§ [Nos. 185–187]
§ After Clause 67, insert the following new Clause—
§ Visiting of foster children
§ (".—(1) In section I of the Children Act 1958 (visiting of foster children), the words "so far as appears to the authority to be appropriate" shall cease to have effect, and for the words "from time to time" there are substituted the words "in accordance with regulations made under section 2A of this Act".
§ (1A) In section 1A of the Children Act 1958 (visiting of foster children in Scotland) the words "where the local authority consider such a course to be necessary or expedient for the purposes of this section," shall cease to have effect, and for the words "from time to time" there are substituted the words "in accordance with regulations made under section 2A of this Act.
§ (2) The following section is inserted in the said Act after section 2—
§ "Visits to foster children
§ 2A.—(1) The Secretary of State may make regulations requiring foster children in a local authority's area to he visited by an officer of the local authority on specified occasions or within specified periods of time.
§ (2) Every person who is maintaining a foster child within the area of a local authority on the date on which regulations made under subsection (1) of this section come into operation, and who before that date has not given notice in respect of the child to the local authority under section 3(1) of this Act, shall within eight weeks of that date given written notice that he is maintaining the child to the local authority.
§ (3) Regulations under this section shall be made by statutory instrument which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament."
§ (3) In section 3 of the said Act as it applies to England and Wales (duty of persons maintaining foster children to notify local authority) —
- (a) in subsection (5A). for the words "one or more foster children" there are substituted the words "a foster child", and for the words "foster children" and "any foster children" there are substituted the words "that foster child";
- (b) in subsection (5B) for the words "foster children"there are substituted the words "a foster child", and for the words "any of them as a" there is substituted the word "that"; and
- (c)'
§ "(8) Subsection (2A) of this section shall cease to have effect on the date regulations made under section 2A of this Act come into operation.".")
§ After Clause 67, insert the following new Clause—
1322§ Notification by parents
§ (" .—(1) The following section is inserted in the Children Act 1958 after section 3—
§ "Notification by parents
§ 3A.—(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations made by statutory instrument make provision for requiring parents whose children are or are going to be maintained as foster children to give to the local authority for the area where the children are, or are going to be, living as foster children, such information about the fostering as may be specified in the regulations.
§ (2) Regulations under this section—
- (a) may include such incidental and supplementary provisions as the Secretary of State thinks lit;
- (b) shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament."
§ (2) In section 14 of the said Act (offences), in subsection (1)(a), after the words "this Part of this Act" there are inserted the words " or under regulations made under section 3A of this Act".")
§ After Clause 67, insert the following new clause—
§ Advertisements relating to foster children
§ (" . —(1) In section 37 of the Children Act 1958 the following subsections are inserted after subsection (1)—
§ "(1A) The Secretary of State may by regulations prohibit the parent or guardian of any child from publishing or causing to be published an advertisement indicating that foster parents are sought for the child.
§ (1B) The Secretary of State may by regulations prohibit—
- (a) a member of a class of persons specified in the regulations, or
- (b) a person other than a person, or other than a member of a class of persons, specified in the regulations,
§ (1C) Regulations made under this section—
- (a) may make different provision for different cases or classes of cases, and
- (b) may exclude certain cases or classes of cases, and shall be made by statutory instrument,
§ (2) In subsection (2) of the said section 37, after the words "this section" there are inserted the words "or of regulations made under this section".")
§ Lord WINTERBOTTOMMy Lords. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments. These Amendments enable the 1323 Government to make regulations to prohibit advertising in the private fostering field and to strengthen local authority control and supervision of private fostering. The regulations may lay down visiting standards for local authorities and require parents, as well as foster parents, to give information about the children to the local authority. These provisions reflect concern expressed in this House, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and elsewhere, about the situation of some privately fostered children.
§ Moved, that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Winterbottom.)
§ Lord ELTONI should like briefly to draw your Lordships'attention to two correlated aspects of the Amendments, although they cover a great deal of ground. I have had expressions of concern voiced to me about the intention to suppress advertising in relation to private fostering. These were on two grounds. The first is that if there is no public advertising the system will be driven even further underground and that by making it more furtive it will become less desirable. I recognise that the part of Amendment No. 185 which constitutes subsection (2)(2) of the new clause is designed to overcome this to some extent and if that subsection, which begins
Every person who is maintaining a foster child within the area of a local authority on the date on which regulations made under subsection (1) of this section come into operation…shall…give written notice that he is maintaining the child to the local authority",is complied with in every case, of course there will be much less concern. But there appears to be absolutely no means of seeing that every case is registered or, indeed, of knowing whether or not every case is registered. It has been represented to me that there are in some districts informal arrangements between the local Press and the social services whereby a galley proof of such advertisements is submitted in advance to the social services so that they have immediate information as to where fostering is or is about to take place. That enables them to supervise it as they cannot do if they do not know where it is taking place.Clearly, we are not going to make a great fuss about this at the moment. We 1324 recognise that it is important that the Minister should be able to use his power to make different regulations for different areas in this respect, if only because, for instance, Kent, with one-fortieth of the population, has one-tenth of the coloured foster children in that population. The problems differ in scale from one part of the country to another. However, I ask that, during the first three-year period, the Minister should take such steps as are possible to examine the efficiency with which regulations which he makes are working. There has been a great deal of concern in this House and in another place about the perils of private fostering. Those perils would be reduced under proper supervision and we have some reservations as to whether banning advertisements, which, though they promote private fostering, also reveal it, is the right way to tackle the problem.
§ Baroness MASHAM of ILTONMy Lords, I should like to ask the noble Lord if he could clarify this. I cannot see the word "private" in Amendment No. 187 and I come from an area where there is a great difficulty in finding foster parents. I hear continually on Radio Leeds of fostering being asked for, and the other day when I was driving along I heard children themselves asking to be fostered and saying that they did not enjoy living in local authority homes. I wonder whether this Amendment covers children in local authority homes who are wanting foster homes.
Also, it might be that the arranging of private fostering can be done better by persons of a certain race and creed and who eat different foods than it can be done by members of local authorities. I should like to ask the questions which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, was asking, but I should also like to know whether Amendment No. 187 relates not only 10 private fostering but also to local authority fostering.
I want to re-emphasise the great difficulty that local authorities are having in finding foster parents and a point which I nearly forgot is the great difficulty of finding foster homes for handicapped children. We all know that children do very much better in a home of their own than they do in a local authority home where the staff is always changing and where the social workers who are dealing 1325 with them also change so that there is no continuity. Therefore, I hope that the Government will look very carefully at this because I should hate to see children having to remain in institutional homes when they might be able to get a foster home. Again, advertising, if it is underground, may go on all the same, as do other things underground.
§ Lord WINTERBOTTOMMy Lords, in agreeing to this Amendment we are merely giving the power to the Secretary of State to make regulations to prohibit advertising in the private fostering field. Amendment No. 187 refers to the Children Act 1958, which apparently relates to private fostering. Again, this is merely giving the Secretary of State power. At this stage we cannot forecast when it will be possible to introduce regulations under these provisions. The timetable will be a matter for discussion between the Secretary of State and representatives of local authority associations in the light of the availability of financial and human resources. If noble Lords and noble Baronesses and other individuals and organisations have strong views on this, there is still time to bring them to the notice of the local authority and hence to the Secretary of State. This is not a desire to act but simply to give the power to act.
§ Lord ELTONMy Lords, with the leave of the House, bearing in mind that we are speaking to three or four Amendments, I should like to intervene again to say that we recognise that this is an Order-making power and that there are various facets of it. But it is important that consideration be given to the human resources available for detecting children in this position, when it is being decided when advertising should be banned. It would be a great pity to destroy all former traces of the exchanges before any detective agency, as it were, could be put into the field to find them by some other means.