Protection of Children in Care (Scotland) (Hansard, 29 April 1981)

§ Mr. Allen Adams (Paisley)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit the placement of siblings under the age of twelve in the care of a local authority or voluntary care agency in Scotland in more than one residential establishment or more than one set of foster parents, except in the case of illness; and to make such separation permissible after the age of twelve only with the consent of the children concerned. This is one in a series of Ten-Minute Bills that I have introduced about child care. Ten-Minute Bills are essentially statements of intent, putting down markers on a particular subject. Sometimes they work. Last year I put down a Ten-Minute Bill on the cost of adoption. It gained no legal force, but as a result, two major social work authorities are now paying for the cost of adoption and more people of a modest income can adopt children in certain parts of the country. Sometimes, when the House speaks with one voice, people listen. If my Bills do no more than that, they serve a useful purpose.

I do not wish to create the illusion that we are a nation of child batterers, that people are abandoning their children on street corners or that social work authorities are not doing their best to look after needy children. Most authorities are doing their best. However, in the latter part of the twentieth century, although child care has improved a great deal, it should have improved a great deal more.

Most people seem to believe, first, that the care of children is the domain of women and, secondly, that the problem of children in care is a small one. It is not small. Between 70,000 and 80,000 children are in care in Great Britain. They have been maltreated, abandoned or neglected to such a degree that the local authority has had to take them into care—which says a great deal about contemporary morality. I shall not speculate about 'the multifarious reasons—it would take 10 hours to examine them—but with that number of children in care we must realise that something is seriously wrong.

It is a great problem in terms not only of numbers but of cost. It costs the State a great deal of money to look after 70,000 to 80,000 children. Some social work authorities put the cost of taking care of one child at £90 to £100 a week. Even the beasts in the field look after their young until they are able to look after themselves. It is sad that the only animal which in some circumstances does not look after its young is the human being.

Children are taken into care for three basic reasons. The first is if they are orphaned. One hundred years ago, it was the main reason why children were taken into care, but today very few children are without both parents. Perhaps that compounds the problem. To see children in a children's home, knowing that they have mothers and fathers, or mothers or fathers, who frequently do not visit them makes the position more complex than it was 50 years ago when children were in homes because nobody looked after them. I find it compelling to see a child sitting in a home knowing that somebody should be looking after him.

A second major reason why children are in care is that they have been abandoned. There are substantial instances of people simply walking away from their children. When I was involved with a social work authority in Glasgow, 791 I found that the numbers of children abandoned during any weekend ran into dozens—and into hundreds during the whole year.

The third and most major reason why children are taken into care and why a place of safety order or an assumption of parental rights order is taken out by a local authority is the maltreatment of children who have been seriously battered, not fed or not clothed. It is a serious problem. I said that 70,000 to 80,000 children are in care, and I venture the guess that 50,000 of them have been maltreated—abused in one way or another. We all imagine what we would do if we caught up with the parents, but that would not solve the problem. The children are in care because they have been severely maltreated.

I remember a case that was reported in the newspapers in Scotland not long ago. A father put his child in the washing machine and turned it on. That degree of abuse is more common than one thinks. The public do not hear about such cases because when a social work committee decides to make an order for assumption of parental rights the press and the public are excluded and in 99 out of 100 cases the details never come to light. Perhaps the social work authorities should open the door so that some of the details could come to light. There is a duty to let the public know the facts as well as simply to protect the public.

No matter whether a child has been abandoned or maltreated, if a family is taken into care either because the parents do not care for them or cannot care for them—many are incapable of caring for their children, and often the family involves at least three or four children—at the end of the day the children have no one to turn to except each other. It is a horrendous practice to split a family of children and put one in one home and one in another, or two with one foster parent and three with another. That is often done simply on grounds of administrative expediency. I ask the House to say to local authorities that we do not approve of that practice. If it is within the realms of possibility, we want local authorities to keep families together. The Bill will provide for certain exceptions, but I ask the House to tell local authorities that we believe in the unity of the family.