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Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I vehemently support this amendment. In the months during which we have been considering the Bill in your Lordships' House—many of whose measures are very welcome—many of us have talked to hundreds of young people in various contexts. The common factor in relation to the commissioner's powers and functions that I have heard from right across the board is that young people want him or her to be powerful and independent of government. So if we are genuinely to listen to children, it is fundamental that the commissioner should be as independent of Government as the other
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commissioners in the UK and other parts of Europe who do their job in the interests of children so very well. It really is a vital part of the changes and improvements that we are trying to make to the powers and functions of the commissioner. I urge your Lordships to support the amendment.
Baroness David: My Lords, throughout all the stages of the Bill, I have very strongly supported making the commissioner entirely independent. I therefore support the amendment. It is not appropriate for Ministers to be able to direct an independent champion for children. It is as simple as that.
The Government, who deserve huge credit for bringing forward the proposal for a commissioner for England's children, accepted on Report, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said, that the commissioner must be able to initiate formal inquiries, and added Clause 4 to the Bill. That shows that we have a listening Minister, and I hope that she will also be listening to this amendment.
Clause 4, reasonably enough, requires the commissioner to consult the Secretary of State before initiating an inquiry. The only possible reason for keeping Clause 5 as well as Clause 4 must be to enable the Minister to force the commissioner, against his or her will, to carry out an inquiry in circumstances in which the commissioner has decided it should not be a priority. We must all hope for a positive and collaborative relationship between the commissioner and Ministers, and there will be ample room for Ministers to propose an inquiry. But the relationship must be one of respect for the essential independence of such an office.
The ultimate decision on whether to carry out an inquiry, which would take up a huge amount of the officer's time and resources, must be the commissioner's. The Government have ample powers to establish independent inquiries in other ways. The power of direction is in direct conflict with the concept of an independent commissioner, and we should send the Bill to the other place without it.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, as a matter of clarification, can the Minister say whether the cost of an inquiry required by the Secretary of State would be met by the Secretary of State?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I do not think I can add to the case that has been very well made already, but it strikes me that the power of direction in this clause looks even more out of place now than it did when the Bill first reached us.
It is not just that the power of direction fetters the commissioner's independence—of course it does, and I am only one of many who thinks that that is wrong and inappropriate—it is that a power of direction really seems pretty pointless now that the commissioner is able to undertake formal inquiries on his own initiative. Are we really to imagine that the commissioner would refuse a request from the Secretary of State to instigate an
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inquiry? If a request came from that quarter, and there was money to go with it, I cannot envisage the commissioner ignoring it.
Apart from that, as the noble Baroness, Lady David, has said, Ministers already have all kinds of powers in other statutes to set up official inquiries if they choose to do so. Why create a power of direction in this Bill so as to force the Children's Commissioner to take up large amounts of his time doing the Government's bidding? If the matter were that pertinent to his remit, he would be doing it anyway.
I put it to the Minister that the existence of the power looks wrong. I really hope that she will think again about it.
Lord Laming: My Lords, can the Minister give some reassurance on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne? I recognise the arguments that have been well advanced in the House in favour of the amendment. Nobody wishes to have the position of the commissioner compromised in any way. However, it was my hope that in establishing the post of commissioner, one of the benefits would be to avoid further inquiries of the kind and scale of the Victoria Climbié inquiry.
The reality is that when a case such as that comes along, it captures the concern—indeed, the horror—of the nation. The Secretaries of State—there was more than one, in this case—had not only to report to Parliament but to indicate to Parliament that they would take action. They established, under the authority of Parliament, an inquiry. The power of the inquiry meant that there was no fixed budget—the cost of the additional burden of having an inquiry was met 100 per cent.
I recognise the point that we can continue having inquiries of this kind. However, I hope that the Minister might be able to indicate whether the ability of the Secretary of State to give a direction in what would be exceptional circumstances would not only meet the concerns of Parliament and the public in matters of the kind to which I have referred, but, importantly, would also guarantee that a commissioner taking on an important and costly task of this kind would have that guarantee of additional funding. In other words, it would not weaken the commissioner's position to pursue other matters.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, in responding to Amendment No. 9, I should like to speak also to Amendment No. 10.
Amendment No. 10 would remove from Clause 5(5)(a) the words "amend the report" and replace them with the words,
The amendment would make it clear beyond any doubt that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State may amend a report solely for the purpose of protecting a child's identity, and for no other reason. This has always been the Government's intention, as I
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have made clear during previous debates in your Lordships' House. None the less, noble Lords expressed concern that the existing wording was not tight enough and could allow the Secretary of State to make more wide-ranging amendments. I am happy to remove any such possibility, however remote.
On Amendment No. 9, I understand everything that noble Lords have said, and the wish to ensure that the commissioner is independent. It is for that reason that we introduced Clause 4, to give the commissioner the autonomy to launch inquiries. I stress that Clause 5, as it stands, does not cut across those autonomous powers.
We hope, and I think that noble Lords would expect, that any such direction power would be used very rarely, if at all, and only as a result of a serious failure in services which the rest of the Bill is aiming to prevent. But there could be such a case. The noble Lord, Lord Laming, raised the case of Victoria Climbié, which could well have been a case where the issue was so serious that it was only appropriate for the commissioner to inquire into it. Setting up the office of Children's Commissioner is an important step. There may be very exceptional circumstances in which the decision will rest with the commissioner.
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.
As the noble Lord, Lord Laming, said, when Parliament and the public express horror and concern, as they rightly did over what happened to Victoria Climbié, it is important that the Government are seen to respond on behalf of us all in a strong and measured way. The issuing of a direction is, at least in part for me, symbolic and signifies real gravity. The Secretary of State has given the amendment considerable thought. The word "direct" reflects the gravity and the weight with which the Secretary of State would have wished the inquiry to be undertaken.
I also believe that it is right that the Secretary of State should ensure that there is sufficient money, staff and expertise to carry out such an inquiry. I believe that the essential requirements for conducting such an inquiry, as the noble Lord, Lord Laming, would testify from his own experiences, are linked to the direction. Indeed, those resources would generally be beyond the commissioner's standard resources. That is why we have left it in. There is no desire to move away from independence; we want to give it serious gravitas in those exceptional circumstances and to ensure that such matters are properly resourced. With that clarification, I hope that noble Lords will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
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