Government: Draft Legislative Programme

My Lords, truly, the earlier one intervenes either with children or with legislation, the better outcome one can expect. I am most grateful for the renewed effort by Her Majesty's Government to have dialogue with Peers and I appreciate their thoughtful approach. There is much to welcome in the Government's proposed programme. I greet with especial warmth the Housing Bill, but most warmly of all the Children in Care Bill. Many noble Lords have mentioned the workforce. Some will recall the comments of my noble friend Lord Laming during the legislative gestation of the Children Act 2004 in this House. Those were words to the effect that, if only the provisions of the Children Act 1989 had been implemented, much of the later Act would be redundant. Attending to the workforce, including teachers and prison officers, and ensuring that social care funding is established on a sustainable basis is the royal road to securing better futures for children in care. The refreshing of the Government’s social care workforce and children's workforce programme this autumn will be very much complementary to that welcome legislation on children in care. The people on the front line want to make a difference for children and young people. They find their ability to transform children's lives hugely rewarding. We must provide them with the right support to do so, whether they be parents, volunteers or professionals. My first question for the Minister is: how will Her Majesty's Government ensure that the funding of social services is put on a sustainable basis? The noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Lockhart, has emphasised in the past the pressure that will build on social services as increasing numbers of elderly people require support. The squeeze produced by a reduction in funds to social services in the past has contributed to the difficulties faced by children in care now. Services have been centred not on the needs of the child but on how authorities can manage their limited budget. Turning to the legislative programme, we hope that the Housing Bill will increase the supply of housing, especially social housing. Time and again, foster carers have told me that their desire to expand their work is hampered by the lack of room at home. Young people leaving care are deeply concerned about the lack of availability of suitable accommodation. Far too many families are living in unsuitable, overcrowded, temporary homes. Among other things, that increases the risk of family breakdown and of children entering the care system. Centrepoint, the YMCA and Foyer are finding their services backed up and their beds blocked because of the shortage of move-on accommodation. I would welcome hearing from the Minister whether the new Administration are considering doing more to reduce the harmful impact of the shared room rate, once the single room rent, which limits the availability of supply to those young people. I welcome most warmly the priority that the new Prime Minister is giving to housing; and I declare my interest as a landlord. I applaud the intention in the Children in Care Bill to develop services focused on the needs of children in care, to raise their aspirations to those that we have for our own children, to boost capacity in schools so that those children fulfil their academic potential and, most importantly, to increase the stability of their placements and consistency of care. The Bill is intended to improve the transparency of children's care plans and the degree to which the voice of children is heard in the development of care plans. It puts the role of the teacher designated for looked-after children in schools on a statutory basis. It prevents children being obliged to change schools when they are preparing for examinations. It gives young people the right to determine whether they leave care before age 18, if I have understood the intentions correctly. It obliges social workers to make regular visits to children, wherever they are placed, even when they are in custody. It places a duty on local authorities to secure a range of appropriate placements for looked-after children. That last point could signal a significant improvement in the quality and stability of children's placements. All those measures are most welcome. The proposal for independent social work practices needs careful consideration, and I look forward to your Lordships' House having the opportunity to give it just that. Clearly, there are important workforce implications of the above. I look forward to hearing more in due course from the Government on their implementation of the White Paper on the strategy for the social care workforce, Options for Excellence, published last year; on the developments to enable child and family social workers to spend more time with children and families; and on the steps that they are taking to implement newly qualified social work status—reduced caseloads and increased supportive supervision in the first year of practice for new social workers. The introduction of the latter support for newly qualified social workers cannot move fast enough and is most urgent, as the British Association of Social Workers has said. I call attention to the Question for Short Debate on new social workers in the dinner hour on Monday 8 October and hope that your Lordships may consider speaking or attending. I hope that, during your Lordships’ consideration of the Children in Care Bill, we can consider what additional statutory support may need to be given to children's homes. I welcome what the recent Green Paper on children in care has to say about those settings and the recognition of their necessity for some children. This area of provision is currently in a fragile state. Local authority settings are full and tend to take the most challenging children. The for-profit sector is finding it difficult to make the return that it needs. The voluntary sector is constrained by full cost recovery and finding it hard to innovate, as it must, as a result. I urge the Government not to underestimate the challenge in residential care. Can the Minister say that any calculation of supply of residential placements takes into account the need for children's homes to operate at 80 per cent capacity to permit the right range of children in the home—newcomers and old hands, needy and less demanding—fitted to the statement of purpose of the setting? I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss the Government's legislative programme and look forward to debating it further.