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As part of the consultation on the safeguarding code of practice, the Government are reviewing the UK’s immigration reservation to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I strongly support the removal of this reservation which creates a two-tier system which can result in serious confusion about the rights of refugee children. That brings me to the absence of the convention from the Children’s Plan. The Children’s Society, in its briefing to us for this debate, gave one of the best descriptions I have read about what the convention is about. This is what it said:
“The UNCRC is the best and most comprehensive encapsulation of the vision we have for all children. It describes a culture in which it is unequivocally clear that each young human's unique existence is of no lesser worth than that of any fully grown human, and that they are therefore equally entitled to be treated at all times with dignity, humanity and mutual respect. It describes a society in which each child is offered support, protection and their own voice as an individual within a recognised nexus of responsibilities and close relationships with family, community and the State”.
It went on to say that it believes that delivery of the Children’s Plan should be overtly premised on the convention, and I heartily agree.
This Government have recognised the importance of the early years and I salute them for that. Among the measures on improving the teaching work force, I particularly welcome funding for supply cover so that early years workers can go off and do some training. I had the pleasure recently of presenting an early years professional certificate to the leader of a playgroup in the village where I used to live. Her tale of how she had to struggle to get the time to do the work was a credit to her dedication and that of the rest of her team who piled in and helped her. Funding is really needed on the ground.
The Government are again turning their attention to what happens to children who are excluded from school and are about to pilot new forms of provision. I would have preferred more attention to their special needs within their school. We all know that an inflated proportion of children with special needs are excluded. Their bad behaviour often reflects the fact that their needs are not being met.
Chapter 6 includes youth alcohol and drug action plans but there is nothing about standing up to the supermarkets about selling cheap alcohol to kids. Why not? There will be a review of best practice in sex and relationship teaching in schools. When will the Government make it compulsory? I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, about that.
Right at the end of the plan there is the plum—a commitment to a youth crime action plan. I am pleased to say it talks about restorative justice, prevention and education and offers a serious look at what happens when children leave custody. There is recognition that further action is needed to ensure the safety of children
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I will end this half-critical analysis with a resounding hooray. My overall marks are: nine out of 10 for rhetoric, eight out of 10 for ambition but still only six out of 10 for content.
1.48 pm
Baroness Morris of Bolton: My Lords, when the Minister introduced the 10-year Children’s Plan in a Statement last December, I said that many of the issues were massive subjects in their own right and impossible to cover in such a short time, but that I saw rich topics for future debates. I am not surprised that one of the great champions of children in your Lordships’ House, the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, has chosen this important theme for her debate. I, too, am most grateful to her, although yet again it is possible in the time given only to scratch the surface of what is, by any standards, a big and ambitious plan. Its breadth has been demonstrated by the wealth of speeches today. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich told us of the importance of play and African drumming in Norfolk, and I could not agree more with the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, that refugee children seem to be seen as somehow not our children. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, we won an important vote in the Children and Young Persons Bill on this very issue, and I, too, hope that the Government will not seek to overturn it in the Commons.
The noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, spoke of the importance of specialist help for dyslexic children. As someone who is dyslexic, I support her view, and I say to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, that you should try filling in a government form if you are dyslexic. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, that, as someone who has been going to north Wales for her holidays since childhood, I wholeheartedly agree that Wales is a great place to grow up. As always the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, spoke about children in care with great authority and compassion, as did the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, speaking on children in the youth justice system, with his important emphasis on communication. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, was once again the voice of children having a voice on these proposals. The importance of fathers in the upbringing of their children was highlighted by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and I sincerely echo her view.
Who could disagree with the subtitle of the plan, Building brighter futures? As my honourable friend Michael Gove said:
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Many of the things included in the plan are themes that we support and have studied in our childhood review. I hope that will reassure the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, in his call for continuity. Where we have issues with the plan is not in its ambition for our children, but in its somewhat grand and, as the right reverend Prelate said, sometimes state-ist nature with the danger that initiative overload and a lack of focus may harm the very causes that the Government are genuinely trying to address.
This concern was echoed by the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee when it published its report on the impact of the Children’s Plan. The chairman of the Committee, Barry Sheerman MP, urged the Government to be clear about what they hoped to achieve. The report also criticised the lack of a timetable and the lack of prioritisation. It stated that those are,
- “weaknesses which need to be rectified, otherwise the Children’s Plan runs the risk of being simply a wish list rather than the mission for the Department of which the Secretary of State spoke”.
Or, as my honourable friend Michael Gove said:
“How can the Secretary of State credibly say that he is clearing away the clutter and empowering professionals when he is sticking his fingers into everything and generating gloop on an industrial scale?”.
In the interests of not adding to the gloop, I intend to focus the rest of my remarks on three areas.
The right to a childhood is a fundamental right of children. To be able to play, to explore, to spend precious time with friends in a safe environment are vital ingredients in giving children back their childhoods. The £225 million to be allocated over the next three years to build or upgrade more than 3,500 playgrounds and the 30 adventure playgrounds designed for the eight-to-13 age group in deprived communities are welcome initiatives. But unless those spaces are safe and we reclaim many of our existing playgrounds from the gangs that have taken them over—the Home Office suggests that 43 per cent of gangs meet in children’s playgrounds—parents will not have the confidence to let their children use and enjoy those essential spaces. The children who will suffer most are those from disadvantaged backgrounds, who will spend more time indoors watching television. Research by the National Consumer Council, entitled Watching, Wanting and Wellbeing, shows that on Sunday afternoons 32 per cent of children from the poorest families in the UK are watching television; whereas it is only 7 per cent in the more affluent families.
As we found in our childhood review, if children do not have space to play with others, their chances of social mobility may be reduced. Physical mobility affects social mobility. We need to reclaim our parks and our streets. I was delighted when my honourable friend Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London—I love saying that, Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London—immediately appointed Ray Lewis, who has done such wonderful work with young people in London, to be one of his deputy mayors, to address these critical issues. Part of reclaiming the spaces that we already have and making sure that the new provisions are well utilised is an adult presence. I am sure that we all remember the park ranger, who more often than not
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In Balsall Heath in Birmingham, there has been an impressive social revival, led by Dr Dick Atkinson, where every street now has a street steward. The charity Play Rangers goes in and livens up neglected playgrounds and sets up games and activities that the kids want to take part in, because playgrounds can and should be exciting and challenging. The result of that work is that parents and children have confidence, come back to those areas and they thrive. There is of course an added bonus to all these schemes, and that is important intergenerational contact.
However, the best way to ensure that we reduce inequalities among children is to raise the standards in our schools. That is one of the aspirations of the plan; but we must not forget that this 10-year plan comes only three and a half years after the Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners. That strategy also included promises of reforms that would raise standards by 2008, including reaching and sustaining literacy and numeracy targets of 85 per cent of children reaching the expected level at age 11. The reality is that the target was missed and dropped in favour of an easier target of 78 per cent of pupils by 2011. It was also anticipated in the five-year strategy that school absence would be reduced by 8 per cent compared with 2003. A reality check shows that truancy is at its highest level for 10 years.
I fully recognise that the Minister is dedicated and works tirelessly to raise standards in our schools. Where under the academies programme a school has been allowed the freedoms to embed an ethos and culture, there have been remarkable transformations. Those are schools operating in deprived areas and taking their fair share of challenging pupils. We hope that the academy programme will be rolled out as widely as possible and that its necessary freedoms will not be further eroded.
We share the concern of Conor Ryan, who was David Blunkett’s adviser, that there are real tensions in the Children’s Plan. He said:
“Although the plan has some new ideas ... it is more about trying to marry two competing policy approaches. The tension inherent in this process might make it harder to raise school standards and eliminate child poverty than ministers imagine”.
It is important that we do not lose the focus on standards, which means tried and tested methods to ensure a proper grasp of the core subjects, with key stage testing and league tables as vital tools to measure those standards. It also means the teaching of phonics and setting by ability to give all children the best chance in an ordered and disciplined environment, where learning can take place uninterrupted by the disruptive minority and where, as the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, said, they can enjoy learning. It also requires the urgency that the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, spoke about so passionately. Our children need to be properly equipped for the future, so that they can take their place in society as well-rounded individuals.
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The most important ingredient in ensuring that our children have a brighter future is parents. We welcome the somewhat belated recognition that,
We really should not have to state the obvious. All that we do should be about supporting parents. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howells of St Davids, rightly asked, how will that be achieved? As I said when we first discussed the plan, I worry that the Government have sent so many confusing messages to parents that parents are either scared of doing things in case they do the wrong thing, or they feel that they need not bother because the state is doing it all. What we should be doing is empowering parents to be the best they can be and not trying to stand in their shoes.
Closing the opportunity gap is at the heart of the task that David Cameron has set the next Conservative Government. We have already announced proposals on health visitors—which will please the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley—and childcare, which extend to the poorest the support that is currently enjoyed only by the more affluent. Speaking at the launch of our child review, my right honourable friend David Cameron said,
- “we can create a strong and confident society in which children live, play and grow happily within the boundaries of the common good”.
I am sure that we can all agree with that sentiment.
2 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Children, Schools and Families (Lord Adonis): My Lords, the House is indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for introducing this excellent debate on the Children’s Plan. Let me say at once that we have achieved an average eight out of 10 from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who is perhaps my most relentless taskmaster in this House, which demonstrates that the Children’s Plan must indeed be a paragon among government publications. I take that to be high commendation indeed.
Earlier this week my noble friend Lady Massey with her customary deftness of touch chaired a large meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Children. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, were also present and spoke, as did I. The all-party meeting was focused particularly on disabled children with many organisations present representing children with disabilities and learning difficulties, as well as parents with disabled children. The cause of those children was mentioned again today by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and as Minister for Disabled Children I begin by saying a few words about this important group of children, whose interests are advanced further as a key part of the Children’s Plan.
I was glad to be able to tell the all-party meeting of the radical improvements that we are making to services for disabled children and their families, particularly the new ring-fenced three-year funding of approaching £400 million to transform local short-break and respite services for them. I recently launched the first local authority pathfinders for this enhanced short-break service in the London Borough of Sutton, alongside
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The noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, raised the important issues of dyslexia and autism in respect of children with disabilities and special learning needs. As the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, said, we are investing significantly in enhanced training for all teachers about special educational needs. We are looking at the case for more dedicated dyslexia specialists school by school, and are in strong support of the provision of dedicated specialist schools for children with acute needs. As the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, may be aware, a few months ago I introduced a special educational needs improvement test, which local authorities must satisfy when they engage in any reorganisation of their special educational needs so that they can demonstrate that any change, including the closure of the small special schools she mentioned, must be able to demonstrate that the alternative provision that will be made enhances the quality of provision for the children directly affected and those in a similar position. Unless that test is met, a local authority should not engage in the reorganisation of provision.
At the all-party group earlier this week the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, raised the issue of looked-after children, of which he is a tireless champion in this House. We pay tribute to his work. He raised the issue again today. As he said, looked-after children will benefit from the Children and Young Persons Bill, which we have just passed, with its radically improved legal structure to safeguard and promote their interests, particularly in respect of care placements, case reviews, social-worker support and educational attainment. He mentioned, as did a number of other noble Lords, mental health services, in respect of both looked-after children and those in the youth justice system. There have been significant improvements in mental health services in recent years, but we understand the need to improve services further, which is why the Children’s Plan set out a commitment to review those services. The review was launched in December last year. Its main aim was to investigate progress made since the launch of standard 9 of the children’s national service framework and the publication of Every Child Matters in 2004 in delivering services to meet the educational, health and social-care needs of children and young people at risk of experiencing mental health problems, and to see what further improvements we should carry forward in due course.
The speech and language therapy review conducted by John Bercow and mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is also reaching a conclusion. We
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Our approach to disabled children, looked-after children and children with SEN whom I have just identified—identifying key priorities for reform to improve life chances significantly, setting medium-term objectives and directing investment accordingly—represents the philosophy of the Children’s Plan at large. The Children’s Plan builds on improvements that have taken place in recent years. Over the past decade, Sure Start children’s centres have enabled us to create what is now in effect a national under-five service where none existed before, with nursery places for virtually all three and four year-olds and enhanced provision in deprived communities. I know that it is because provision for under-fives is so dear to the heart of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that we scored particularly highly in her assessments of the Children’s Plan.
In schools, pupils and teachers are achieving the best exam results ever. Last year, 61 per cent of secondary school pupils achieved five or more good GCSEs, up from 45 per cent in 1997. There has been a particularly welcome improvement in results in many of our ethnic-minority communities, where the targeting of additional support and the increased recruitment of teachers from those communities themselves has helped us to achieve significant year-on-year improvements in results, to meet the needs identified by my noble friend Lady Howells.
The number of teachers and teaching assistants is sharply up, as is their pay, and Ofsted reports that we have the best trained generation of teachers ever. Capital investment in school buildings has increased tenfold over the past decade, and all that has been made possible by significant increased levels of education spending at large. As my noble friend Lady Massey noted, between 1997 and 2007, total spending on education in England rose from £29 billion to £64 billion, an increase of 68 per cent in real terms. That is the basis on which most of the changes have been possible.
Having set out some of the improvements that have taken place, as I never tire of saying, my middle names are “No Complacency” and much more needs to be done to improve education in children’s services, not only in England but—as my noble friend Lady Gale rightly said—in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Children’s Plan’s objectives for this country being the best place in the world to bring up children referred to the United Kingdom, not just any one part of it—I should hasten to correct the first sentence of the plan. She made a particular point about the development of highly innovative models of provision in a number of areas, including areas of special educational needs. She mentioned autism in Wales in particular. Those points are well taken and I will—and indeed do—pay close attention to developments in Wales and those areas to see how we can improve our practice in England, for which I have responsibility.
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The five Every Child Matters outcomes, which we set out in our 2003 Green Paper, set out our key objectives across the United Kingdom in respect of children. They are that every child should have the support they need to be healthy, to stay safe, to enjoy and achieve, to make a positive contribution and to achieve economic well-being. The best way of addressing some of the other issues raised in the debate is for me to take each of the five Every Child Matters outcomes in turn and say something about what they mean in terms of concrete forward policy and implementation in the Children’s Plan.
The first Every Child Matters objective is for children to be healthy. As my noble friend Lady Howells said, all the evidence points to the fact that the better start that children make in terms of parental capacity and care, from the earliest months of their lives, the healthier and more successful they will be thereafter, including in education. Recent trends in society also highlight the importance of greater childcare support for young children’s parents to enable them to work and to balance work and family life.
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