APPENDIX 9: CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS
BILL [HL] — GOVERNMENT RESPONSE
Letter to the Chairman from Lord Adonis, Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State, Department for Children, Schools and
Families
1. I am grateful for the work of the Committee
in reviewing the Children and Young Persons Bill. The Committee
made a recommendation relating to clause 18 and welcomed Government
plans to limit the power conferred by clause 13. I address each
in turn below.
Clause 18: Entitlement to payment in respect of
higher education
2. Clause 18 adds to the duties that local authorities
owe to care leavers by requiring local authorities to pay a fixed
sum to those who go on to pursue a course of higher education.
The amount of the payment will be set in regulations to be made
by the appropriate national authority.
3. Clause 18(2) of the Bill, (new subsection
(5B)(b)), currently contains a power, subject to negative resolution,
to prescribe the meaning of "higher education", which
reflects an almost identical power in section 28(1) of the Teaching
and Higher Education Act 1998. The committee considered that the
power in new subsection (5B)(b) should (like that in the 1998
Act) attract the affirmative procedure on its first exercise,
because it will define the scope of the local authority's duty
under this clause.
4. The Government accepts the committee's recommendation
that the power in new subsection (5B)(b) should attract the affirmative
procedure on its first exercise and has tabled an amendment to
this effect.
Clause 13: Duty of local authority to ensure visits
to looked after children and others
5. The committee commented on the extent of the
power conferred by subsection (1)(b)(i) of clause 13. Clause 13
inserts a new section 23ZA into the Children Act 1989 ("the
1989 Act") to place a duty on a local authority to ensure
that children looked after by the authority, and certain other
children and young persons, receive visits from a representative
of the authority and that appropriate advice, support and assistance
is made available to them. The committee was "concerned"
by the extent of "this power as it would enable the Secretary
of State to prescribe any description of child or young person
(other than ones already looked after by an authority) and there
appears to be no definition of 'young person' for the 1989 Act
as a whole."
6. The committee acknowledged in its report that
the Government was reviewing clause 13 of the Children and Young
Persons Bill, and in particular the ambit of the power in the
new Section 23ZA (1) (b).
7. A Government amendment has been tabled which
would enable the Secretary of State by regulations to require
local authorities to ensure that children who were looked after
by them but who have ceased to be looked after as a result of
prescribed circumstances are visited. This would significantly
reduce the ambit of the delegated power in clause 13. The power
to prescribe the circumstances as a result of which a child ceases
to be looked after and must then be visited will be exercisable
by negative resolution, the parliamentary procedure adopted for
this clause for the reasons set out in our memorandum of 14 November
which the Department continues to believe is appropriate for this
case.
8. It is intended that local authorities will
be required by regulations to ensure that children who were voluntarily
accommodated under section 20 are visited when they lose their
looked after status because they cease to be so accommodated when
detained in secure training centres, young offender institutions
or prisons. The power will also enable us to extend the visiting
requirement to other comparable groups of vulnerable formerly
looked after children, who are living away from home in circumstances
in which it would be right to expect the local authority to take
a continuing interest in their welfare and their needs for services
might otherwise not come to the attention of the authorities.
9. This will enable us to deliver our policy
of placing the local authority under a duty to ensure a representative
of their's visits children who immediately before entering custody
were accommodated by them under section 20 of the Children Act
1989.
10. I am copying this letter to the clerk of
the Committee and to all Peers who took part in the second reading
debate and those Peers who have indicated they are keen to follow
the progress of the Bill. I am also placing a copy of this letter
in the House Library.
January 2008
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