Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 9: 9: Clause 7, page 5, line 40, at end insert— ““( ) In fulfilling his obligations under subsection (1) of this section the Secretary of State shall have regard to children’s need for supportive parenting.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 11 and 39. I welcome the government amendment that was introduced in Committee giving the Secretary of State a duty to promote the well-being of children in care. My amendment specifies that, as part of his general duty to promote the well-being of children in his care, the Secretary of State should also be concerned to ensure that, so far as possible, those children enjoy supportive parenting. I believe that having a reference in the Bill solely to the well-being of the child is not enough because the meaning of ““well-being”” in the context of children is not absolutely clear. For example, the guidance that the Government provide for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority seems to suggest that, in considering a parent’s suitability for IVF treatment, the welfare of the child who may be born as a result of that treatment can be adequately provided for if it can be shown that the child is not likely to be exposed to serious harm. In the previous debate, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, referred to the difference between promoting the welfare of the child and just safeguarding the child from serious harm. It seems to me that there is a gradation of meanings in the phrase ““the well-being of the child””, going from ““promoting welfare”” through ““best interests”” down to ““safety from harm”” and, finally, to ““safety from serious harm””. In my view, ““safety from serious harm”” is not an adequate definition of the welfare needs of the child, especially for a child in care. On this, the Government seem to agree with me because they have introduced into the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill the phrase ““supportive parenting”” to fill the gap to indicate the level and kind of care that every child needs and is entitled to. If every child born by IVF is entitled to well-being and supportive parenting, surely a child looked after by the state should also be entitled to those things. In Amendment No. 11, I suggest the same general definition of the phrase ““supportive parenting”” as the one that the Government agreed to put in guidance in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Incidentally, the wording is taken from the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. It may well be that this definition should also be in guidance rather than in the Bill, and I should be glad to hear what the noble Lord feels about that. These amendments are important for children in care for the reasons that I have just given, but I believe that they could also serve a more general purpose—that of helping parents and prospective parents to be more aware of the parenting needs of the child. This Government believe, rightly, that every child matters. If that is true, surely it is important that all parents should at least know what their child needs from them. Most, but not all, mothers instinctively accept the responsibility of loving and caring for their child. Some fathers do not and some fathers are prevented from doing so by the child’s mother. In our society today, significant groups of fathers do not accept that if a man fathers a child he has an ongoing responsibility for the parenting of that child. Today, about 50,000 children a year—that is, approximately 137 children every single day of the year—permanently lose all meaningful contact with their father. Of course, a birth father is not essential for the successful parenting of a child. Many children thrive without their birth father but many others do not, and too many do not do as well as they might. I refer, in particular, to the fact that they do not develop the self-confidence and social skills that they will need to survive in school and, later, in mainstream society. Research findings show that good, supportive parenting is easier to achieve through a team of two committed parents working together than through one person struggling alone. It is also true that both boys and girls—but especially boys—learn a lot from having a good father as a role model and from observing how a man and a woman can work together as a team and have an argument without a relationship breaking down. Fathers do matter. There is no easy solution to the problems in our society today caused by the lack of supportive parenting. However, there are undoubtedly some things that we could be doing and others that we should be doing. One obvious starting point is to reach shared values about how the state, parents and family should share the responsibility for a child’s parenting. What are the shared values of our society on that issue? We have to consider what will work in practice. It simply is not reasonable for Government to expect parents to do their job in our society if they are not clear about what is expected of them. Unlike Scotland, England has no clear statement in statute law about the responsibilities of parenthood. I fear that today we are sleepwalking into a laissez-faire situation in which fathers and mothers are given little or no guidance about their responsibilities. We leave them to decide whether or not they want to become involved in the care and parenting of their child and, if either or both decide that they do not, the state picks up the pieces. Sadly, that policy is not working very well for two reasons. First, the state is not very well suited to being a parent. Children need parents, or surrogate parents, who are loving, committed and there for them in the long term. All those things are a tall order for an institution. Secondly, the cost of state parenting to taxpayers is very high, which leads to taxpayers’ resistance and to cutting corners to save costs. I believe that a clear, non-prescriptive statement of what children in our society need from parenting could be helpful to parents, to all those whose job it is to teach or to guide parents and, indeed, to those who give guidance to immigrants arriving in this country about what we expect of them. The purpose of this group of amendments is to bring greater certainty about how Government, Parliament and our society believe that the responsibility of supportive parents should be shared between the parents, the family and the state. Amendment No. 39, is a repeat of an amendment I tabled in Committee and which received a very wide measure of support from noble Lords from both Opposition parties and from many of my noble friends and colleagues who are extremely well qualified in this area. As a result, the Minister said that he would take the matter away and, although making no promises, consider it again. I am sure he has done so and I shall look forward to hearing what he has to say. I believe that there are problems. However, will the Minister say whether the proposal made by my noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan to include these things rather than suggest that there should be an absolute definition might be helpful? I beg to move.