? My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and I have experience of children who are parked in our town, in small children's homes. Many of them get dedicated care, and many of their experiences are not good. [Interruption.] I will give way, if the Minister wants to intervene.
We are debating an amendment tabled by the Government, who believe that they have wrongly drafted legislation. At present, local authority social services can have some interest in a child in secure accommodation.
Beverley Hughes: It may help the hon. Gentleman to get to his point if he understands that the Bill is about children aged nought to five and the duty of local authorities in terms of the outcomes for children aged nought to five—not their general well-being—and the provision of child care for children aged nought to 14. Patently, young people in institutions do not fall into that category.
Peter Bottomley: The point that I am trying to make, to which I hope the Minister was listening, is that we can use the amendment to focus attention on those whom she is trying to exclude from the Bill's provisions. She may need to do that for technical reasons, but if she is saying that we are wrong to be concerned about the interests of children who would otherwise be covered in theory, she is wrong. One thing that the Government should do is to direct their attention to improving the situation of children in the circumstances that I described.
The Minister may say that the peg for that is purely a technicality. She may say that the amendment is purely a technicality. However, the lives of the young people who concern me are not a technicality. They are at a stage when some of them have a chance of redemption and of getting a positive experience of life. The sooner she acknowledges that the better. She gave bland responses to the points made by Conservative Front-Bench spokesmen on the previous group of amendments. She can rightly say that nought to five does not cover those people, so the amendment does not relate to them, but the welfare of older children, whose circumstances would otherwise be covered by the Bill, does matter. I hope that the Government take that forward in a more positive way and that there is a process of assessing the outcomes, rather than just having targets.
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Beverley Hughes: The situation of young people in young offender institutions is important. The Government take it seriously. However, it is outside the scope of the Bill.
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