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Baroness Morris of Bolton: I am pleased to support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, to which my name is added. The noble Lord has spoken with his usual passion, knowledge and conviction on this issue. I thank Mencap and the coalition of disability and children's organisations for their excellent, if upsetting, briefing on this subject.

The Government have recognised that mentally and physically disabled children are less independent than non-disabled children and more often than not require formal childcare for longer. If so, I question why this legislation proposes to cover only the category of children up to the age of 16, leaving as the noble Lord, Lord Rix, has said, this crucial two-year gap, which is covered by previous legislation. The gap will mean that a disabled child is too young to qualify for adult services, and yet is too old for children's services. More often than not, these children are also in a situation where after-school clubs or leisure provision do not specialise in their needs and are thus inaccessible to them. What assessment did the Government carry out in preparation for this Bill of the provision that parents of disabled children need to allow them to work, volunteer or undertake education or training? There is serious concern that without provision for disabled children up to 18 you are removing parents' choice to work outside school hours, just as we have heard in the tale of Sophie.

Already, more than half of all families with a disabled child are living in poverty or on the margin of poverty. Childcare for disabled children costs twice as much as that for children who are not disabled, yet 84 per cent of mothers of disabled children are out of work to allow them to care for their child. There is no one else who can help. It is clear that already there is a shortfall in provision for children with disabilities, yet the Government still propose this gap between 16 and 18. Surely the amendment can only have a positive effect on this bleak situation, enabling such parents to work and thus reducing poverty among these most disadvantaged families. Not only that, but it would help to consolidate childcare provision throughout the age range of disabled children.

I suggest that there is no barrier to local authorities joining forces on issues such as the provision of childcare for the disabled and sharing information about services in neighbouring areas, or even working on cross-border schemes with the private and voluntary sectors. I hope that the Minister will at least commit to seriously considering this proposal between now and Report—unless he will accept the amendment today.

I finish by quoting the Children's Commissioner, Al Aynsley-Green:

"Every child deserves the highest quality services. We need to ensure that services adapt to the needs of disabled children rather than the family adapting to services".

Lord Carter: I was pleased to add my name to this amendment, and I add my thanks to those of the noble
 
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Lord, Lord Rix, to the Minister for meeting us last week with his colleague Maria Eagle to discuss this. It was an extremely helpful meeting. The detailed case for amending the Bill to replace age 16 with age 18 for disabled children has been excellently explained already by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, so there is no need for me to go into any great detail.

The Minister will not be surprised to know that I feel that the case for change is unanswerable. Once the Government decided to put specific ages into the Bill, it became essential to include age 18 for disabled children. As the noble Lord, Lord Rix, has said, if age 16 remains in the Bill, it will have the force of law and there will be no incentive for local authorities and others to consider childcare for the parents of disabled 16 to 18 year-olds, with all the pressure that there is on the budgets of local authorities, and so on.

Also, I am sure that my noble friend will want to ensure that the Bill will harmonise the provisions for disabled children and their families with other legislation designed to help parents to work that supports the parents of disabled children up to the age of 18, not 16. The Employment Relations Act 1999 means that parents of disabled children up to age 18 have the right to parental leave of up to 18 weeks, to be used flexibly throughout the child's life from birth to 18 years. The Employment Act 2002 gives parents of disabled children up to the age of 18 the right to request flexible working hours to meet their care needs.

In passing, the usual criticisms from the Government about the drafting of the amendment would certainly not apply in this case, because all that we are doing is to replace the figure of 16 with another figure, 18. So I hope that the Minister has not got that in his brief.

The other extremely powerful argument against leaving the age at 16, which the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, touched on, is the transition—which is very difficult anyway—from child to adult services at 18. There really would be a very awkward stage between 16 and 18 if the age in the Bill remained 16. If the Bill is not amended as we suggest, I hope that the Minister will be able to give the Committee an encouraging response.

Baroness Walmsley: We strongly support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rix. I apologise to him that I did not get my act together and add my name to it. I was clearly too busy writing amendments of my own. The arguments have been very cogently made by the first three speakers, so I will not add to them, except to say that the proposed change is very much in line with both the letter and the spirit of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I therefore support it to the bottom of my heart.

Baroness Howarth of Breckland: I, too, support my noble friend Lord Rix, and would not wish to repeat the cogent arguments that he and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, have put forward. However, I add one or two different points.
 
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I work in the adult disability field, as well as the child disability field. I am the president of the John Grooms organisation for disabled people, which undertook a review of services for disabled people. This transitional stage between childhood and adulthood—really it is adolescence—is the most dangerous and difficult, not only for young persons themselves but for their carers. This is the stage at which, if there is not enough support at the right time, the young person will be placed in totally inappropriate provision.

We know already that there are thousands of quite young disabled adults in inappropriate provision, in adult provision or in hospital, when they could live quite adequately in better placements if they were available and if the assessment was made well at the transitional stage. The difficulty is with families who have had provision for care up to the age of 16 and who have struggled to survive—the noble Lords, Lord Carter and Lord Rix, have said this on a number of occasions—and look after those whom they love, who often have very severe disabilities. My world is that of physical disability, where sometimes people are quadriplegic, which means real physical care is necessary. Their survival depends on their having some form of daycare available. If that daycare does not continue, those families cannot go on.

That is the point at which a young person may find themselves placed inappropriately—it is when a young adolescent wants to come out of a house and either go to a college for disabled youngsters or into his or her own provision—because the family has broken down. Often it is not the most economical solution for the nation either, because those sorts of placements are expensive. Therefore, the move to 18 would be beneficial not only for the young people, which is our primary concern, and for their families on whom they depend, but for the nation, in terms of long-term economic value.

Lord Adonis: I am very glad that we got to this important issue in time for the noble Lord, Lord Rix, to fulfil his engagements at the National Theatre this evening, which, as I understand it, are to do with a play by Granville-Barker about the evils of plutocracy in 19th century Britain—an issue entirely foreign in the modern age!

This is a vital issue, and we take extremely seriously the concerns of all noble Lords and the charities that support the amendment. That is why my honourable friend Maria Eagle and I met the noble Lord, Lord Rix, and my noble friend Lord Carter, along with representatives of Mencap, to discuss this in further detail. I also commend Mencap and join the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, in doing so, on the vital support that they offer families with disabled children. They play a vital role in helping us to formulate our policies and better to understand the lives of disabled children and their families and the challenges that they face. Indeed, it is the relentless hard work of charities such as Mencap that ensures that the Government continue to strive towards improving outcomes and equality for everyone.
 
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On the specific issue of the amendment, I could recite the provisions in the Bill and why they all move in the direction that we all wish to see, including the higher age limit already in place in respect of disabled children, as against other children. But I take all that as read for the purposes of this debate. My honourable friend Maria Eagle and I, when we met the noble Lord, Lord Rix, and my noble friend Lord Carter last week, extended our wholehearted sympathy to the intentions behind the amendment. I reiterate that today. We shall consider very carefully before Report whether we can make further changes to meet its objective. However, we need to think carefully about what is the most effective way of securing appropriate services for disabled young people over the age of 16. It is in that context that I give a commitment to consider this further.

5.45 pm

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