Baroness Joan Walmsley

My Lords, not everything that matters needs to be done by legislation. At this stage, the Government should be working just as hard on implementation as on new legislation. It is perverse to say in one breath that there is too much legislation and in the next to complain that there are not enough Bills in the Queen's Speech. In taking that view, I agree totally with the closing words of my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford.

I give noble Lords an example. One of the most important Liberal Democrat policies that was inserted into the coalition agreement was a properly funded pupil premium. The case was made and accepted. Research and practice in other countries had proved the worth of such a policy, so we put it in the previous Queen's Speech. We legislated for it and did it. The funding was made available-small at first, but growing every year to £2.5 billion per year by 2015. The purpose of the premium is to narrow the gap between rich and poor, and help to achieve the Government's other primary objective of improving social mobility. How can it be that in a modern, open society such as ours, and after 13 years of a Labour Government, a child's destiny is still determined by their background?

Now we have to monitor what schools are doing with the premium because we are not telling them exactly how to spend the money. Teachers are professionals, after all. We need to research what works, look at how the best teachers are spending the money and getting results, and make sure that best practice becomes general practice. That is what we are doing and you do not need legislation for it. In his speech yesterday to the National Education Trust, Nick Clegg outlined a package of measures to make sure that this money achieves what children and the country need it to do. Bear in mind that this is linked directly to the Government's first objective of getting this country back on its financial feet. Every child who does not fulfil his educational potential incurs cost and is a potential loss to our future productivity and GDP. None of this needs legislation but it follows up previous legislation and makes sure that it works properly.

Another initiative, most of which does not require legislation, is the new adoption plan that was published recently by the Minister of State, Mr Tim Loughton. We are told that an important measure in the children and families Bill will be to ensure that adoptions are not held up by officers looking for a perfect racial match. It horrifies me that children can wait an average of 22 months from going into care to moving in with an adoptive family. The measures that are being taken to speed things up are very welcome. However, I feel that more people would come forward as potential adoptive parents if there was more post-adoption support. There would also be fewer failed placements. It is bad enough when a foster placement fails, but when an adoption fails it is a catastrophe for the child and the adoptive family. Therefore, I ask the Minister: what measures are being taken to improve post-adoption support?

I should also like to ask about kinship adoption. I am familiar with this because it has happened in my own family when the child's mother died, and I believe it has a very high rate of success. The reason for that is probably because it provides a baseline of family love and history on which to base the new relationship. Of course, love is a key ingredient in all these caring situations. Could the Minister say whether kinship adopters will be given the same level of support as other adopters, since the child will still have undergone considerable trauma in many cases and may need a lot of help to settle?

I also very much welcome the announcements in the gracious Speech about the new system of providing joined-up support for children with disabilities or special educational needs. My honourable friend Sarah Teather, the Minister for Children, can be congratulated on her very hard work in pulling together legislation and a pilot scheme-which is, I believe, the reason why the Bill will not be introduced just yet-that gives a child and his family an education, health and care plan that goes right up to the age of 25, and does not fall off the cliff at 16 as before. It should be a Lycra plan-seamless both horizontally and vertically. However, while I applaud the idea of giving parents a budget and a choice of how to spend it, I should like to know whether there is a mechanism in place to help them make good decisions. Bad decisions and bad placements will be bad for the child and a waste of that precious budget.

Finally, I welcome the strengthening of the remit of the Children's Commissioner for England. It is very important that the commissioner has a new overall function to promote and protect children's rights, as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is a fulfilment of something for which I campaigned-against strong resistance from the Labour Government-when the legislation to appoint the commissioner went though Parliament eight or so years ago and ever since. I also welcome the new powers to carry out assessments of the impact of new policies and legislation on children's rights. However, I should like to know whether this is supposed to be the mechanism that will give effect to the promise made by the Children's Minister in December 2011 that legislation would be scrutinised to ensure that it complied with the UNCRC. If so, the commissioner will need much more funding than she has now.

May I point out that the Committee on the Rights of the Child expects the commissioner to comply with the Paris principles? Therefore, she should be independent, properly funded and have the role of protecting children's rights. She should also be accountable to children, the public and Parliament. In this regard, are the Government inclined to accept the idea that the Select Committee to which she should be accountable should, in future, be the Joint Committee on Human Rights? I believe that this was raised at a recent hearing and makes a lot of sense, since the commissioner's powers cover so many different departments, not just the Department for Education, where the responsible Minister sits. Having said that, this is one of the most welcome and important measures announced in the gracious Speech.

I thank my noble friend for restating government policy. However, I do not see how that stacks up with the potential for doubling the number of school places for which selection operates in certain areas. As we know, under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, no new grammar schools can open, so can my noble friend tell me the criterion for a new school and why the planned satellite grammar school in Sevenoaks can claim not to be a new school but part of Tonbridge Grammar School many miles away? If the new school is given the go-ahead, what will that do to the catchment area of the original school? Could we see a school stretching right across the county as it extends its catchment area by opening a whole chain of satellite schools?

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent the expansion of grammar schools on to satellite sites.

Will the Minister allow me to clarify my earlier question? I was referring not to bullying by other children but to violence and ill treatment by members of staff. I particularly had in mind certain madrassahs and Christian fundamentalist Sunday schools where the treatment of children is not up to the standard that we would expect in this country.

Does the Minister agree that the convention gives children the right to protection from violence in all places of learning, both secular and religious? What is his department doing to ensure that?

When and in what way will the Government be communicating to the ISA and the police the statement that my noble friend made last week during the passage of the Protection of Freedoms Bill in response to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bichard: that the ISA can pass on to the police the information that has led to a discretionary bar so that the police can then use their discretion to release that information to a conscientious employer who requests it?

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the quality of teaching of engineering and other science and technology subjects is important? Perhaps he will he join me in condemning the following practice. A survey was sent out to assess the demand for a 16 to 19 STEM free school, which offered an iPad as a prize for completion, and gave only one option on the question as to whether the school would be the person's first choice? That answer was yes. What is his department doing to identify such exaggerated demand, and will he specifically ban the offering of incentives and the use of unbalanced questions?

My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bichard. It may be moderate and proportionate but has the potential to close a dangerous loophole in the Bill. Both he and the noble Lord, Lord Harris, have explained clearly the issues of secondary access, so, it being Third Reading, I do not intend to repeat them.

I do not support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey. As he hinted, it is intended to highlight the fact that it is impossible for any employer or organiser of volunteers, however conscientiously they supervise a person working with children, to supervise them when they are off the premises. That leads us to the point that we have to ensure that the people who are on the premises working with children are safe to do so.

I hope that my noble friend will be able to assure the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, that his amendment is unnecessary. I hope that he will give him 100 per cent assurance, not just 80 per cent assurance. By that I mean that barring information will be made available to conscientious volunteer organisers or employers of paid employees.

We should cast our minds back to when the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act was introduced. It was brought in because it was discovered that paedophiles were working in schools. At that time, the hapless Minister was made responsible. As a result, we set up an Act of Parliament to put in place a committee of experts to decide whether the information available made it possible to say whether that person was safe to work with children.

As the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, pointed out, only 80 per cent of the people who have been decided by the expert panel to be unsafe are known to the police. I point out that the enhanced CRB check contains information about not just charges and convictions but other information only if the police, at their discretion, think it is relevant to release it.

That expert committee has barred one in five people not as a result of police information but because of other information that the police do not know and therefore could not release even if they wanted to. Those experts believe that the information passed to them is serious enough to bar that person from working with children. Given that you cannot supervise a person 100 per cent even on the premises, and you certainly cannot supervise a person off the premises, it is only right that conscientious employers who want to do the right thing for the young people in their charge should be able to have that information-not just the police information but the information from the expert committee, which we as a Parliament have set up, and which believes that that person is not safe to work with children.

That is particularly important given that we are taking away certain roles from regulated work. That means that organisations such as FE colleges cannot under the Bill get that information about some of their employees. That beats me. I cannot for the life of me figure out why the Government feel that it is appropriate to treat young people in colleges differently from those very same children when they go to a school for the rest of the week. However, that is beside the point, because the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, would allow employers in colleges to obtain the information that they are crying out for to enable them to protect young people in their charge. I hope that my noble friend will be able to give us a 100 per cent assurance that those risks and loopholes will be closed.

My Lords, is not using this particular document in schools not completely contrary to the department's guidance, which bans the use of inappropriate materials in sex education classes? In a country where three young men have recently been jailed for distributing leaflets promoting hatred of homosexual people, is it not clear that this document is inappropriate and therefore against the department's guidance?

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the part played by the United Kingdom in the negotiation of a new optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child to provide a communications procedure, and their ratification of the similar optional protocols to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the United Kingdom will sign the optional protocol at the ceremony to be held in Geneva at the end of February, with a view to ratifying it in the near future.

Will the Minister accept that it can be very difficult for doctors to approach a bereaved family to ask about organ donation? I know this from personal experience, because doctors did not approach me when I lost my late husband; I had to raise the matter myself. It is understandable that they do not want to upset the family. However, can it not be even more upsetting for a bereaved family who have not been asked about donation to realise some time later that they have missed the opportunity for their loved one to give life to other people?

My Lords, given that the Secretary of State for Education has said that citizenship courses are pregnant with powerful knowledge, is there any possible excuse for not insisting that every child has the right to study this subject, especially since we are trying to get more of them to use their vote?

To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made in implementing the recommendations in Sir Roger Singleton's report, Physical punishment, improving consistency and protection, published in March 2010.

I have one second point before my noble friend rises to answer. I accept that people who are not regulated can still be CRB-checked but the employer cannot get barring information. Unless the person has committed a crime and got on the police records in that way, the employer who voluntarily carries out a CRB check still does not know if that person has been barred. I understand that Sir Roger Singleton claims that 20 per cent of the people on the barred list have never been in contact with the police. Could my noble friend clarify that?

I am grateful to my noble friend. Could he just clarify one point? The volunteers we are talking about here are the volunteers who see children on a regular basis. That is correct, is it not?

Will my noble friend give way?

In a letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, of 1 February, the noble Lord suggested that an IT technician would not be regulated.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, has made some very good points. He asked whether in future people will ask why Parliament was happy that these measures were passed. I can say to the House that I am not happy that they go through unamended. I agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, said. Given that the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act has not been implemented, what is the evidence that the measures in it are, in fact, disproportionate? As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, suggested, there is evidence that this is not what parents want. There is no great clamour from parents to have these measures changed.

The main point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, was that the measures in the Bill take no account of secondary access. Young people develop a relationship of trust with all kinds of adults in the various settings that are covered by this Bill. Very often young people have the closest friendships not with the most senior people-the teachers, the heads-but with the technicians. In fact, in the school where I used to teach, the technician in the laboratory was the person who was most friendly with the pupils. People like this may not be covered by the Bill as it stands, and yet they have a very good opportunity to build up a relationship of trust with the children. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, has just quite rightly said, they are unlikely to misbehave on the premises, but rather build on that relationship of trust, on which they will rely in some other situation where the child is vulnerable. That is a risk that we cannot take.

I welcome what my noble friend the Minister has said about getting the views of children, but does he think that giving the commissioning of the excellent Healthy Child programme to local authorities is going to bring about the universal dissemination and delivery of that programme?

Like many of those who have spoken, I support the principle of the cap, and I think that public opinion is right to do so. I applaud the Government for grasping this particular nettle, which is a very difficult one and something that Labour has failed to do over 30 years. However, in my 12 years' career in your Lordships' House, I have always stood for the interests of children. I am not about to change that position now. In some cases, there is the potential for innocent victims to emerge from the Bill as it stands. The noble Lords, Lord McKenzie and Lord Best, and the right reverend Prelate have put their finger on the really serious issue-that is, homelessness. I am not one who feels that a workless family should never be required to move, because families in work very often move to follow their jobs. However, your Lordships should remember that children in families who are dependent on benefits and therefore are relatively poor, and where there is no work, are already disadvantaged. For those children, changing their school can, in particular, be a lot more serious than it is for any other child, because for many of those children school is the only stable thing in their lives.

There has been a lot of discussion about how much homeless this measure has the potential to create. The Government say zero, because they are going to put plenty of measures in place to make sure that that does not happen-and I do hope they are right. A lot of other people say that there could be a great deal of homelessness. If the Government are right, the measures in this amendment will not need to be called into play at all. However, if others are right, it could cost a great deal of money. Local authorities will have the duty to rehouse those families, which will prevent the Government making the savings that they need to make to tackle the terrible economic situation that we have inherited. Indeed, it could also interfere with the Government's very important and laudable objective of providing more affordable and social housing-another thing that Labour has failed to do.

It is for these reasons that, unhappily, I find myself having to speak and vote in a way that is at odds with my Front Bench, because I will support the amendment if it is put to the vote. I do not necessarily think that it is exactly the right amendment, but we need to send it back to another place and ask it to think again and tell us a little more about the measures that will be put in place-I hope that they will be, and know that the Government intend that they will be-to make sure that families with children are not made homeless. For those children who, as I said, are already disadvantaged, to be made roofless or overcrowded, just adds to their disadvantage. It is going to be very bad for their education and is not going to be good for the Government. A life of dependency on benefits is also not good for those children, so I encourage the Government to do everything that they say that they will do to help workless families to get back into work. However, until those jobs are available and that work has been done, we need to be given more detail. If this amendment goes through your Lordships' House today, I hope that the Government will think carefully and come back to the House with a very clear strategy about what they will do to prevent innocent children being further disadvantaged by the life choices or life circumstances of their parents.