My Lords, I am probably one of only three people in this room who has actually been a corporate parent. Having worked in a local authority, I know that if you put wording in a Bill that says “have regard to”, the chief officer, who may want to do the right and proper thing by these children, will be put in a spot of bother. If a local authority and its lawyers see “have regard to”, they will have a conversation with the chief officer which will start: “Do you really have to do this, if the financial situation is tough and bad?”.
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If the Minister and his department want this to have some bite and for people to really take notice of it, he will strike out “have regard to” at every point in the Bill. We now know what happens to children who are in care and what their life chances are. If we really want to change that, we have to put some obligations on. We will come in the second group to some of the other people who ought to be linked with those obligations but we must be very clear what we expect a corporate parent to do. We do not say to normal parents, “Would you like to have regard to whether to take your child to the GP?”, or ask them whether they might have regard to whether they might support their child in school. Parents know what their responsibilities are and we must be very clear what corporate parents’ responsibilities are—so my plea to the Minister is to get rid of “have regard to” and to support particularly the amendments spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley.