Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

My Lords, I added my name to this amendment not because I do not accept that it may be on the edge of the competency of this House in relation to financial matters, but in order to give general support to the spirit of the amendment that the Government should put their money where their intentions are. I welcomed the statement made by the Minister earlier this evening in relation to Amendment No. 22, when he made it quite clear that the Government will ensure that the resources are available to do the risk assessments that we have now included in the Bill. It is a great shame that we are now in a situation whereby, on average, there is about 16 weeks’ waiting time up to the first appointment in most areas. I heard from a district judge only a few days ago that in some areas it is 20 weeks. That is four or five months out of a child’s life before even the first appointment for the report to be written, which really is an unacceptable delay. I also had great difficulty believing my ears when I heard the Minister suggest in Committee that CAFCASS does not require any further resources to be available to implement the various measures in the Bill because of savings that will be made in other areas of its work. I would be very surprised if the workload in any of its areas of responsibility were reduced, or if the need were reduced, in order to take account of the various measures that we are putting in place in this Bill. In addition, the voice of the child is missing from the Bill. I am aware from talking to practitioners that it takes quite a long time to listen to children; you usually have to do it in the home, take time over it and be extremely sensitive about it. It is something that takes practitioners quite a long time. If we are to do more of that, as we all agree we should, there will be an even greater workload on the CAFCASS officials. Therefore it is in agreeing with the spirit of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, rather than making any particular manifesto commitments from these Benches, that I support him. I hope that the Minister will be able to extend the undertaking that he gave us in relation to Amendment No. 27 and reassure us that the resources will be available for pay, for the amount of hours needed to do the job well and for training and recruiting the very best social workers to CAFCASS.