Beverley
Hughes: First, let me say how very much I welcome the
responses from Opposition Members and their recognition that our
intention is genuine. I am pleased that we can now move forward in the
way that I outlined. I am also pleased that they acknowledged, as the
hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham intimated, the difficult
tensions and dilemmas in maintaining effective immigration controls.
No-one on this Committee
is more acutely aware of those difficulties than I. It is important that
our nation not attract organised traffickers shipping children across
to England because it looks like being an easy place to stay for anyone
who manages to get here. We must balance that with our desire to
safeguard and protect children while they are here, although the
majority will not end up with the right to remain here. Sometimes, that
balance is genuinely difficult to
strike. We have moved
forward. It is not that nothing has happened during the past four
years. The BIA has a duty to protect children from harm and a code of
practice has been developed to which the agency is now working, but as
is often the case in politics, things have moved on, and it has become
possible to take further steps because of a change in context. It is
largely due to the effective way in which the Government have been able
to reassure people about immigration control that we have a different
context in which we can move forward and the immigration agency has
moved forward. I am pleased that we have reached that
point. However,
to answer another point raised by the hon. Gentleman, the right place
to scrutinise the duty will be during consideration of the Bill that
establishes and gives a legal constitution to a new UK-wide agency. The
policy decisions about the constitutional form of the agency, what
powers it will have and how those powers will relate to the powers that
the Secretary of State will retain on immigration have not yet been
finalised. The right place for hon. Members besides us to scrutinise
the duty that we will introduce will be in the context of the Bill to
set up the UKBA. However, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the duty
will be equal and will establish parity in the obligations between the
agencies that are now subject to the section 11 duty with a duty under
the new legislation. In drafting the provision, colleagues and
officials in the Home Office and my Department will, jointly, consult
other
organisations. On
the further delay and whether anything can be done in the mean time,
which the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole asked about, it is
important that we get the measure right. We are making a major
commitment in establishing the UKBA, and as I have said, it is right to
make this provision in the context of the Bill dealing with the UKBA
and the relevant changes. However, we have the code of practice and the
current duty and we want to ensure that we learn the lessons from the
developments that they have already been brought about in terms of
changing culture and practice in the agency dealing with immigration,
and to build on those lessons as we move forward with the equivalent
duty. Obviously, based on the commitment that I have given and in the
context of current thinking, the setting up of the UKBA will take place
in the knowledge that this statutory duty will be placed on it, and
that will inform all the thinking and planning from this point
onwards. I
hope that we can proceed in the way that I have outlined. I am not
asking the hon. Members to disagree to the clause at this stage, but I
will do so on
Report. Question
put and agreed
to. Clause
7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause
8Well-being
of children and young
persons
Tim
Loughton: I beg to move amendment No. 3, in
clause 8, page 6, line 4, after
‘England’, insert
‘and persons over 16 years of age
but under 22 years of age who have received services under section 23C
to 24D of the 1989 Act in the past five
years.’. This
amendment is tabled in my name and that of the hon. Member for
Upminster, our indefatigable Whip, who, I failed to mention earlier,
cannot be with us today as she is busy whipping somebody else somewhere
else. She will be bringing her qualities and great knowledge of this
subject to us
shortly. This
is a probing amendment—it is difficult to get something that is
not a probing amendment in respect of parts of certain clauses, but we
are trying. It is designed to tease out more about the arrangements
whereby the Government clearly recognise the ongoing responsibilities
to children who have come out of the care system and to tighten up the
terms of the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, which was welcome,
although too many of our children leaving care still have a tough time.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Stafford, who does such an excellent
job chairing the parliamentary group on children in and leaving care,
will have some comments to
make. The
statistics remain alarming. Nearly half of all the young people in the
care system will leave it at 16 or 17, compared with an average
“flying the nest” age for children living with their
families of 23 or 24. Those children are leaving the shelter of the
care system—albeit it is still inadequate and some of the
outcomes are still woefully poor—at a sensitive, fragile period
in their lives. At 16 or 17 they may be leaving school, going through
important exams or, hopefully, going on to higher education or training
of some sort. They may face the problems of leaving the support
mechanism that the care system has provided for many of them and
getting appropriate housing and accommodation, let alone moving on to a
job. I know that the Government recognise that and that the thrust of
the 2000 Act was to achieve greater support after children leave the
care
system. The
amendment is intended to place the duty for promoting the well-being of
children on those who have been responsible for them in the care system
during the previous five years. We need to achieve greater flexibility.
There is a black and white situation in respect of children in care in
the UK: they are either in care or with a family. I mentioned earlier
the number of children who come into the care system on a shorter-term
basis and return to their families, but many children in care are
completely cut off from family background and family
members. About
18 months ago, I visited Denmark with colleagues; we also went to
Helsinki. There is much greater flexibility in the systems there. While
in Denmark, we visited an impressive care home outside Copenhagen.
Proportionately, many more children in the care system there are in
residential homes. Adoption is virtually non-existent—only 20
children had been adopted in the previous year in Denmark. Although the
Danes use fostering, they make far more use of residential
children’s homes.
The
particularly impressive children’s home that we visited housed
children ranging from under 10—I think the youngest was 7 or
8—right up to 22, which is an enormous range of ages. They were
looked after by fantastic pedagogue social workers from whom, as was
said on Second Reading, we in this country have a lot to learn. Those
social workers develop a great empathy with the children and are seen
as friends and confidantes as well as being the children’s
guardians. The children there are not encapsulated in a
children’s home and cut off from the outside world. Each week,
there is a dinner evening to which relatives are invited—perhaps
the birth parents or other members of the extended family—to
spend as normal a meal time as possible with the child or other
residents of the children’s home. The children may spend
weekends back at home or with an extended family member. There is a
degree of
flexibility. If
a child has to be taken out of the home environment, that need not be
the be-all and end-all—the beginning of a slippery slope to
permanent care proceedings being taken and that child going into
long-term fostering or, ultimately, a long-term adoptive placement. We
need greater flexibility in our system, which is why the amendment
acknowledges, in the spirit of what the Government are trying to
achieve in the Bill, that there should be an ongoing duty to promote
the well-being of children who been involved in the care system over
several
years. Life,
particularly for vulnerable children who have endured traumatic
conditions, is not a nice, smooth journey. There can be problems at
school or in training that result in their failing to get the exam
results or training qualifications that they need, so that, all of a
sudden, they are faced with an uncertain future and crisis. Another
typical problem is the housing that they have been given goes
pear-shaped for some reason. Somebody who might have appeared confident
at 16 or 17 when leaving the formal care system all of a sudden returns
to a rather more chaotic lifestyle and needs support. They need to be
able to go back to the social worker who was their support when they
were fully in the care system, or to somebody at the local authority,
in the housing department or whatever, with whom they can deal on an
understanding
basis. The
statistics show that within two years of leaving care, of the 6,000
young people who leave care in a year, 3,000 will be
unemployed—half of them will not have a job and will lack the
stability that might put them back on the road to having some degree of
permanency and sustainability in their lifestyle. No fewer than 2,100
will be mothers or pregnant. The propensity of girls leaving the care
system either to be mothers already or to become pregnant is deeply
alarming. When we simply cast those young girls off without some
ongoing monitoring by a social worker or somebody from the local health
service, a sexual advice clinic or other agency, we fail them, even
though we know they are, for various reasons, far more susceptible to
becoming teenage mothers. The Minister has rightly highlighted teenage
pregnancies as a major problem: we still have the highest level of
teenage pregnancies in western Europe. Of those 6,000 people leaving
care each year, 1,200 will be
homeless. 12.30
pm These
are deeply traumatic times and things do not all go smoothly, but it
can be an erratic journey. What we are trying to achieve, which I am
sure is what the
Government are trying to achieve also—we are just trying to tease
out some detail—is that there will be a flexible duty to promote
the well-being of children in England after they have formally left the
care system, until they are in a position to be able to stand on their
own two feet, and that they have some sustainability and continuity in
order to do that. That is the purpose of this probing
amendment. I am sure
that the Minister will say, “No worries, it is all catered for
elsewhere in the Bill,” and I would be delighted to take her at
her word, but I would like an assurance that that is the intention
behind the legislation. One criticism of the Bill is that it is full of
good intentions. It is certainly going in the right direction, but in
some areas it lacks the force to produce the delivery, which, as the
hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole said earlier, is crucial.
What matters is not how many clauses we pass, how many new structures
we set up, or how many people with shiny new titles and nice smart
lapel badges we create, but the effect that they will have on the
children who desperately need their support. That is what the amendment
is trying to achieve.
Annette
Brooke: I have a great deal of sympathy with everything
that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham has just said. I am
sure that all of us in this room have visited projects that have shown
what can be done. I have had the privilege of visiting a “Make
the Difference” project in Tower Hamlets. That was excellent for
the young people who were participating, dropping in, meeting
regularly, but it did not necessarily ensure that those who had dropped
out at 16 would feel confident to drop back into the varying
arrangements that are available for young people. This is an important
issue. I am quite sure that there is good practice out there in
particular local authorities, but the problem is how to spread that
good practice and how to change the situation so that we do not end up
with young people in custody, homeless and all the other very sad
consequences that often befall looked-after children when, for one
reason or another, they have left the care system. I would like to hear
what the Minister has to say about whether there is more that we can do
in legislation to give a bigger push to the spread of good
practice.
Beverley
Hughes: I am sure hon. Members are aware that the journey
that we have been on over recent years, which culminated in the spirit
within the children’s plan, has crystallised a process of
developing a new way of working and looking at the needs of children
and young people, putting them at the heart of everything that we are
doing. What we want to do in the clause is to take the opportunity to
reflect properly in statute the Secretary of State’s policy
responsibilities for the well-being of all children in the country. Our
intention in doing so is to demonstrate our long-term commitment to
improving the lives of children and young people.
When we
talked to children, young people and their parents during the
children’s plan consultation, they made clear the positive value
that they place on the experience of childhood as a whole. They talked
about developing play, social and emotional skills and talent, for
example, and how our young people can make an important contribution,
as well as enhancing opportunities and building foundations for their
success.
For many years
the Secretary of State has carried out activities for the benefit of
children and is already required by the Education Act 1996 to promote
their education. The significant developments in policy over recent
years under this Government, through the Children Act 2004, the Every
Child Matters agenda and, more recently, the establishment of the new
Department for Children, Schools and Families, mean that we want the
Secretary of State to be able to look more closely at the needs of the
whole child, and a wide range of matters affecting children’s
lives, their health and their happiness. This is in addition to the
educational needs that obviously remain very important.
Therefore,
our commitment to children’s well-being recognises these changes
to the Secretary of State’s priorities for children and is in
line with similar duties on local authorities and, indeed, on schools
too. It also reflects the Secretary of State’s general policy
responsibilities in a manner that complements—I will explain
this point in a moment—the operational responsibilities of local
children’s services and brings a consistent focus on
children’s outcomes at every level in the
system. We
have considered carefully how this new provision will impact on care
leavers. First, all relevant children who are 16 or 17 are children for
the purposes of this provision and the Secretary of State will have the
same duties to promote their well-being as he does to all other
children. We also recognise that the Secretary of State’s
responsibilities clearly extend beyond children to include some groups
of particularly vulnerable young adults, such as former relevant
children—that is, care leavers who are over 18. Therefore I
think it is right that this clause includes explicit reference to this
particular group, that the Secretary of State takes powers to make
provision for them, and that this arrangement mirrors that of local
authorities. We have actually modelled this clause on the parallel
provision—that is, section 10 of the Children’s Act
2004—under which local authorities are required to co-operate
with local partners to improve the well-being of children in their
area. The same definition of well-being is used in this clause too,
reflecting the five Every Child Matters
outcomes. In
the same way as section 10 of the 2004 Act, this clause draws a
distinction between the Secretary of State’s duties to all
children and his powers to develop policies that promote well-being for
particular groups of young adults. The way in which that was done in
the 2004 Act, and the way we are replicating that now, is formally to
recognise that the state’s relationship with a group of young
adults is necessarily different from that which the state has with
children who are wholly dependent and who have specifically little or
no legal autonomy. It is clearly appropriate to use terminology in a
sense that more closely reflects the partnership, in that context, that
the state needs to develop with these young people—to ensure
that services are provided in a way that supports their growing
independence and recognises their right to exercise choice in whether
to engage with these services or
not. I
agree with all of the points that Opposition Members have made about
the need to ensure at the local authority level that there is
continuity for those young people who need it and I think—to
answer the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham’s question
specifically—the formulation of this clause and the power for
young people over the age of 18, achieves the intention that he
wants to see. It enables the Secretary of State to take action but it
respects the transition that young people are making to
adulthood. It also
reflects the current distinction that we have formulated for local
authorities in section 10 of the current legislation and, indeed, in
executing that power, we know that there has been a tremendous
development in the extent to which local authorities now keep in touch
with young people over the age of 18. In that group, 90 per cent of
young people are in touch with local authorities, and the outcomes for
them, whilst we are not yet satisfied with them, are clearly
developing. I
hope that hon. Members would accept that, in formulating the clause in
this way, we are reflecting what we have already decided in relation to
local authorities. It is not in any way to reflect a lesser importance
of these young people, but rather also to respect their position in
life, moving into adulthood and reflecting the way in which we have
framed the operational responsibilities of local authorities. With
that, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his
amendment.
| 
