My Lords, I speak to Amendment 180. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, for adding their names to it. Most of all, I thank the Ministers for their extraordinary forbearance on this very long day.
A key aim of this amendment is to prevent domestic abuse in the future. How should we do it? First, we should ensure—perhaps surprisingly, you might say—that primary school children who exhibit symptoms of severe psychological disturbance receive the professional psychological help that they urgently need if their mental health is to be restored and if long-term problems, for them, society, their own children and future spouses, are to be avoided. The amendment makes it clear that, wherever possible, parents should be involved in that therapy. Much quicker and more sustained improvements for the child can generally then be achieved. Having been involved in family therapy work many years ago, I know just how powerful and beneficial it can be for all members of the family.
The second part of the amendment would ensure that effective preparation for adult relationships—sex, marriage and, most particularly, awareness of domestic abuse and its consequences—was provided across the country for all senior schoolchildren in the last years of their schooling. I will return to this briefly at the end of my remarks; I want to focus mainly on primary school children.
This amendment is probably not the polished article. If we proceed to Report on these important matters, relevant lawyers and, I hope, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, might help to get it into shape. But why is the amendment so important? It is because domestic abuse is rooted in childhood and is such a big problem. The Children’s Commissioner suggests that 831,000 children in England are living in households that report domestic abuse. The mental health of all those children will be adversely affected, in some cases very seriously. Many will go on to become domestic abuse perpetrators, as we have said before. Action for Children tells us that 692 assessments are carried out every day that highlight domestic abuse as a feature of a child’s or young person’s life.
The problem is very serious, for the children as well as for their future spouses and children. The consequences of domestic abuse on children range from negatively affecting brain development and impacting cognitive and sensory growth to developing personality and behavioural problems, depression and suicidal tendencies. Analysis of data from the Millennium Cohort Study found that children whose parents experienced domestic violence when their children were aged three reported 30% higher than average anti-social behaviours aged 14, for example committing physical assault. Sensible, preventive interventions with children will save taxpayers’ money on police, courts and prisons, quite apart from saving the lives of the individuals involved from the miseries of criminality and becoming perpetrators of domestic abuse, with all that those things involve.
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We have a big problem in the numbers of children affected and the severity of the problems, and we are not dealing with those problems comprehensively and effectively. Funding is a key cause for concern—it always is. Child victims of domestic abuse by either parent may need a range of services; most of these are provided by social services, but in my view the health services need to lead in this professional psychological therapy. We are some way towards this, which is another
reason to have it in health, but this amendment seeks to transform access to those vital therapies. That is why it has a prescriptive angle.
Following Jeremy Hunt’s Green Paper on child mental health, clinical commissioning groups are aiming to fund mental health support teams in a quarter of the country by 2023 to provide NICE-recommended therapy to children and young people. The model is sound; these therapies work in schools, and there is one service per clinical commissioning group, with a strong clinical lead. Outcomes are monitored to ensure high standards, but we cannot justify limiting this vital service to a quarter of the country by two years’ time. Of course, a workforce plan would be needed to ensure that quality training and sufficient therapists were available, and funding above the £2.3 billion already committed under Theresa May and accounted for already.
Stephen Scott, director of the National Academy for Parenting Research, trained 4,000 parenting practitioners who delivered group therapy for the parents of children with behaviour problems. The programme was very effective; it reduced by two-thirds the anti-social behaviour and other problems of the children compared with a control group. After 2010, these people lost their jobs, but they are still there. An important aspect of this work is that children’s mental health problems are most often picked up in schools, where the child exhibits behaviour problems. Schools must be the major referrers, with a mental health lead in every school who would be responsible for ensuring that every child needing therapy was referred. According to national clinical adviser Peter Fonagy, this approach is evidence-based.
The fact is that most children’s mental health problems are rooted in dysfunction at home, whether it be explicit domestic abuse or major conflict of some sort. The cost to individuals and society of not taking the action we are proposing here is far too high to contemplate.
I will briefly touch on the second aim of the amendment: to ensure that effective classes in preparation for marriage are provided nationwide to all children towards the end of their schooling. The PSHE classes currently provided fail to achieve the key objective of preventing domestic abuse, including child abuse. Teachers need to be adequately trained in parenting, relationship skills and, most importantly, domestic abuse issues if they are to take PSHE classes.
In view of the time, I will stop there. I hope the commissioner will take up these issues. Above all, I hope the Ministers will agree that both aims of this amendment need to be addressed.