Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I want to say a few words about children in this group of amendments. I know and agree with the arguments put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. We do not want this to become a huge talking shop. I sympathise with and support that idea, but I think that children are different in kind, in part for the reasons given by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. If we are serious about investing in the future, we need to pick up some of the issues around children much earlier. Diabetes and obesity are big issues facing our society. Many of our services are not very good at picking up the needs of children and responding to them in a comprehensive manner. There are lots of organisations that speak on behalf of them, just as there are lots of organisations that speak up for other interest groups, but I would say that the investment issue on children is much more significant than the investment issue on 80 to 85 year- olds, or even 70 year-olds. That is not to say that those people do not need a good or compassionate set of services responding to their needs, but if we as a society neglect the voice and needs of children, we are just bringing a lot of problems upon ourselves as a society—more so than if we have less good care at much older age groups. From my time as a Minister, I thought that the voice of the child in the NHS was really quite muted. The working across boundaries in the needs of children is often far less good than it should be. We need to put in the Bill a stronger requirement to listen to the voice of children and to have their representatives fully focused in the health and well-being boards. They are different in kind and their voice has not been heard enough. Too often, public services operate through parents rather than going straight to the child. That is particularly an issue with young carers and with adolescents. We need a bit of a wake-up call on the needs of children in our NHS and social services and across the spectrum of their needs. I hope that the Minister will look carefully at this issue in the particular circumstances of children.