My Lords, it is my great privilege to open the Second Reading debate of the Children and Families Bill. When I came into this job, I swore that I would do what I had successfully done over the previous 30 years: keep control of my diary. I gave that idea up at lunchtime on my first day. A visit that I had asked to make some time ago appeared serendipitously in my diary yesterday—I say serendipitously because it had been fixed a long time before we knew that the Second Reading of the Bill would be today. This visit was to the Avenue School, a special school in Reading run by Dame Sue Bourne, and was a very moving experience. They do wonderful work at this school with children with severe SEN, many of whom are severely disabled. It was a privilege to see the wonderful ways in which they are improving the lives of those children—substantially, to judge by the smiles on many of their faces. As I left, Sue gave me the dragonfly pin that I am wearing, which is in memory of all the children who have been at the school and who have died, so I said that I would wear it today. The memory of that visit will stay with me throughout this debate.
The Government are determined to make sure that we put the needs of children at the heart of everything we do so that, regardless of background, every child has the chance to fulfil their potential and succeed. Too often we hear stories of services failing children and families who need their help the most, trying to get them to fit in with the system rather than the other way around. It is crucial that we get the legislative framework right, so that services transform the way in which they work for children and families, focused keenly on their needs. That is what the Bill seeks to do.
The measures in the Bill will have a direct and significant impact on the lives of children and families across the country, so it is right that it is subjected to the most thorough scrutiny and debate. In the other place, the debate has been constructive and comprehensive. Every part of the Bill has been scrutinised thoroughly by a standing committee and has been passed with the blessing of the whole House. This is in part due to extensive pre-legislative scrutiny of the majority of the Bill. This process, as I am sure noble Lords would agree, clearly improved the legislation. I offer my gratitude to Members in this House for their scrutiny of Parts 1 and 5 of the Bill as part of their work on the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the House of Lords Select Committee on Adoption Legislation. I also thank members of the JCHR for their more recent report across the Bill, which I am sure will inform scrutiny in your Lordships’ House.
Perhaps the most significant improvement that the Bill has seen to date is the amendment brought forward by the Government to introduce a duty on health bodies to provide what is set out in an education,
health and care plan. This amendment to Part 3 of the Bill was widely welcomed and will make a real difference to the lives of children and young people with special educational needs and their families. It is my ambition that the scrutiny in this House builds on that progress in an open and constructive way.
I turn to the provisions of the Bill in more detail. Delays in the current adoption system mean that it currently takes on average 21 months to place a child, and a child’s chances of adoption reduce by almost 20% for every year of delay. This is clearly indefensible and needs to change. The Government’s adoption reforms will sweep away barriers that have stood in the way of finding children stable, loving homes earlier. The Bill contributes to this by requiring local authorities to consider a fostering for adoption placement as soon as they are considering adoption for a child; by removing the explicit requirement to have regard to a child’s religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background when matching a child and prospective adopters; and by enabling the Secretary of State to require some or all local authorities to outsource their adopter recruitment and assessment function.
The Bill would also better support approved adopters by piloting greater access to the adoption register, by improving the information on offer about adoption support services and by introducing personal budgets to give adopters more choice and control over the help that they receive.
In addition, the Bill puts the role of the virtual school head for looked-after children on a statutory footing. This is just one important step that we are taking to ensure that every local authority redoubles its efforts to drive up the educational attainment of children in their care.
Children also face unnecessary delays in the family courts, something that the family justice review recognised as part of its work to consider radical reform of the current systems for family law. A child waits over 42 weeks on average for their care or supervision case to be resolved. This is not acceptable and we agree with the review’s recommendations that more needs to be done to address delays and ensure that a stable placement for a child is found as quickly as possible. To that end, the Bill includes measures to introduce a maximum 26-week time limit for completing care and supervision proceedings, to ensure that expert evidence is used in children’s cases only when necessary and to remove bureaucracy and focus a court’s consideration of a care plan primarily on those issues that are essential to its decisions.
Part 2 also includes proposals to ensure that the needs of children remain firmly at the centre of the private family law system. The Bill, through the parental involvement clause, will make it absolutely clear that both parents should be involved in their child’s life after separation, where it is safe for the child. I wish to be clear that this change does not affect the existing principle that the welfare of the child must be the court’s paramount consideration in all cases. In addition, we hope that mediation, information and assessment meetings will encourage more parents to agree arrangements for their children outside court. The
introduction of the child arrangements order will help ensure that arrangements are focused on the child’s needs.
The reforms to special educational needs in Part 3 are ambitious and present us with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the lives of children and young people with SEN. The reforms put children, young people and their parents at the heart of the system, strive for higher aspirations for children and young people, and have a stronger focus on improving their prospects in life. The new system will provide, for the first time, one system from birth to age 25 by promoting earlier identification of needs and extending comparable rights and protections to all young people over 16; require local authorities and local health bodies to work together to plan and commission services for children and young people with SEN, bringing a real commitment to working together across agencies; and introduce a local offer so that parents can find, in one place, clear and accessible information about the local support that is available to them.
At the end of the new, more streamlined and co-ordinated assessment process for those with the most complex needs, the Bill introduces education, health and care plans from birth to age 25. These plans will have a new and important focus on outcomes, including employment and independent living, with joined-up support from education, health and social care.
The Government are committed to reforming childcare and supporting working families by boosting quality, increasing the affordability of provision and removing obstacles for providers where this does not impact on quality and safety. Part 4 plays a part in achieving this. It introduces childminder agencies, allows childcare providers to request a paid-for re-inspection by Ofsted and seeks to remove current bureaucratic requirements on local authorities and governing bodies. On Report in the Commons, the Government also brought forward a new clause to introduce tax-free childcare paving legislation, as was included in Her Majesty’s gracious Speech.
Part 5 covers the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. It will clarify the power and remit of the Children’s Commissioner, empowering the commissioner to stand up for the rights and interests of all children, particularly those who are vulnerable. For example, it will give the commissioner a statutory remit to promote and protect children’s rights, and will introduce changes to make the commissioner more clearly independent from government.
Parts 6, 7 and 8, which are led by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, introduce greater choice for employees, ensuring that employment law meets the needs and wishes of modern families. The Bill will give working parents more choice and flexibility in how they share leave and pay in the early months of their child’s life. This is a radical new system of leave that will support fathers in getting more involved in their child’s life and enable working parents to take leave together and better manage their caring responsibilities and work commitments. The last section of the Bill supports family life by providing a right for all employees to request flexible working.
Before I conclude, I draw noble Lords’ attention to some commitments made by my honourable friend the Minister for Children and Families on Report in the Commons. Most notably, with regard to adoption, we wish to clarify that local authorities must consider placing the child with a relative or friend before they consider a fostering for adoption placement. Also, to provide further reassurance on this measure, we will introduce new safeguards through regulations to make sure that a local authority notifies the child’s birth parents when considering a fostering for adoption placement.
In Part 3 of the Bill, the Minister has listened closely to the debate to date on the support available to young offenders with SEN. On Report, the Minister undertook to identify further improvements to the support that this vulnerable group of young people receive while in custody to complement the trans- formational reform of education in custody being undertaken by the Ministry of Justice.
A number of noble Lords, while welcoming the intentions of the Care Bill which is currently before this House have raised concerns about the situation for young carers. The Government have heard these concerns. As my honourable friend the Minister also indicated, we intend to look at this issue in detail with noble Lords during the passage of the Bill.
I know that Members of this House have views, and considerable expertise, on how we should be addressing the issues that I have mentioned and others. I look forward greatly to discussing them over the coming months. The Bill demonstrates this Government’s commitment to making a real and enduring difference to the lives of all children and families, an ambition that I am sure is shared by all here today. I commend it the House and I beg to move.
4.01 pm