Clause
35Extension
of period allowed for making regulations under section 45 or 46 of the
Children Act
2004 Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss new
clause 15— Registration
scheme— ‘(1) Section 45
of the Children Act 2004 (c. 31) (power to establish registration
scheme in England) is amended as
follows. (2) In subsection (1)
omit the word “may” and insert “will within one
year”. (3) Omit section
47 of the Children Act
2004.’.
Tim
Loughton: In rising to speak to the clause and the new
clause that I tabled, a deep sense of dÃ(c)jà vu descends on
me. With various hon. Members, I have debated the private fostering
registration scheme on countless occasions over the past seven or eight
years.
Before I
state the reasons behind new clause 15, I wish to explain that we
originally tabled amendment No. 22, which is one of those amendments
that seeks to strike out the whole of the clause and which never get
selected. Instead, it has become an adaptation new clause. Essentially,
we do not want to give the Government the power to extend the sunset
clause provisions relating to a possible private fostering registration
scheme that were inserted into the Children Act 2004, and which expire
or set in November this year. We felt that striking out the clause
would have done the job, but apparently that must be put in the form of
a new
clause. I
do not want to go into vast detail. I simply refer the Committee to
countless speeches that various hon. Members have made over the last
few years on the need for a private fostering registration scheme. I
refer the Committee to the 1997 Utting report, “People Like
Us”, which made recommendations for a private fostering
registration scheme. I refer hon. Members to the work of the joint
working party on foster care in 1999, which revealed the high potential
for abuse and neglect and urged regulation of private fostering in a
public awareness campaign. I refer hon. Members to the Laming report in
the wake of the Victoria ClimbiÃ(c) tragedy, which recommended a
review of the private fostering system. I refer hon. Members to my
modest ten-minute Bill, introduced on 19 March 2003, which contained
three provisions, one of which was to institute a private fostering
registration
scheme. It
is inexplicable to many of us that the Government have avoided
supporting a measure that a broad consensus of people involved in
children’s issues and adoption and fostering have been saying
for some time is necessary. We are confounded as to why the Government
have still not gone along with it. Throughout all the years of calling
for such a scheme, we have seen extensive regulation of child
minding—the registration scheme has enjoyed a degree of
success—and all sorts of care standards for inspection of care
homes and fostering agencies, some of which we have discussed today.
Numerous new adoption rights and requirements have been introduced, and
hundreds of thousands of people who deal with young people have been
subjected to Criminal Records Bureau checks, including me. After
enormous hassle, I managed to get myself CRB checked—it is no
easy feat. Nobody wants to take responsibility for that, but I thought
it appropriate that the shadow Minister for Children got a CRB check,
which I eventually did. We have even had legislation to clamp down on
puppy farming, but still we have not had a registration scheme for
private fostering.
Incredibly,
people who offer their services as private foster carers, often as
complete strangers, have no real compunction about not registering
their services, although there are local authority registers and the
notification scheme was supposedly bolstered in the 2004 Act. I shall
come back in a moment to some of the words of the then Minister for
Children, Young People and Families, the right hon. Member for Barking
(Margaret Hodge), and some of the undertakings that she gave us when
the 2004 Act was being passed. For people who are unknown to local
social services departments, there can be no guarantees of quality of
care or that they are accessing appropriate training, support and
benefits, and no control over the number of different placements that
the child will experience, which all have ramifications for the safety,
welfare and well-being of children in private fostering
arrangements.
We have no
accurate measure of the extent of such arrangements, although some
years ago, it was estimated that there are in excess of 10,000 private
foster care arrangements in this country, disproportionately involving
children coming from west Africa, particularly Nigeria, Sierra Leone
and the Ivory Coast—Victoria ClimbiÃ(c) came from the latter
via France. I am sure that a large majority of private foster carers do
a good job and pose no threat to their charges, but we simply do not
know. We have no idea of the extent of the problem because the
Department of Health stopped collecting data back in 1991, so
inaccurate were the figures. Since 1991, regulations have brought in
local registers of foster carers, but there is no real legal penalty
for not registering, and many people are ignorant of the
requirements.
We could
look at some of the undertakings that the then Minister gave during
some lively debates on the 2004 Act. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and
North Poole was present, and the then hon. Member for Lancaster and
Wyre, Hilton Dawson, who was a great advocate of a private registration
scheme, voted with the Opposition in defiance of the Government to
introduce it. It was pointed out that
“every report
that the Government have commissioned over the past five years confirms
that privately fostered children”—[Official
Report, 2 November 2004; Vol. 426, c.
186.] can be
“very vulnerable”. Hilton Dawson said that he could
not
“honestly
believe that the Government are proposing such an inadequate scheme as
that expressed in clause
37”— section
37 of the 2004
Act— “and
introducing the possibility of a registration scheme only in a sunset
clause.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee B,
21 October 2004; c.
282.] The
Government introduced enabling legislation for a private fostering
registration scheme that would come into force after a certain period
unless a good reason why not was found, hence a sunset
clause.
6.15
pm
What the
Government intend in this Bill is to extend the sunset clause. What has
changed in the intervening period such that the term of the sunset
clause has to be extended? What have the Government found out in that
period that has convinced them to extend the sunset clause that denies
the coming into force of a private fostering registration scheme? What
do we need to know in order to clear the hurdle and trigger that scheme
coming into force?
The sunset
clause was a sop, and the fact that the Government are now seeking to
extend it without a good reason just goes to prove that it was a sop.
It is a sop to mention the issue when one has no real inclination to do
something about it, as I charged the then Children’s Minister
with doing in 2004, and quite honestly I do not think that anything has
changed to negate the charge that I made
then. In
2004, the right hon. Member for Barking, when saying that she wanted to
beef up the notification scheme, admitted:
“I
think that the notification scheme is not working
well.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 21
October 2004; c. 285.]
I think that we all
agreed with that. She went on to say, in support of the sunset
clause: “The
clause is in the Bill because we want to strengthen the scheme and give
it one last chance to work.”—[Official Report,
Standing Committee B, 21 October 2004; c.
288.] That,
in 2004, was the last chance, but now, apparently, there is another
last chance. The Government need to make a case and justify why this is
proving to be a very long sunset indeed. Will we ever see the dawn of a
private fostering registration scheme, which so many of us have wanted
for so many
years? I
am at a loss to see how the notification scheme can have been deemed a
success. As at 31 March 2007—the last year for which we have
figures—1,250 children were reported as being cared for and
accommodated in private fostering arrangements in England, and 1,010
private fostering arrangements ended during the previous year, so we
are still well short of the 10,000 private fostering arrangements that
are estimated to exist. We still do not know who is involved in those
arrangements. Another
reason for beefing up the provision in 2004 was to publicise the
existence of notification schemes and the legal requirement to register
with them. A survey was carried out back in 2005 by The Voice
newspaper; it was particularly focused on black private fostering
arrangements in London, where we know there has been a problem, of
which the Victoria ClimbiÃ(c) case was just one example. That
survey found that of the respondents, about 35 per cent.—just
one third—knew about private fostering. Twenty-one per cent. of
the respondents were from Africa and of those, although 31 per
cent. said that they knew about private fostering, only half of them
actually knew what it meant. Thirty-five per cent. of respondents said
that they knew about private fostering, but when probed further, it was
found that only 15 per cent. actually did know what it was about. There
was a pretty low recognition level, particularly among a key target
client group.
Part of the
raison d’être behind the changes made by the Minister in
charge of the Children Bill in 2004 was to promote better awareness.
Local authorities were charged with making potential or existing
private fosterers in their area aware of the requirement to register
under the scheme. However, three or four years on, in January this
year, the British Association for Adoption and Fostering carried out a
further survey of Londoners and came up with an even worse result,
showing that few professionals working with children understand what
private fostering is. In a YouGov survey, using an even bigger sample
than the original survey, adults living in London were asked what they
thought it meant for a child to be privately fostered and they were
offered a series of possible answers. Only 18 per cent. picked the
correct definition. Furthermore, only 16 per cent. knew that the parent
and carer, when making private fostering arrangements, must notify the
local authority in the area where the child will live and that failure
to do so is an offence. Two hundred professionals who come into regular
contact with children were surveyed, including teachers, teaching
assistants, doctors and nurses, and what is really worrying is that
only 18 per cent. of them knew the correct definition of private
fostering, despite the fact that professionals working with children
obviously play a vital role in identifying privately fostered children.
It would appear from that evidence that the publicity and promotion of
the existing notification process has
been an abysmal failure. How much money was spent on it and what results
do the Government think have been gained? The surveying of key target
audiences has shown that if it has had any impact, it has been a
negative one. I also asked
at that time how many people have been prosecuted for not registering
with the notification scheme. The Minister did not know the figure but
admitted that it was probably very low. I would like to know how many
have now been prosecuted for failing to register. I hazard a guess that
the number remains very low. That scheme was supposedly beefed up and
bolstered by the Children Act 2004 and the intention was to initiate a
promotion and awareness campaign. That campaign has singularly failed
to promote awareness, to attract the sizeable number of those likely to
be involved in private fostering arrangements in this country to
register, or to bring any increase in the number of prosecutions of
those not complying with the supposedly beefed-up
legislation. Kerry
McCarthy (Bristol, East) (Lab): Does the hon. Gentleman
agree that children who are parked with friends or relatives because
their parents have gone into custody are particularly at risk in that
situation?
6.22
pm Committee
suspended for a Division in the
House. 6.37
pm On
resuming—
Kerry
McCarthy: As I was saying, I wonder whether the hon.
Gentleman agrees that children whose parents are serving custodial
sentences could be at risk if they were placed with friends or family
for the duration of those sentences. Does he think that we should have
better local monitoring and recording of children who fall into that
category, particularly as it would allow schools to keep an eye on
their
welfare?
Tim
Loughton: The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. She
may not realise it, but that is the subject of a campaign being run by
the Catholic diocese of Liverpool on the vulnerability of children
whose parents find themselves in the custody system. It is a fair
point, but I shall not let it take us down a completely separate byway.
However, it is another aspect of the issue that requires
attention.
I have
slightly forgotten where I was before the Division and before the hon.
Lady’s intervention. Rather than start again, I shall begin my
conclusion. The point that I have been trying to make—I am sure
that other Opposition Members concur—is that the time has surely
come for a proper, formal registration scheme for private fostering
arrangements. I do not claim that it will be a universal panacea. It
will not be easy to police, and it will not be foolproof. I certainly
do not want to play the nanny state card, having the state interfere
with children who legitimately attend boarding schools or language
schools, or children on holiday exchanges and so on, who have often
been set up as the problem.
6.39
pm Sitting
suspended for a Division in the House.
6.53
pm On
resuming—
Tim
Loughton: I said when I started speaking to the new clause
that I had a sense of dÃ(c)jà vu—this is the third
wave of dÃ(c)jà vu this sitting. I will try to bring my
comments to a speedy conclusion before the House divides again and I
again have to try to pick up where I left
off. The
point is that we need a private fostering registration scheme, which
the un-sunsetted clause would provide. That national register of
private foster carers would be available to birth parents who wished to
pursue a private fostering arrangement, and it would enable local
authorities to ensure that standards of care were suitable and
appropriate help and support was offered. Such a scheme could also
deter private foster carers who had fallen foul of local authority or
authorised foster agency inspections, but had not committed offences
sufficiently serious for them to be put on the Department for Children,
Schools and Families watch
list. In
conclusion, the Government have not made the case for why the scheme
should not now come into force. In our deliberations on the Children
Bill in 2004, the then Minister for Children, Young People and Families
said
that “we
will require the local safeguarding boards to have regard to how well
or otherwise private fostering arrangements are being
implemented.”
I would very much like
to hear whether the findings of the local safeguarding children boards
have coloured the Government’s thinking regarding not going
ahead with the scheme. The then Children’s Minister clearly said
that “the
notification scheme has not worked—there has not been compliance
with the regulatory
framework.” She
went on to say
that “if
this final attempt to get the notification scheme to work is not
successful, we would have to examine an alternative, despite the many
concerns that we have about the alternatives.”
She described the
positive disincentive of the scheme as it then stood. Finally, she said
that “if
we fail in our endeavours to make the notification scheme work, we will
not need to return to the House with primary legislation and we will
implement the registration scheme, despite our concerns about whether
it will work as well as everyone would like it
to.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 21
October 2004; c.
289-91.] It
was quite clear four years ago that unless there was overwhelming
evidence to show that the notification scheme was working, this section
of the Children Act 2004 would come into force. Why are the Government
seeking to extend the sunset clause again? When is a sunset not a
sunset? How many more chances will they give to show that the
notification scheme works, or as we think, that it simply does not
work, before we have the private fostering registration scheme for
which a wide cross-section of people have been calling for many years?
On that basis, I commend new clause 15 to the
Committee.
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