My Lords, these amendments both relate to safeguarding specific groups of children. I will turn first to Amendment 243. While of course we believe that people should be free to express their views, I assure my noble friend Lady Walmsley and others that what is absolutely not acceptable is where expression of belief is intended to or causes harm to a child. My noble friends have made very powerful cases. Sometimes children are harmed by their parents or others. As a society we must be satisfied that we have the criminal offences to prosecute those who commit such behaviour. The Government have a key role to play, as do voluntary and other organisations working in the sector. We commend them for their work in shining a spotlight on this problem.
It is essential to raise awareness among the relevant communities and faith groups, and also among social workers and other practitioners—as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said—who may come into contact with families where such accusations have been made. It is only through awareness of the potential threat posed to a child’s well-being by such accusations that families, communities and practitioners can be empowered to prevent harm from taking place and, failing that, to act with confidence in reporting concerns to the relevant authorities.
At this point I would like to look at the criminal law. My noble friend made a powerful case that she thought that these kinds of witchcraft cases were excluded. The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said the opposite. We have considered the amendment carefully and we do not believe that it is necessary. We agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, in this regard. This is quite simply about child protection and human rights. If we cannot include these kinds of cases, what does our child protection mean? Although existing legislation does not specifically mention communication of a belief that a child is possessed by spirits, the current offence of child neglect already includes conduct likely to cause a child unnecessary suffering or injury to health. In addition, conduct not caught by the Section 1 offence could be caught by other offences, depending on the circumstances of the case.
For example, any person, not just a child’s parents or carers, who caused physical or psychiatric harm to a child—which I think is what my noble friends Lady Walmsley and Lady Brinton are talking about—could be prosecuted for the offence of assault. Similarly, any person whose words or behaviour cause serious alarm or distress to a child, or made the child fear that violence could be used against them, could be prosecuted under Sections 4 or 4A of the Public Order Act 1986 —or, if the behaviour formed part of a course of conduct, it could constitute an offence under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.
In addition, any person who encourages or assists such conduct could be prosecuted as a secondary participant, or on the basis of an offence under Part 2 of the Serious Crime Act 2007. For example, a religious leader who encourages or assists parents or others to abuse or neglect a child, in the belief that the child is possessed by evil spirits, could be guilty of an offence. We must ensure that our child protection policy is overarching, and includes cases such as these and all other manifestations of child abuse.
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It is important that practitioners are aware of the role that they have to play in safeguarding children. The Government published their Working Together to Safeguard Children guidance earlier this year. This has a statutory underpinning in the Children Act 1989, which provides that if children’s services believe that a child is at risk of harm within the family for any reason, they may intervene in an appropriate way to protect them from such harm. This could be the case where it appears that the child’s parents believe—possibly because of what a religious leader has said—that the child is a witch or possessed, and so are likely to abuse or neglect them for that reason. In such cases, it is vital to identify and assess the risk as early as possible so that the child does not come to harm.
We know that some organisations working in the sector are calling for this sort of specific legislation. We understand why that is the case, given the history. AFRUCA, referred to by my noble friends, is a leading NGO working with families of African origin that has been campaigning for such legislation. However, as I have said, if these issues are identified, there are measures in place to deal with them. It is clear that what we are dealing with here is, above all, lack of awareness. That is why we are taking that work forward with the National Working Group on Child Abuse Linked to Faith or Belief. AFRUCA is a member, along with other voluntary sector and faith organisations, including the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, the London Safeguarding Children Board and the Metropolitan Police. In fact, the group is meeting today.
The view of most members of the group has been that additional legislation is not required to take this work forward and that what is needed is greater awareness. We are beginning to see this. I notice that a statement on the website of the Victoria Climbié Foundation, another of the leading NGOs in the working group, says:
“There is a continuing dialogue within the relevant communities, and the subject of witchcraft is no longer taboo”.
That represents the beginnings of a move forward. We are funding both AFRUCA and the Victoria Climbié Foundation to work on this and related issues by spending more than £700,000 over the two years from 2013 to 2015. Officials will continue to meet them regularly to discuss progress on these programmes of work.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, made the case clearly that if we single out specific abuses we risk not being as encompassing as our child protection laws should be. However, my noble friends are quite right to highlight these problems because they are a test of whether our child protection measures are working as they should.
I turn to Amendment 246. My noble friend Lady Walmsley has long been a champion for the protection of children from physical abuse and violence, and I pay tribute to her for her work. There was an ongoing debate on this in the previous Government and it continues to be discussed in this one. I reassure noble Lords that the Government are absolutely clear that protection from abuse and neglect is a fundamental right for all children. In recent years there have been cases, well documented by the media, of physical assaults on children in non-school settings. Noble Lords have flagged up a number of areas, including madrassahs. Evidence has been gathered, and individuals have been charged, convicted and imprisoned for physically assaulting children in these settings. I therefore hope that this clarifies that the law already exists to protect children from violence in these settings. Such violence is absolutely unacceptable.
One of the difficulties of enforcing the existing law can be reluctance on the part of parents and others within communities to report allegations or complaints to the relevant authorities. Cultural change is needed to overcome this. Earlier this year, my noble friend Lady Walmsley met the Children’s Minister, Edward Timpson, and suggested that a code of practice would help raise standards in non-school settings. I am pleased to inform the Committee that the Department for Education is working with faith and community organisations to develop a voluntary code of practice. I hope that my noble friend is pleased by that information. Our intention is to help raise standards and establish good practice across the supplementary schools sector.
The code will set out standards that providers will be expected to meet to ensure the effective operation of an out-of-school setting. Signing up to the code will mean that providers establish robust policies in areas such as safeguarding and governance arrangements to help protect children and young people from harm. This will provide parents with the assurance that these settings are providing a good and safe learning environment. Such a code will enable parents to make informed choices about supplementary provision for their children and send a clear message about the expected standards that all settings should meet, as my noble friend Lord Storey said, to keep children safe from violence and abuse. We expect the code to make a real difference, and we will, of course, keep this under review. I am absolutely sure that noble Lords will continue to hold our feet to the fire in all these areas, as they should.