Lords Sitting of 20 May 2004

Preamble
The House met at eleven of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Salisbury.

London Probation Area: Service Delivery
Baroness Stern Baroness Stern asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their assessment of the current level of service provided by the London probation area.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, following serious concerns about service delivery the chief officer requested assistance from a Home Office action team. This has improved performance during 2003–04 in respect of court reports, victim contact, enforcement, accredited programmes and drug treatment and testing orders. These improvements are likely to be sustained during 2004–05. Work to improve basic skills performance continues with the learning and skills councils supported by the National Probation Directorate, which continue to monitor all performance closely.
Baroness Stern: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that helpful reply. It is good to know that the crisis is recognised, because the London probation area represents one-quarter of the probation service. I would be grateful, therefore, if the Minister could confirm that 23 probation offices in London are not to close—that would have meant that offenders would have to travel long distances to report; that magistrates and judges no longer sentence without pre-sentence reports giving information about the defendant because they could not obtain them; that magistrates and judges now use noncustodial sentences, because there are now staff to supervise them; and that trainees and administrative officers no longer supervise large numbers of offenders.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Baroness has asked a number of supplementary questions. Perhaps I should deal with the question of office accommodation, because I think that it has been misunderstood. There is a programme of phased accommodation changes in London as part of a rationalisation of existing facilities, which are roughly 40 per cent in excess of requirements. It must be made clear that it is not a response to budgetary pressures that have existed. To date, only seven properties have been declared surplus by the London probation area. There are 17 further potential closures, but that is subject to satisfactory replacement by other properties. The seven declared surplus properties are small secondary offices generally used as field offices; they are not used intensively by the probation service.
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We are content that staffing levels in the London area are improving steadily. In April 2003 the full-time equivalent staff number was 2,242 and by November last year it had risen to 2,453. During the period from November 2003 an additional 168 trainee probation officers have graduated. It is anticipated that a further 100 trainees and 70 probation staff officers will be appointed in the current year. I am trying to demonstrate to the House that there are staff to do the job. We recognise that there have been shortcomings and some failures in service. Swift action was taken to put that right, and I am now happy to report that the service is improving.
The Earl of Dundee: My Lords, will further resources be given to London probation. or will necessary improvements to deal with shortcomings have to rely upon the so-called process of contestability?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, yesterday the Minister in another place, Mr Paul Goggins, announced that London will receive an additional £3.6 million in increased funding for next year, an increase of some 3.9 per cent—nearly 4 per cent—in the London probation area baseline. Taken together with the additional funding for new trainee probation officers and probation service officers, the increase will be some 7 per cent. We are content that we have made very good provision for the London probation area. We anticipate that there will be continued improvements in the quality of service.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, can the noble Lord confirm whether staffing in the London probation area is up to establishment, and if not, by how much does it fall short of establishment? If it falls short, to what extent, in his opinion, is that due to the high cost of housing in London?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am not aware that the service is under establishment. As I have explained, there have been significant increases in the numbers of staff employed by the service. The service has a very good record of staff retention. My details indicate that, since November 2002, 239 trainee probation officers have entered the two-year training programme and only four have left. I take that as a measure of their commitment and the quality of support that they receive. That shows great confidence in the whole service and its future. We have in place sufficient staff and have added substantial extra resources to ensure that the right numbers of officers are in the right places to deal with the problems that London faces.
Lord Elton: My Lords, as regards what these people do, is it the case that last year agency appointments were terminated with the result that many probation officers who did not have typing skills had to be retrained or are being retrained and had to type their

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own reports? Is it also the case that in January this year all visits by London region probation officers to prisons outside Greater London were terminated? What has been the effect of that on their work and on the future of the young people who they are looking after?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I was not aware that there was a difficulty with support staff. The probation service attempts to concentrate its staff on the front line, and I am happy to report to your Lordships' House that some 97 per cent of all those in post are probation officers dealing day to day with case load management. One would expect there to be a high quality of service. Obviously, I will look at the points that the noble Lord has made, because they are important, and I would not want to see anything happen to the London probation area service that did anything to deflect it from ensuring that its primary duties were undertaken.
Lord Dholakia: My Lords, the confidence expressed by the Minster is not displayed by probation officers. I spoke at a rally last week for the National Association of Probation Officers. It was pretty clear from London officers that the workload is such that in some areas they are almost at breaking point. Will the cutbacks in the Civil Service that were announced by the Chancellor in his Budget affect probation service officers employed nationally? What is the impact of those cutbacks on local probation services?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Lord is conflating issues here. There are no cutbacks so far as the London probation area service is concerned. I have already described to your Lordships' House the substantial additional funding that has been put in place—in real terms, a 7 per cent increase. I am happy to write to the noble Lord with further details about the staffing profile of the service and give that detail to other Members of your Lordships' House who have asked questions this morning.
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: My Lords, is it a fact, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, suggested, that courts are not receiving pre-sentence reports? If so, what is being done about it?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, there were concerns about the service to court, and it is for that reason that the deputy chief probation officer was appointed, who was previously the chief officer in Lincoln. Since his appointment, additional support has been made available, and performance has improved considerably. I am happy to give that improved level of performance in detail to the noble Lord, because I could not do justice to the statistics at the Dispatch Box this morning.

Homeworkers: Employment Rights
11.15 a.m.
Lord Harrison Lord Harrison asked Her Majesty's Government:
How they are planning to enforce employment rights and the minimum wage for homeworkers, as raised in the Oxfam, Trades Union Congress and National Group on Homeworking report, Made at home.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the Government are very aware of issues around homeworking, which is why we have introduced new legislation for fair piece rates for homeworkers to take effect this October, thereby addressing problems over access to the national minimum wage. The working time regulations apply to all workers. The Government have also recognised the need to provide rights and protections to workers to take advantage of union services and are addressing this through the Employment Relations Bill.
Lord Harrison: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. Of the some I million homeworkers, many are women, many are carers, and many are from ethnic minorities. Some are paid as little as 73 pence per hour. First, what more can the Government do to enforce the application of the national minimum wage? Secondly, will the Government consider extending full employment rights to these homeworkers, as they thoroughly deserve them?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, on the second point, we are in the process of consultation on exactly that issue, and we expect to able to report on progress on that later this year. My noble friend is right to say that these are vulnerable workers who have clearly been really exploited in the past. That is why the national minimum wage is so crucial in this area. That is also why we were pleased to bring in the regulations early this year—and to enjoy all-party support for their introduction—which will help the situation. I do not underestimate the fact that we need added protection for homeworkers. We all recognise the vulnerability of this group.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the Minister rightly said that homeworkers were covered by the Working Time Directive. How do the Government intend to police this for homeworkers?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, we intend to ensure that there is enforcement. We are ensuring that the issues that come before tribunals are advancing the cause of homeworkers effectively. Often that has not been the case, because homeworkers have had inadequate access to representation. We are making sure that there is support from Government for a caseworker to take on the more obvious cases that need to be won in this area. Further, we intend to work through the National Group on Homeworking to increase awareness of these issues. As the noble Lord will recognise, a great deal of this depends on people

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having confidence about their rights. It is important that we get across the information that gives them that confidence.
Lord Brookman: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that times seem to be changing? Not so long ago, the party opposite was up in arms about the introduction of a national minimum wage. It said that it would end in tens of thousands of job losses. While fully agreeing with my noble friend Lord Harrison about the areas of concern to him and others, it is this Government who will address that area, not the party in opposition.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, my noble friend makes some cogent points. If one takes joy,
over one sinner that repenteth".
the whole Front Bench opposite changing their minds is greatly to be welcomed.
Lord Razzall: My Lords, I am sure that the Minister will agree that his noble friend was actually referring to the Conservative party opposite, not the Liberal Democrats. Does the Minister also agree that it was common ground between the Labour Government and the Liberal Democrats when this legislation went through that the most vulnerable area that needed protection was homeworking? Does he further agree that this is a serious matter? Having passed the legislation is not enough. Will the Government undertake to monitor closely the situation with homeworkers and report back to Parliament on the results of that monitoring?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the House will recognise that the Government are likely to be subject to considerable monitoring of their progress on this important legislation, not least because there are over 400 Members of my own party in the other place who will certainly subject the Government to critical scrutiny. The noble Lord is right. The issues of enforcement and compliance are very important and we are aware that one of the great difficulties with regard to this group of workers is the fact that they often live far away from the retailers which ultimately sell their goods. The problem often rests with the intermediaries of those employers. That is why we have to strengthen in every way we can the protective arrangements that we are putting in place.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that the other side of this coin is ensuring that these workers are informed about their rights and what they should be paid? Have Her Majesty's Government considered putting out a series of public service broadcasts to inform these people, most of whom have a television set even though they are probably desperately poor? It is likely that such workers often watch television during the day, which would be an ideal time to schedule such broadcasts.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, we support the National Group on Homeworking, which is concerned to spread awareness of homeworkers' rights and, indeed,
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to spread awareness of the obligations on employers. It is for that group to produce strategies for publicity, although I should add that it has the most powerful ally in the Trades Union Congress, which is also deeply committed to extending rights, protection and information; they are full partners in those activities

European Union
11.22 a.m.
Lord Hylton Lord Hylton asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will uphold in the European Union a moral vision in its internal and external policies appropriate for a reunited continent.
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, the European Union has helped to create an area of peace, prosperity and shared values in Europe after centuries of conflict and instability. The recent accession of central and eastern European countries has dramatically extended this area, reuniting a continent divided by the Cold War. The Government will continue to support EU policies that promote security and prosperity throughout Europe and beyond.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her reply. Given that, as she says, we already share democratic values as expressed in the European Convention on Human Rights and other instruments, do the Government agree that it is equally important for the European Union to promote world peace and join in the struggle to end acute and dehumanising poverty?
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, for his supplementary question, but I have to say that when I first saw this Question on the Order Paper, I thought that it could happily form the basis of an entire university summer school course. I am glad that we have only seven minutes in which to discuss it.
The noble Lord has quite rightly spoken of the opportunities afforded the European Union in its present form to improve the prospects for peace throughout the world. I agree with the noble Lord that the European Union has helped to tackle major international challenges. I shall refer to two of those. In the west Balkans, the promise of prospective membership combined with European Union assistance programmes has been a driver for reform in that region. The prospect of EU membership for Turkey has been key in encouraging the Turkish Government to press ahead with political and economic reforms.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right to say that this is a very deep Question. It is a little like a cross between George Bush senior with his vision thing and Charlemagne. Has the noble Baroness read the excellent speech made yesterday by Gisela Stuart MP who was on the convention throughout the discussions on the recent draft constitution? Did she see the remark that much the best thing the European Union could do for unity and moral

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purpose at the present time would be vastly to reduce its output of legislation and interference from the centre and not go the way of the present unfortunate draft constitution, which seems to be pushing it towards more centralism, more involvement centrally and more legislation?
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I do not think that I can trump George Bush and Charlemagne. I agree with the noble Lord, as does the Prime Minister, that in today's world the European Union needs to work far more effectively to protect and enhance people's lives. That means doing less more effectively. However, I disagree with the noble Lord that the present discussions in the IGC will bring about a plethora of EU work that is not useful to the people of Europe. Moreover, he knows that the British Government will ensure that we keep control over our tax and social security systems, over the future of the UK abatement, over our own criminal justice system and over defence and foreign policy—as we said we would in our red lines.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, has the noble Baroness read the admirable Fabian Society essay by Gisela Stuart MP in which she explains clearly the value of the draft constitutional treaty, as well as some of its imperfections. The essay explains why what is needed is a strong political vision of the future of European integration. Does she agree that the views expressed by Gisela Stuart echo those of Her Majesty's Government?
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, Gisela Stuart is a friend and colleague of mine. Many of her opinions on this issue are treated with great respect by the Government. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lester, is absolutely right—
Noble Lords: The noble Lord, Lord Lester.
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I am sorry. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, is right. The preamble to the draft constitutional treaty emphasises the gradual development of values such as the equality of persons, of freedoms and of respect.
The Lord Bishop of Salisbury: My Lords, is the noble Baroness ready to comment on the foundation question about the nature of law in the European Community? I have in mind that one definition of the law allows you to do all that you possibly can within the framework that has been set up. Much of the way in which we engage in our debates within the European Community seem to be about that. However, there is another and perhaps more ancient tradition which says that the law is in fact a universal framework to which we all give assent and within which we may exercise our God-given rights. I sought in the replies given by the noble Baroness to some of the other questions something rather broader in scope and more universal in its comment on the underlying questions about morality, which the original Question seems to indicate.
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I take note of what the right reverend Prelate has said. He will be more at home
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with this Question than many of us. When considering the law and the legal basis of our membership of the European Union, the word "subsidiarity" comes to mind. Subsidiarity is something on which we keep a close eye in our present discussions in the IGC.
Baroness Richardson of Calow: My Lords—
Lord Grocott: My Lords, we are into the 23rd minute. We have done well so far.

Sudan: Darfur
11.29 a.m.
Lord Alton of Liverpool Lord Alton of Liverpool asked Her Majesty's Government:
What assessment they have made of the allegation by Human Rights Watch that the Government of Sudan are responsible for ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, we have seen the Human Rights Watch report and that of the UN which was presented to the Security Council on 7 May. The UN has identified disturbing patterns of human rights violations by the Sudanese Government and the Janjaweed militia which may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. The report makes no conclusion as to ethnic cleansing, but notes that attacks by the Government and the Janjaweed appear to have been largely ethnically based.
Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, given what the Minister has just said, the description used by the United Nations of Darfur being the world's worst humanitarian crisis, and the Swedish Government's description of what is happening in Darfur—where there are mass executions, the burning of villages and the destruction of food supplies—as genocide, when will Her Majesty's Government raise this issue by way of resolution in the United Nations Security Council in an endeavour to bring together an international campaign to hold the Sudanese Government to account? What has to happen to change the passive role we have taken so far of merely monitoring the situation? Are we not in grave danger of making the same mistakes that we made at the time of the genocide in Rwanda?
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I cannot agree that we have been passive. We have been seriously engaged in the crisis in Darfur—which, I agree, is absolutely dire—from its start. We are extremely concerned. We have lobbied at the highest level in Khartoum and we are in almost daily contact with the Government of Sudan and the Darfur groups. As the noble Lord knows, Jack Straw, Hilary Benn and Chris Mullin made clear the seriousness of our concerns when they met the Sudanese Foreign Minister on 11 May. Our priority all along has been first to achieve a ceasefire, and the noble Lord will know that there is now a ceasefire that has been broadly holding—

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I go no further than that—since 8 April. We must now ensure that the African Union deploys the monitoring commission to oversee that ceasefire.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Sudanese Government's slaughter of their own people in Darfur, together with recent reports of military offensives against their own people in the Upper Nile, proves that their commitment to the peace process is extremely dubious and that they are using the peace talks to gain credibility and time while they continue to kill their own people? Therefore, would Her Majesty's Government, who have been criticised for their inadequate response in the Human Rights Watch report, now consider seriously much more robust measures, such as targeted economic sanctions, arms embargoes, a UN Security Council resolution, and even taking action in regard to the commission of crimes against humanity?
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, the noble Baroness is right: the Government of Sudan do have a responsibility to protect their people. We have made that very clear in all our contacts, from ministerial to ambassadorial level. She is also right that the UN has taken the matter seriously and will continue to do so. Our discussions with the UN will continue. If we do not get any further and the ceasefire is not held, and if the Government of Sudan do not co-operate as they said they would—for instance, in regard to providing access for NGOs to the people who are suffering so much—we shall talk to our international partners about what further steps we may take.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, is the Minister aware that when the Sudanese Foreign Minister addressed the Sudan parliamentary group on 11 May he said that the Sudanese Government had yet to respond to the recommendation made by the UN report that an international commission of inquiry should be authorised to examine the actions of the regular army and the Janjaweed militia and to make recommendations on a process of accountability for the crimes that are being committed? Will the Government press President al-Bashir for a response to this recommendation? Has he yet accepted the Secretary-General's proposal that he should disarm the militia, whose attacks on civilians in Western Darfur have led to this grave humanitarian crisis?
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I agree that the position of the militia is very much key to this crisis. One of the pressures that we are exerting on the Sudanese Government is that they must rein in and neutralise the armed militia known as the Janjaweed. We have continued to say this on an almost daily basis. The priority now is to get the monitoring commission into place. The African Union is working on this as we speak.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, what steps are Her Majesty's Government taking in response to the UNICEF report that there is increasing alarm about the low level of sanitation, the growing number of displaced people requiring shelter and signs of increasing malnutrition among children and women?
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Does the Minister agree that the horrific child malnutrition level of 23 per cent—which is already well above the internationally recognised critical level of 15 per cent—is unacceptable?
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I agree that this is a dire situation and that the figures given by the noble Baroness are totally unacceptable. DfID has already contributed more than £16.5 million, and we have provided key personnel to support the UN co-ordination effort in response to this humanitarian crisis. Our ambassador in Khartoum has taken the lead in establishing regular fortnightly meetings between the Sudanese Government and donors to discuss and try to reduce the obstacles to the humanitarian access of NGOs into Darfur.
The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, when the Sudanese Foreign Minister was here, he also denied that the political detainees in Darfur had been released. Will Her Majesty's Government press the Sudanese Government to release all detainees in Darfur?
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I shall pass on that request to the department.

Civil Service (No. 2) Bill [H.L.]
Read a third time; an amendment (privilege) made: Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

Children Bill [H.L.]
11.37 a.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills (Baroness Ashton of Upholland): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee —(Baroness Ashton of Upholland.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Baroness Walmsley Baroness Walmsley moved Amendment No. 78:
After Clause 5, insert the following new clause
"CONSISTENCY OF LEGISLATION WITH CHILDREN'S WELL-BEING
(1) A Minister of the Crown in charge of a Bill in either House of Parliament must, before Second Reading of the Bill—

(a) make a statement to the effect that the provisions of the Bill have been assessed for their contribution to the wellbeing of children, relating to the aspects specified in subsection (3)(a) to (e), and that, in his view, the provisions of the Bill do not act to the detriment of any child or group of children in respect of those aspects; and

(b) make available in each Library of the Houses of Parliament a copy of the assessment made under subsection (1)(a); or

(c) make a statement to the effect that although he is unable to make a statement under subsection (1)(a) the government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the Bill.

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(2) The statement must be in writing and be published in such manner as the Minister making it considers appropriate.
(3) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a), the aspects of children's well-being are—

(a) physical and mental health;

(b) protection from harm and neglect;

(c) education and training;

(d) the contribution made by them to society; and

(e) social and economic well-being."

The noble Baroness said: The amendment would place on the Government a duty similar to the one under Section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998 to make a statement of compatibility with the five outcomes proposed in the Bill. It would also ensure a "child impact assessment" process for all new legislation, based on the same five outcomes as those that the Children's Commissioner under Clause 2 and local agencies under Clause 6 will have to account for. This would provide a much needed and effective mechanism for improving co-ordination and consistency of policy-making affecting children across all departments and levels of government.
The Bill proposes that one of the functions of the Children's Commissioner will be that of reporting on progress on the outcomes, and that the outcomes be used as the framework for planning and accountability for the new children's services authorities. But it is equally important that national government should themselves monitor and account for its impact on children's well-being.
The Children's Society, which suggested the amendment to us, is committed to the full implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child—as, indeed, am I and many other Members of the Committee. Ideally, we want the process of child impact assessments and the activities of the Children's Commissioner and local partnerships required by the Bill to protect and promote children's rights under the convention.
The Government have already agreed to an amendment on the commissioner's activities in this respect, and that is most welcome. The form of the Bill, however, is to rely on the five outcomes and, with that one exception, the Government's response to all requests to strengthen explicit reference to the UNCRC in domestic legislation has been consistently to resist what they see as a movement towards full incorporation of the convention.
I have serious concerns about how the outcomes will be implemented across government departments in all policy and legislation. It must be clear that optional or selective use of the outcomes would put at risk the aims and potential values of the outcomes framework. The use of the outcomes framework must be binding across government structures, not merely at local level. As stated in the Green Paper, Every Child Matters:
Everyone in our society has a responsibility for securing these outcomes".
Surely the crucial place to start considering whether responsibilities in relation to the outcomes are being met is with new legislation and policy. Starting with a clean sheet, presents the best opportunity to get it right.
We draw attention to the fact that the Bill is before the House of Lords at the same time as the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill, which proposes a number of measures that would adversely affect refugee children. That is a matter that noble Lords debated earlier this week and which would have benefited from a child impact statement to resolve the matter of withdrawal of benefits, which is very contentious.
The introduction of a formal process of assessing the impact of new policies and legislation on children has been recommended by a range of important bodies. These recommendations arise from and promote the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as a yardstick for such assessments. The committee that commented on our implementation of the convention stated that it was concerned about the lack of,
"any formal process to ensure that new legislation fully complies with the Convention. The Committee … is concerned that the State Party"—
that is, the UK—
"does not ensure compatibility of the legislation with the Convention throughout the State Party".
The Joint Committee on Human Rights highlighted in its recommendations that child impact assessment would benefit from an,
"even more comprehensive consideration of the impact of proposed legislation on children themselves",
not just through the prism of the impact on their convention rights.
The Minister for Children, Young People and Families in 2002, the right honourable John Denham, in evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, said on the subject of child impact assessment:
"I do not have an issue of principle about having child impact assessments".
That is what the former Minister had to say, and I hope that the situation still applies with the current incumbent.
The requirement that we propose in subsection (1)(b) of the amendment to publish the child impact assessment in the Libraries of the Houses of Parliament would significantly aid all parliamentarians in their consideration of whether and how the needs of children are best met and sufficiently protected by any new legislation, in the same way as the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children benefits from the child impact statements which we commission on every Bill. They are enormously helpful, inform our activities in your Lordships' House and help us to improve Bills as they pass through your Lordships' House, for the benefit of all children. I beg to move.
Baroness David: I support the general intention of the proposed new clause, which aims to introduce what has become known as "child impact assessment" of new legislation. When I chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children in 1997 to 1998, we

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commissioned and published child impact assessments on all the Government's Bills. It was a worthwhile experiment and I hope that it will now be taken up with a formal requirement for assessment.
However, the assessment should not be in relation to the outcomes for children, as suggested in the proposed new clause. The obvious framework for assessment is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, at which the noble Baroness may have hinted, and the set of detailed obligations to children, accepted by government with all party support when the convention was ratified in 1991. Parallel with the existing requirement for a statement of compatibility with the rights of the European Convention on Human Rights should be a similar requirement related to compatibility with the full range of human rights. In the light of the Government's concession on Tuesday, I hope that that will now be carefully considered.
11.45 a.m.
The Earl of Listowel: I listened with great interest to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I have not had a chance to study the amendment in detail, but on the matter of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill, the Government have argued that provisions are being made due to the irresponsibility of parents who have been through a thorough system and been rejected, and that we cannot allow those parents to use their children to undermine the system. The noble Baroness's approach might have been very useful in that debate, because it would have made it clear that however irresponsibly parents may behave—and regrettably some, though not most, parents do behave irresponsibly—we must always think very carefully about the welfare of children.
Under this Bill, the Government have not made clear how many families they expect to be affected by the legislation. They say it will be a few, but there is no hard fact there. If people are subject to this part of the legislation, they will be made homeless; they will not be able to get employment, except through illegal means; and their access to education will be undermined because they will be fearful of immigration officers catching their children—and with health, a similar problem applies. In such cases, I see the proposal as being a helpful way forward in preventing such dangerous legislation for children being implemented in future.
Baroness Andrews: I am grateful to Members of the Committee who have spoken in this debate, and to the noble Baroness who moved the amendment. Let me start by reassuring her that of course we support the principles behind the amendment, which are perfectly consistent with what the Minister previously said. Since she raised the issue of the 10th report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, perhaps I should just remind her what the Government said. We said:
The promotion and protection of children and their interests—through legislation, policy and effective service delivery—is a priority for this Government, as is the greater involvement of children in Government decision-making".
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That is where I want to start—by examining how we come at this principle in slightly different ways. but ways which are more effective in involving children.
Clearly, the concept of child impact statements is not new, and we are delighted that the all-party parliamentary group does what it does in that regard. We are sympathetic to the idea, and we are particularly pleased to note that the amendment refers to outcomes set out in Clause 2(3). I take the point made by my noble friend Lady David that outcomes are only one aspect, and what we are concerned about is the process that defines and ultimately delivers those outcomes with some confidence. As Members of the Committee will recall from the debate on the first day of the Committee stage, those outcomes are based on the children's own definitions of what is important to them.
There is no doubt that all the legislation that we pass in this House has an impact on children—I can think of no exceptions—and it is not the case that it is only children's services that have that impact. However, if we are to produce better outcomes, we must think and act along a wide range of agencies and procedures as well as through the process of legislation.
I assure Members of the Committee that there are three ways in which we do that at the moment. Ministers already consider such matters when planning and discussing legislation across government. There have been changes in recent years. From the Department for Education and Skills, my right honourable friend Margaret Hodge comments from her perspective of Minister for Children, Young People and Families. She has a specific remit to press children's interests across government.
In addition, we now have a new Cabinet subcommittee—MISC9(D)—which is chaired by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills. That has broad cross-government representation, oversees the delivery of children's services and, I am delighted to say, includes my noble friend Lady Ashton. The point is to ensure that policy-makers take account of the views of children and young people directly in formulating policy and legislation.
In our response to the JCHR's 10th report, we affirmed our commitment to involving children, their parents and carers in children's organisations in the development of policy, legislation and services. We reaffirmed that in 2001 when the Government laid down core principles for the involvement of children and young people in government decision-making. That is a major step forward, because it lays down a common framework within which government departments must work to involve children from the outset, in developing policy right through to implementation and evaluation. We have chosen that approach because it is a formative route. It is not retrospective, but it is the one way in which one can guarantee that children are involved in the planning stages of legislation.
As part of that strategy, departments across Whitehall have developed annual action plans that set out how they will involve children. Those are available on the children's and young persons' website; I refer,

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for example, to the development of legislation around the Children Trust Fund and the Treasury and the Adoption and Children Act 2002, which involved the DfES and the Department of Health. Those action plans should be seen in the context of everything else that we are doing to involve and to hear the views of children; for example, the consultation process on the 14-to-19 phase of education.
Importantly, civil servants will be involved in changing the culture of what we expect and listen to. Civil servants in a number of departments have already received training in involving children and young people in policy making. The National Children's Bureau, in conjunction with PK Research Consultancy, has produced a handbook entitled Building A Culture Of Participation. It offers workshops to officials across Whitehall which focus on how to listen to young people and how to use their views to bring about a change.
Child impact statements will not do that job. Considering the effect of legislation on children and young people retrospectively will never be as effective as involving them in an informative and influential role. I agree that these are recent developments and that we have some way to go. I take the point that noble Lords have made. However, I believe that this is the right way to go.
Our approach is supported by the functions that we have given to the Children's Commissioner, which is where the human rights argument will come into play. The Bill gives the commissioner the function of promoting awareness of children's views. Now that the Government have accepted Amendment No. 39, as the noble Baroness agreed, he will have to do so within the framework of the UNCRC. That will include his consideration of proposed new legislation. He will have the UNCRC framework in mind; he will be responsible; he will know that he will have to look at the impact of new legislation on children. Clause 2(2)(b) gives him the function of advising the Secretary of State of the impact on children of proposed legislation. That is how we shall be able to follow the outcomes that he determines.
It is more appropriate and effective to mainstream these processes across government by way of the commissioner's additional remit rather than to carry out what could be a lengthy and bureaucratic assessment. In some cases, that assessment might be made by people who are not experts in children's issues. With those assurances, I hope that the noble Baroness will agree to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Elton: The full weight of the Minister's reply was based on the degree of consultation with children themselves in the formulation of policy. She said that, with that process, we could be confident of making everything consistent with the aims which the Minister is wishing to test. Surely, in light of what she has said, it will be easier, not more difficult, to sign this paper.
My only question about the amendment is why that statement of consistency should not be written on the front of Bill, where there is already a statement by the
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noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, about human rights. We could then all see the contentment which the Minister has.
Baroness Andrews: As I have explained, we are offering an alternative process, which deepens the level of consultation. A statement on the front of the Bill is not necessarily sufficient. As I have said, the temptation would be to treat that as a bureaucratic exercise, which could simply be rubber-stamped, without our having to go through processes that would really test us on the extent to which we have reflected on the impact of legislation on children.
Baroness Walmsley: I thank the Minister for her reply and other Members of your Lordships' House for their support. I take on board particularly the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady David. Her suggestion is an improvement on my amendment, but it was written in that way in an attempt to fit it in with the Government's stated intentions in terms of the five outcomes of the Bill. I hoped in that way that I might tempt the Government to accept it, but I certainly also accept the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Elton. If all the consultation to which the Minister referred is being carried out—it is very welcome—it would be easy for the Government to sign such a paper and to put a statement on the front of the Bill.
Will the Minister write to inform me whether the remit of her right honourable friend Margaret Hodge, in looking at the impact of legislation on children, will be based on the five outcomes set out in the Bill or on the UNCRC?
I did not know about the training that civil servants are undertaking and it is very welcome. It is important to talk to children, of course, but we cannot expect children to be as knowledgeable of the effect of legislation on them as others might be. That is why we would want to go further than the consultation with children and have experts look at the impact of legislation on children and advise the Government accordingly. The Government could then make the kind of statement that we are proposing. In the mean time, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Elton Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 79:
After Clause 5, insert the following new clause—
"MEANING OF "CHILD"
For the purposes of this Part "child" means—

(a) a person under the age of 20;

(b) a person over the age of 19 who is receiving a service or services under sections 23C to 24D of the Children Act 1989 (c. 41); or

(c) a person over the age of 19 but under the age of 25 who has a learning difficulty, within the meaning of section 13 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000 (c. 21) (persons with learning difficulties), and is receiving services under that Act;

and "children" is to be construed accordingly.
The noble Lord said: In moving the amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 100, 109, 184, 235, 246 and 247, which are probing amendments. I invite your Lordships to look not at the mechanisms but at the principles that they advocate.
The Bill's principal intentions, as set out in the Long Title, are the establishment of a Children's Commissioner and to make provisions about services to and for children. The question of who, exactly, children are is therefore of some importance.
The first place in which one would look for the definition is what in normal circumstances would be the only place: the definitions clause. Clause 49 states:
"In this Act…'child' means a person under the age of eighteen (and 'children' is to be construed accordingly)".
"In this Act" is not subject to the provisions of any other subsection of the Bill, so one supposes that it applies across it.
However, the whole of Part 2 is again directed at children's services in England—services that one would suppose are provided for and on behalf of persons "under the age of eighteen". Clause 6 states that the Bill is directed to secure co-operation to improve their well-being. However, Clause 6(8) states that arrangements under this section may include arrangements relating not just to persons under the age of 18, but to persons in three different age brackets, ranging right up to 24.
I welcome that. It introduces a valuable principle into the Bill. Those other young people are included for a very good reason: although they are now in their majority, they are for various reasons still as vulnerable as in their minority and as other minors commonly are. By recognising that calendar age is no kind of reliable guide to the physical, mental or moral age of a person, Clause 6(8) introduces an invaluable principle to the Bill. The purpose of what are, I emphasise, probing amendments is to explore whether that principle has been sufficiently widely applied.
Accordingly, the last amendment in the group, Amendment No. 109, would delete the definition in Clause 49, and the remaining amendments would substitute for it supplemented versions of the wider definition implied by the wording of Clause 6(8). They would add a new person to the category of children, defined in Amendment No. 110 as,
"persons under the age of 25 detained in a prison, secure training centre, contracted out prison, contracted out secure training centre. young offender institution, or local authority secure accommodation".
Noon
It is scarcely necessary to say why I feel it necessary to include the amendments, but perhaps I can quote from the report of an announced inspection of HM Young Offender Institution at Stoke Heath, between 2 and 6 October 2000, by the chief inspector. The opening lines state,
"over the past five years I have published a number of reports of inspections of young offender institutions that have recorded wholly inappropriate or unsatisfactory treatment of and conditions for children and young persons held in Prison Service custody".
It says, "and young persons". Children are covered in the Bill, young persons are not. Those people are exceedingly vulnerable and a later amendment in my name will address them in particular.
My other amendments in this group follow the Clause 49 drafting in defining "child" in the singular and inferring the definition of "children" in the plural. The reverse process has been used in the Bill itself, in Clause 6, and I have adopted that process, too, although I have no idea why it was done. The Committee will also notice a slight difference in the wording of the first subsection of my amendment compared with Clause 6(8). That is necessary in this and all the amendments because, if I had simply imported Clause 6(8)(a) to (c) into the definition, it would have had the effect of excluding everyone under the age of 18. So this is just sweeping them up into that group.
Other amendments apply the same criteria, mutatis mutandis, to other parts of the Bill I hope that the Minister will explain to us the possibly quite simple reasons why the extended definition of "child" in Clause 6(8) was not used elsewhere in the Bill—that is important—and, secondly, the Government's response to the proper position that young people detained under criminal justice legislation, for instance, should have access to the Children's Commissioner even over the age of 18.
Those are the two principal objects of the amendments. Other matters may come up in discussion. I beg to move.
The Earl of ListowelI speak to Amendments Nos. 79, 109, 235 and 246 which stand in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I shall be brief as he has eloquently put our concerns.
On Amendment No. 79, the Minister has already said that she will give consideration to the possibility of including care leavers over 18 in the remit of the Children's Commissioner. I am most grateful to her for saying that and I look forward to further discussion with her on that point. As Amendment No. 109 is consequent on that amendment I shall not go into its detail.
Where there is a possibility that local authorities may co-operate to improve the well-being of young people over 18 who have been in care and are still subject to services under children's legislation, Amendment No. 235 would place a duty, under Clause 2, on local authorities and other agencies to co-operate to improve well-being. Last night, the Minister attended a meeting where care leavers spoke to us about the difficulties they have found in housing provision, access to education and access to mental health services. So I hope that the Minister will consider this amendment helpful in improving outcomes in this area.
The Minister recently wrote to my noble friend Lord Hylton about the impact of the Children (Leaving Care) Act. Clearly, positive steps are being taken as a result of that Act. However, as she said in the letter, we have started,
from a low base. 49 per cent of care leavers are now in education, training or employment on their 19th birthday, compared with 86 per cent of all 19 year-olds".

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So I look forward to her response to that particular question.
Amendment No. 246 would allow care leavers over 18 to have the benefit of the duty that the Bill places on local authorities to promote the educational attainment of young people in care. So it would create a continuing duty to promote the educational attainment of young people benefiting from local authority services because they have been in care. I hope the Minister will look sympathetically on that.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for raising the issue of the different age definitions. It might please him to know that my noble friend Lady Andrews and I spent some time when we first looked at the Bill trying to understand why there are different age groups. Officials have given me a quite helpful table which I propose to send to the noble Lord and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and to place in the Library of the House so that others can have the benefit which I have had of a slightly more diagrammatic way of describing the position. I shall attempt to explain why, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, rightly pointed out, we have differences. However, those who find that it is too technical or that I have not put it well may find the tabulated form very useful.
The noble Lord pointed to what I believe is the right direction. We have written the age groups to ensure that the Bill works in practice, to ensure that we link the ages to the services with which children are provided—in a sense, service provision is the defining fact—and, of course, to ensure that it fits in with other legislation. Therefore, if I may, I shall go through the amendments and say, in a little detail, precisely what we are seeking to do.
As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, Amendment No. 79 broadens the remit of the commissioner to young people up to the age of 20, as well as to care leavers and young people with learning disabilities and difficulties up to the age of 25. As I believe I said in earlier discussions, we believe that it is important to be clear that the age of majority—the age of adulthood—is 18. In the main, that is the "cut-off' point, if I may so describe it, for the work of children's services, with very big and notable exceptions to which I shall return.
So we think that, in the main, the commissioner's work should be for children and young people aged 18 and below. We celebrate the fact that young people who have reached the age of 18 have become adults. It is adult services that will be looking after them, with, as I say, some notable exceptions. I do not believe that those over 18 would expect the Children's Commissioner to be seeking their views, but I am sympathetic to the issue of the exceptions about which the noble Earl rightly reminded us. As I said under his Amendment No. 42, I am taking advice, and will be talking to him, about extending the commissioner's role to the groups identified.
As I said, the issue is difficult because it is about definitions and the services that these young people receive. We will therefore consider extending the
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commissioner's remit in the two cases that the noble Earl identified. I hope that that will enable him to feel contented on that issue
Amendments Nos. 109 and 184 taken together would apply the wider definition across Part 2 of the Bill. Amendments Nos. 235 and 246 would extend this to Parts 3 and 5, Amendment No. 247 being consequential on that.
If I may, I should like to explain the purpose of Clause 6(8). As I think the noble Lord indicated, it is designed to ensure that no barriers would artificially cut across existing services. We would not want the partners in co-operation to be prevented from participating because some of their services are for young people over 18. The services covered include Connexions, which provides services for all young people up to their 20th birthday, and the Youth Support Services, which is the equivalent in Wales.
Lord Elton: The noble Baroness said something that has taken me by surprise and that I suppose should have been clear. The Bill currently does not extend the interest of the commissioner, or accessibility to the commissioner, to people over 18 in these institutions; it merely means that those institutions can remain in contact with the commissioner although some of the people within them are actually in contact with the commissioner. In other words, it is not an extension at all; it is merely a definition of the sub-18 group.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I was not referring to institutions but to services. When we discussed the commissioner, I said that his remit in the main covered children from the ages of nought to 18. However, there are certain groups, in particular care leavers and those with learning disabilities, where it might be appropriate, because of the nature of what has happened to those individuals, for the commissioner to have an ongoing interest in them. We agreed to consider that matter.
There are certain services available to children and young people—Connexions, care leavers and young people with learning difficulties being the obvious three—where the relevant age range is much broader. We did not want to create an artificial inappropriate cut-off point with regard to those services; hence the fact that the Bill has different age groups in different clauses. That applies within the overview that the remit of the commissioner and of children's services generally applies to the age group of minus nine months, in some cases, to 18. We seek to ensure that we do not cut across services rather than institutions. I shall come to the specific point that the noble Lord made about the criminal justice system in a moment.
As I said, we have linked the provisions in the Children Bill to the provision of services in terms of how they operate on the ground and to existing legislation. There is a very strong link in practice to the Children Act 1989, which defines children generally as under 18.
The other clauses in Part 2 do not rely on a definition of a child. The coverage of the information-sharing provision, the remit of the director of children's services

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and lead member and the coverage of the new inspection arrangements are all defined by the functions and services to which they refer. As such they already in practice—I hope that this will please the noble Lord, Lord, Elton—cover the broader age range as the relevant definition is the service not the age of the child. I apologise as this is a rather technical matter. I assure the Committee that the grid will be very helpful.
Similar arguments apply to the miscellaneous provisions in Part 5. There are two exceptions: the private fostering clauses—which we shall debate later— where we already have an established definition of a privately fostered child under 16, or 18 if the young person has a disability. We believe that it is important not to disturb a recognised definition which, as I understand it, works well.
Clause 47 concerns the power to give financial assistance. The purpose of this clause is to broaden the department's ability to give financial assistance to those providing services to children, young people and their families—typically voluntary and community organizations—in a way that reflects its increased responsibilities. In keeping with this, the clause already allows for support to he given for the purposes of working with children and young people up to the age of 20.
I have given a rather detailed explanation of the different age ranges and the core principles relating to previous legislation or to the service provision that is on offer. That results in the Bill referring to different age groups. We have given a promise and a commitment to look again at the commissioner's remit in terms of the specific groups to whom the noble Earl referred. However, we consider that generally the age of 18—when a child becomes an adult—is the relevant age limit in this regard.
For those caught up in the criminal justice system the age of majority is 18. It is important to recognise that those in the criminal justice system who are aged 18 are considered adults in that system. Therefore, although I respect the view of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and, indeed, that of the noble Earl, with whom I have already discussed the matter this morning, that more needs to be done in that regard it is not a matter for this Bill or this Minister. It is a question of whether more can be done in that regard in the criminal justice system. Through the Children Bill we take a strong interest in young people in institutions. However, there is a cut-off point at 18. The Committee may disagree with that but it is the reality. I should be happy to discuss that further with noble Lords on another occasion.
The measure describes the services that will be provided, supports previous legislation and ensures that services will be able to operate effectively. I hope that noble Lords will consider that I have answered their questions. I shall send noble Lords the grid to ensure that the matter is absolutely clear.
12.15 p.m.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I have not previously spoken in this debate. We give our general support to the amendment. I am very grateful to the Minister for
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her clarification. It has helped the Committee a great deal. However, we have a minor amendment, Amendment No. 109ZA, that we shall discuss later. Will the Minister ensure that a copy of the grid is sent to noble Lords on these Benches as well as to other noble Lords?
Lord Elton: I look forward with eager interest to the arrival of the grid, which will make a great deal clearer what I have sought to follow in the current debate. It seems to me that there is not the merit in Clause 6(8) that I accorded to it, but I may be corrected in that regard when I read the grid. Therefore, at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Baroness Finlay of Llandaff moved Amendment No. 79A:
After Clause 5, insert the following new clause—

REASONABLE CHASTISEMENT
REASONABLE CHASTISEMENT
(1) Battery of a child cannot be justified in any proceedings on the rounds that it constituted lawful punishment.
(2) Battery of a child is not unlawful if the act amounts to the use of reasonable force in order to—

(a) avert an immediate danger to the child or any other person;

(b) avert an immediate danger to property; or

(c) prevent the commission of a crime, or an act which would be a crime if the child had reached the age of criminal responsibility.

(3) For the purpose of subsections (1) and (2) above "child" means a person under the age of 18.
(4) Section I of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (c. 12) (cruelty to persons under sixteen) is amended as follows.
(5) In subsection (7) at end insert "subject to subsection (8) below".
(6) After subsection (7) insert—
"(8) Corporal punishment administered to a child cannot he justified in any proceedings on the ground that it was administered in pursuance of a right exercisable by virtue of subsection (7) above.
(9) for the purpose of subsection (8) above, administering corporal punishment to a child means doing anything for the purpose of punishing that child which would constitute unlawful battery."
(7) This section extends to England and Wales only.""
The noble Baroness said: It is a great honour and privilege to introduce to this Chamber an opportunity to right a historic wrong for children. The significance is great, and the time is long overdue. Yet, the aim is very basic. I apologise to the Committee that my cold makes my voice come and go.
The amendment's aim is simply to allow children the same legal protection from violence that adults enjoy today— no more and no less. The proposed new clause does not create any new offence. It does not interfere in any way with parents' rights to use reasonable force to protect and restrain their children and to punish in non-violent ways. The proposed new clause would revise the common law "reasonable chastisement"

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defence. The leading case dates back to 1860, when Chief Justice Cockburn ruled in a case where a teacher had beaten a child to death that,
"By the law of England, a parent … may for the purpose of correcting what is evil in the child, inflict moderate and reasonable corporal punishment".
I shall explain the amendment. Subsection (1) of the proposed new clause would mean that battery of a child could no longer be justified as a lawful form of punishment. Subsection (2) would make it clear that parents can use reasonable force to protect children and property and to prevent commission of a crime. Loving, caring parents need to use physical actions at all times, especially with young children, to protect them—to grab and lift them, to restrain them and so on. That is part of day-to-day parenting. This reform would not interfere with that at all.
Subsection (4) of the proposed new clause would amend Section (1) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, which is the only place where the "reasonable chastisement" defence is confirmed in statute. Again, parents' rights to punish children and use physical actions to protect them and other people and property, or to prevent a crime being committed, are preserved. Put most simply, the proposed new clause would place children in the same position as adults under the law on assault and meet the UK's human rights obligations.
Peter Carter QC, the leading authority on offences of violence and chair of the Bar human rights committee, has advised on the wording of the proposed new clause. He has provided reassurance that it would not result in increased prosecutions of parents for minor incidents and would not create any new offence. I am, of course, happy to share his legal opinion with any noble Lords who wish to see it.
We can be confident that parents would be prosecuted for minor assaults of their children only in the most exceptional circumstances, for example, where a child is particularly vulnerable. Adults are seldom prosecuted for minor assaults on other adults, such as slaps on the arm et cetera, and the same would be true for children. Before any prosecution, the Crown Prosecution Service has to consider whether two tests are satisfied: first, that there is sufficient evidence, and, secondly, that it is in the public interest. The interests of the child are invariably considered as part of the public interest, and prosecuting parents is very seldom in the interests of children. What public interest could there be in prosecuting a loving parent for a trivial assault? Any attempt to bring a private prosecution for assault is reviewed by the Attorney-General, who may discontinue the case or take it on, in which case the same tests are applied.
This Government have done a great deal to encourage good parenting and to safeguard children. The efforts by government organisations and individuals are admirable, but the state of the law undermines them. The reform is not to increase formal interventions in family life. The current threshold that triggers a formal investigation of abuse is when a child is identified as suffering or likely to
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suffer significant harm, as stated in Section 47 of the Children Act. There is no reason why that threshold should change.
The noble Lord, Lord Condon, apologises for being unable to be in his place today, but he has expressed his support in principle for the amendment. I have also had a very useful conversation with the Chief Constable of Dyfed-Powys, Terry Grange, who is the current chairman of the Association of Chief Police Officers. He feels that the time has come for change in the law, and that guidance from the Home Office and Crown Prosecution Service can provide protection from any vexatious complainant, adult or child, and ensure implementation of the principles expressed in Working Together to Safeguard Children to guide inter-agency co-operation on child protection.
My own experiences working as a junior doctor and seeing how difficult it was to prosecute even flagrant abuse is, sadly, still the experience of my colleagues. We live in a society that has condoned violence against children. In the 1990s, the Department of Health commissioned a research study that gathered information from parents and children. Parents were interviewed in confidence and admitted to very high levels of corporal punishment, with the admission of violence doubling when both parents were interviewed. Three quarters of mothers said that they had already smacked their baby before its first birthday, which is before language has developed.
Overall, 91 per cent of children had been hit, with the youngest and most vulnerable hit most often. Almost half the children were hit weekly or more often. One fifth had been hit with an implement, and 35 per cent had been punished severely, which is defined as with the intention, potential, or actually to cause harm to the child. That included actions that were repeated, prolonged or involved use of implements.
I know what it is like to be lonely, living in a high-rise block with no money and two babies, one of whom cries incessantly. Without the restraint of having worked in paediatrics and having seen the results of shaking and hitting, I would have lost my rag. I fear that once I hit I would have been unable to stop, such was the pent-up emotion that I felt. That was as a young mum. The purpose of this reform is to send clear and unequivocal messages to parents that assaulting children, like assaulting adults, is wrong and unlawful.
The trouble is that hitting a child starts as a response to the pent-up feelings of the parents. Most parents report that they regret having hit, but it escalates so easily into more serious violence. Aggression breeds aggression. Almost all abuse takes place in the context of so-called punishment or so-called discipline. Research clearly shows that corporal punishment has all kinds of negative effects on mental health, parent-child relationships, increased anti-social behaviour and child aggression. Light corporal punishment easily and often escalates into injurious violence. Children who were pinched, slapped, shaken and spanked were seven times more likely to experience severe violence such as punching, kicking or hitting with an object. They are being taught that the way to

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cope with feelings of frustration in oneself is to hit someone who is vulnerable. Our society has condoned that.
There is huge support for the amendment. The Children are Unbeatable! Alliance is the largest alliance of organisations ever assembled to campaign on a single issue for children. The National Assembly for Wales debated the matter in plenary in January and, by 41 to nine votes and subsequently on a unanimous vote, stated that it,
"regrets that the UK Government continues to retain the defence of reasonable chastisement".
I shall listen very carefully to the Government's response today. As a Member of the Cross Benches, I hope that all parties in the House will allow us a free vote on the issue if that seems necessary on Report. I beg to move.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: I do not quite understand. If the amendment does not create a new offence, what is the point of having it? Presumably the offence is already there, so we do not need the amendment.
I am very worried. We are getting rapidly into a situation in which the police and social services can interfere on very small evidence, if any at all, to an absolutely intolerable extent in family life. We are leaving people wide open to the possibility that a child, disgruntled because its parents will not let it do something that it wants to do or give it something that it wants, will telephone Childline and say that it has been beaten. It might do so just for a lark. Then in come the police and social services, and once they are on someone's hack it seems from what I am told that it is very difficult to get them off. We need to be very careful. I do not envy parents nowadays. There are so many pitfalls and areas in which, if they do one thing wrong, in come the social services and police. I am very glad that I am not a parent now.
One of my great grandmothers used to spank all her children regularly every Saturday night, whether they needed it or not. She said that if they did not need it then, they very soon would. It was all done in perfect good humour and they adored her. Suppose that Childline had existed and one of those children had been egged on by a chum who had said, "For a lark, ring Childline. Go on, ring Childline and see what happens", and they did. The poor mother! We have to be very careful about giving children such powers, and that is what such provisions would do.
Lord Morgan: I would like to declare my total disagreement with the views that we have just heard, and to support the amendment very strongly. I am also a member of the alliance to which the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, referred. It has shown that the present law condones violence. It legalises assault on children in a way that does not happen in relation to adults. In fact, the original legislation applied to wives and domestic servants. Now it is simply children, the most vulnerable and sensitive group in our society, who are not protected so are subjected to violence in such a way.
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The state of the law at the moment seems totally unsatisfactory for everyone. It is wrong for parents, who are encouraged to believe that they can discipline their children simply through being physically stronger. Their children cannot hit back. That seems an appalling basis for legislation. It is harmful for other members of the family. Criminologists have looked at the indirect victims of crime—the siblings. To see their brothers and sisters assaulted is deeply upsetting to them. The violence can be devastating for children, psychologically as well as physically. It can erode their relationship with parents. It is more likely to make them bullies or people with delinquent or violent behaviour later in life.
We should reject the kind of folk wisdom that we have just heard, such as the idea that you hit children just because you hit them, "It never did me any harm", or the treasured legend of the policeman who disciplined people by giving them a good clip over the ear. That seems an uncivilised basis for the law or social behaviour.
Ten countries have already adopted the principles of the amendment, which the noble Baroness moved so admirably. There is no evidence of snooping into family life or of mass delinquency; on the contrary, the behaviour of children is shown to have improved in the many countries where the measure has been implemented. Incidentally, as the noble Baroness said, that is the view of those in one important part of the British Isles—namely, Wales. If we had proper devolution in this country, the Welsh Assembly would be enabled to outlaw violence in the way that it wishes.
The purpose of the amendment is to encourage not a new culture of snooping but a culture in which respect and compassion govern the way that we treat our children. It seems to me that in no way can these qualities be more conclusively directed and instilled into our society than by stating categorically that it is morally and legally wrong, and physically and psychologically harmful, for adults to assault their children. I hope very much that a free vote will be allowed on the amendment. I hope that the provision is added to the Bill and then, and only then, will this otherwise admirable Bill be a measure of which this House can be truly proud.
12.30 p.m.
Baroness David: I strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, has just said and, indeed, what the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said in moving the amendment. I strongly support the proposed new clause.
We have been trying for a very long time to give children equal protection under the law. I remember the late Lady Wootton of Abinger making earlier attempts to end school corporal punishment in 1973. She said:
"If a thing is wrong today, it should be put right today, not tomorrow or the day after".
We have moved on. We have banished corporal punishment from all our schools, from care homes, from foster care and, most recently, from all forms of

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day care, including childminding. But we cannot keep children waiting any longer for the logical completion of this reform.
In my long experience of advocating the protection of children from corporal punishment, I am used to adults finding all kinds of excuses and endless delaying tactics. Very few these days are prepared to come out and actively defend hitting and deliberately hurting children, although unfortunately there are still some. Special words, such as "smacking" and "spanking", are used to make people feel better about what they are defending, which is indefensible.
The debate shifts to how this reform will be implemented. As my noble friend Lord Morgan said, 10 other countries, including big countries such as Germany, have done it, and the sky has not fallen in. Some people talk as though the prosecution and child protection services in this country are completely out of control. If people really believe that revising this archaic law will lead to inappropriate police or social services interventions, which are not in the interests of children, then the answer is to ensure clear guidance and not to question the principle of equality of protection.
In any case, such critics should defer to the experts— those working in the various professions involved in child protection. They all support this reform. The Children are Unbeatable! Alliance is the largest alliance of organisations and projects ever assembled to campaign on a single issue for children. Why should any of us feel competent to contradict that professional consensus?
There is also a tendency to trivialise this issue. We no longer trivialise domestic violence against women, and there is no reason to trivialise the huge scale of domestic violence against children. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, quoted the research commissioned by the Department of Health: three-quarters of mothers smack their baby before the age of one; and one-fifth of children are hit with implements. And we know that any research using interviews with parents is going to understate the problem. Parents will not exaggerate the number of times they hit their children.
We do not like to talk about this issue because it is so personal for many people. We do not like to think badly of our parents or of our parenting. That gets in the way of moving on, but move on we must. The Government are under considerable international pressure from human rights monitoring mechanisms. The Committee on the Rights of the Child twice recommended removal of the reasonable chastisement defence—in 1995 and again in 2002. The European Committee of Social Rights, which monitors our compliance with the European Social Charter, requires this reform. The committee summed it up well in 2001, when it stated:
"The Committee does not find it acceptable that a society which prohibits any form of physical violence between adults would accept that adults subject children to physical violence".
The abolition of school corporal punishment was triggered by key votes in this House, and I very much hope that we will send the Bill to the other place with
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this new clause a part of it. This is an issue on which governments have traditionally allowed a free vote, and I hope very much that the Minister will confirm that at an appropriate stage.
The Lord Bishop of Chester: Today is Ascension Day—
Baroness Richardson of Calow: I support the amendment—
Baroness Andrews: I think that we should probably hear from the right reverend Prelate first.
The Lord Bishop of Chester: I have an excuse: this is Ascension Day. Most European countries have not only abolished corporal punishment; they have abolished sittings of bodies such as this on what should be a public holiday. For many Bishops, this creates a difficulty; in fact, I shall have to leave quite soon because of commitments back in the diocese. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth cannot be here today, and I feel that I should offer a word on behalf of the many church organisations which he sought to represent in putting his name to the amendment.
We are broadly supportive of the proposed new clause. The time has come to move on in how children are regarded in relation to physical punishment. For the reasons given so eloquently by the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady David, and the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, I support the amendment. I shall not go over those reasons, which they all expressed so well.
The caveats that I want to enter are these: if there is no possibility of physical punishment, the temptation will be for a society to engage in forms of mental and non-physical punishments, which themselves can be demeaning and very oppressive. A little earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, referred to Stoke Heath young offender institution. I went to that prison during the past year and was simply shocked at the way in which the young people were treated. There was no physical violence as such, but psychologically they were demeaned and regularly sworn at. Therefore, if, in the criminal law, we now make it unacceptable for children to be restrained or punished physically, we need to be alert to the dangers that may accrue.
An old African proverb states that it takes a village to raise a child. One problem of parenting in our society is that people are often isolated in their responsibilities as parents. For example, the nearest blood relative that my wife and I have is well over 100 miles away. Often parents lack the broader support that they really need. Therefore, if we take this step, which personally I, and I think most members of this Bench, would support, that will not be the end of the discussion. It will open up profound issues about how we genuinely provide for the needs of children in the future in a positive way on the back of what is essentially a negative step. I believe that there would be

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a great need to spell out the safeguards against an improper criminalising of parents, who are doing their best in difficult circumstances.
I was reassured by the legal opinion referred to earlier, but it seems to me that that would need to be gone into with some care, with guidelines being offered, so that complaints were not pursued in inappropriate ways if this change were made. But, on the grounds of respect and compassion for children and the fact that we live in a society where violence tends to erupt more and more, I believe that this change could be a significant move towards making our society more civilised in the 21st century.
Baroness Richardson of Calow: I, too, support the amendment. In speaking to it I represent the views of a great many Christians across a wide range of Churches, particularly those which have come out in support in official statements, such as the Methodist Church, the United Reform Church, the Roman Catholic Church and many children's charities.
I am aware that some Christians have defended what they call "Biblical discipline", using such authorities as Proverbs—to,
"spare the rod, and spoil the child".
But I remember, too, that Jesus gave deep respect to children and also said, in a slightly different context, that what was done to one of those little ones was done to him.
The amendment acknowledges that reasonable force may sometimes be needed to avert danger to the child, other people or property, or to prevent a crime being committed. However, what is completely denied is that such force is permissible, or even capable of delivering—in the words of the 1860 defence—the ability,
"to correct what is evil in the child".
The root of the word "discipline" is "to learn". What is learned by a child being beaten is surely that it is okay to bully others if they do something that one does not like. There is an opportunity here to reform the law to give a powerful signal that not only do children have human rights but also the use of force against the vulnerable, particularly the young vulnerable, is unacceptable in our society.
There is recognition that what happens within the family is deeply important. Amending the law now will encourage the development within families of positive parenting skills—I agree with the right reverend Prelate—that may help to reduce violence in society as a whole.
Lord Harrison: I, too, support the new clause proposed in the amendment, which was so ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. I declare an interest as a parliamentary ambassador for the NSPCC.
I find the concept of "reasonable chastisement" to be basically unreasoned and unreasonable. I wish to make three points. First, it undermines the efforts of those who wish to safeguard children in our society. It has always seemed to be a curiosity, to say the least,
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that we should not permit violence done to adults, but we should allow it to be done to children. That is a curious ranking of priorities.
Secondly, does not the idea that a smack could be given to children inhibit those who are working to safeguard children, because there is a lack of clarity in the law? The amendment would clarify the law and would help with its administration.
"Reasonable chastisement" also undermines the opportunities for extending non-violent discipline. All of us who have been parents know that, from time to time, children must be disciplined, but surely it punctures the imagination if we have this resource of "reasonable chastisement" always lying by to be picked up, when we should devise other methods of ensuring that children do not move into harm's way and, where necessary, find methods of non-violent chastisement.
I also invoke the "slippery slope" argument that physical abuse begins early and can be extended into violence. That was clearly demonstrated in the instance of the Victoria Climbiée inquiry. In 2002, the parliamentary Health Select Committee made that point when it observed:
"What happened to Victoria involved the apparent escalation of discipline and punishment: as Manning told the inquiry. Her injuries began with 'little slaps"".
Thirdly, there is the European scene, about which I am keen and it is also useful to make comparisons with other colleagues and countries elsewhere in the European Union. How stark it is to learn that where we experience the deaths attributable to physical abuse of one to two children every week in this country, in Sweden, which abandoned such physical abuse—corporal punishment—in 1979, there were recorded only four deaths attributable to physical abuse from 1979 to 2000. We will not be entering into unknown territory here, others have gone before us and we should take heed of the success that they have made of the abandonment of corporal punishment.
12.45 p.m.
Baroness Warnock: I very strongly support the amendment. We have an admirable opportunity to add this clause to what is, in general, an admirable Bill. The report of the committee of 2002 contained—to me and, I am sure, everyone—shocking evidence of the prevalence of hitting babies. I had no idea that there were so many people who hit babies under a year old or under 18 months. It is the most barbarous thing to go on permitting in this country. Can the Minister reassure us that, if we sent the Bill back with this new clause, there would be a free vote in the other place?
Lord Blackwell: I ask noble Lords to forgive me for intervening on this amendment without having spoken on the Bill previously. There are very different views in this Chamber and in the country at large about what is and is not "reasonable chastisement". No one would disagree at all with the proposition that the law should do everything that it can to protect children from violence of a form that would damage them. But what is being

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expressed in this House is a view that any form of physical chastisement—otherwise known as "corporal punishment"—is wrong by definition.
There is an alternative view which says that there is a dividing line between what might be regarded by some people as acceptable chastisement and violence involving hitting babies and children that is clearly unacceptable in a civilised society. I fear there is a danger that this Chamber is seeking to impose on families a particular view on the issue, when we should be cautious about intervening in what parents believe is their appropriate right to decide how they bring up their children—as long as it does not move over the line into what everyone accepts is unreasonable violence from which the current law should provide reasonable protection.
If the Committee is attempting to say that any form of chastisement is inappropriate, I fear that we are moving towards the kind of "nanny state" intervention that will make many people out there feel that the law is going too far into the nooks and crannies of the role of families and of how they want to bring up their children. So I urge noble Lords strongly to think twice before taking the law to that level of private intervention.
Boroness Whitaker: In supporting this amendment I remind the House that I am a trustee of UNICEF UK. I differ from the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, because it is an unusual pleasure in your Lordships' House to represent a large number of voters. Over 2,000 people were interviewed by MORI two months ago, in a representative sample, that is, of course, one which indicates a nationally representative number, to see what they thought of changing the law to give children the same protection from being hit as adults have. Nearly three-quarters said they would support such a change. Parents, women and young adults were even more likely to support it. Fewer than 10 per cent said they would oppose it.
Parents have changed their minds. In 1999, 23 per cent of MORI's survey thought hitting could be a good way to teach the difference between right and wrong. In 2001, the National Family and Parenting Institute survey found only 16 per cent in favour. Now the percentage is even lower. None of this is to say that parents should not exercise discipline. But they do this within a normative framework agreed by society, either tacitly or explicitly. In classical Rome, fathers had the right to kill their children. In some parts of the world, parents can sell their children. We do, and should, set norms of which we approve. In clarifying a small part of the normative framework for adult behaviour to children, our amendment does not interfere with the right of parents to punish their children and nor does it change the threshold for formal investigation or breach the family's right to privacy.
I, too, think that this is an idea whose time has come. That is not to say that everybody in your Lordships' House shares it. That is the fate of new ideas, even if their time has come. Not everyone recognises change.
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Even such small changes in the law can make people wary as they cling to what they consider are the tried and tested concepts.
Tried, indeed. A father who used a belt to whip his four year-old son for refusing to write his name was acquitted, using the "reasonable chastisement" defence. A father who hit his 12 year-old daughter in the face such that she had difficulty in opening her jaw was acquitted. Tested, certainly. Bruises were still evident a week later on the eight and nine year-old foster children of another acquitted parent.
It is easier to move when other circumstances have fallen into place. We have arrived at a stage in our society when the law gives our children a right to education, access to health services, family life, shelter and protection, and freedom from discrimination. We should also give them equal protection with adults against assault. We think of children as of equal worth with adults, I am sure. Let us now have the opportunity to demonstrate that conviction by a free vote. I am proud of this Government's achievements. I would like to be proud of one more.
Lord Turnberg: I, too, strongly support the amendment. I shall speak briefly because most of what I might have said has been said much more eloquently. The particular point I want to make relates to the concept of "reasonable chastisement", which I find difficult. It is essential that we define it clearly and narrowly as in the amendment. What might be thought reasonable by one person might be considered assault by another.
Anyone who has worked in an accident and emergency department in any of our hospitals will recognise the children who all too frequently have suffered at the hands of their parents. Those parents either believe that they were behaving perfectly reasonably or deny completely any responsibility for the multiple bruises or fractures that their children display. I am not speaking of the normal bruises, bumps or fractures which all children seem to acquire during what seems to be a normal active life. I am talking about the evidence of systematic beatings, which is difficult or impossible to explain away.
Reasonable chastisement lies on a spectrum of physical chastisement and it is very much dependent on how individual parents view reasonableness. And what seems reasonable to them might seem quite unreasonable to your Lordships. There are far too many instances where the fluid, uncertain, moveable boundary between reasonable and unreasonable has been overstepped. I therefore very much favour the amendment and the possibility of a free vote.
Boroness Stern: I want to add my voice to those supporting the amendment. I very much support the points made so effectively by my noble friend Lady Finlay and others. I want to make two points. One is on the importance of law not just as something used in response to an act, but as the highest expression of our values. And so the law should not say that doing

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violence to another human being is allowed in certain circumstances. This is the normative framework so well expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker.
My second point has been alluded to, but it is worth repeating. Treating children violently has long-term and serious consequences. Some noble Lords will remember the longitudinal study carried out by John and Elizabeth Newson, who followed a cohort of children through their lives looking at various child-rearing variables at the ages of seven and 11 and links with how these children turned out in adulthood. I want to quote them briefly. They reported:
"Those which are of particular importance are those which still `shine through' as having significance even when we set aside the effects of class, sex and family size; those which do shine through can be fairly assumed to be causative in their association. The measures which stand out as being most predictive of criminal record before the age of 20 are having been smacked or beaten once a week or more at 11, and having had a mother with a high degree of commitment to formal corporal punishment at that age".
A considerable body of research supports that important study.
Perhaps the reason so many professional organisations support the amendment is that they have had years of experience in looking into the background of people who end up committing violent acts. Nearly always, there is a violent childhood somewhere in the background. Anyone who has experience of reading, for example, parole reports will know the strong effects that a violent childhood can have.
Much more needs to be done than just this change in the law to reduce the high and unacceptable levels of violence we endure in this country, but it is an important part of it and I hope we shall take this opportunity.
Lord Northbourne: I wish that I could give completely unqualified support to the amendment. It is beautifully drafted and I congratulate my noble friend Lady Finlay and many of my Cross Bench colleagues and others who have spoken in favour of it.
There is no doubt that there is a real problem. I am fully conscious of the fact that violence breeds violence in the next generation and that uncontrolled anger creates uncontrolled anger in the next generation. These are huge problems which need to be addressed. It is wholly desirable to try to achieve the objective of the Bill, which is, effectively, no violence in the home. The question is: is this best done by legislation? Is it best done by attempting to legislate for intimate relationships within the home?
Here I declare an interest because I want to speak briefly about the possible effect on parents. In this context, I was instrumental in founding, and was for seven years chairman of, the Parenting Education and Support Forum. My concern is that many parents do not know any other way of disciplining their children. From my conversations, I believe that there is a real possibility that many parents who are disciplining their children through violence will either continue to do so or will simply throw in the towel and say, "If
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that's what the Government want, let the little bleeders go and create anti-social behaviour". I see the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, shaking his head. There are parents who will say those things.
Even people who are deeply resistant to the idea of parenting orders and to being shown another way of parenting say, when they have been forced to learn a little of how the parent/child relationship can work, "Why was that information denied to us? Why did my child have to commit a crime before I was given this help?". I may table an amendment at a later stage, but if the Government are to introduce this provision, they should make it conditional upon the universal availability of affordable education and support for parents.
1 p.m.
Lord Elton: I support what the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has just said. I believe that the two things go together. In writing a report for the Government years ago about discipline in schools, I was very much struck by the cascade effect. One would find teenage mothers in school who were themselves the daughter of a teenage mother. Some intervention has to be made to break the awful chain before we start using legislation which could quite seriously disrupt the lives of people without any positive result.
Lord Hylton: I entirely support what my noble friend Lord Northbourne has just said. I believe that there are many responsible, loving, caring parents up and down the country who would take a slightly different point of view from that so eloquently expressed by many who have supported the amendment. I do not know what line the Government will take but, if they are supportive, I suggest to those who tabled the amendment that they consider widening the three exceptions in subsection (2).
Lord Swinfen: I do not agree with the amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, in moving the amendment said that it would create no new offences. Therefore, I see no reason to put it on the statute book. It is otiose. There are occasions when reasonable chastisement is justified for the safety of children and for the safety of others. Reasonable chastisement, given quickly in a loving family, is soon over, the offence finished with and the family goes on. Other forms of punishment can go on for hours or days and do not help the relationship between parents and their children.
I remember some 50 years or so ago, I and two other boys being caught breaking the rules at school. Two of us were beaten, but the other one could not be beaten for medical reasons. As the right reverend Prelate said, other forms of punishment can be much harsher. That boy had to translate 1,000 lines from English into Latin. It took him days. In my view the punishment was very much heavier and harder than the three strokes of the cane that I had. In fact the strokes warmed me up on a cold winter's evening. I am certain that I benefited from it far more than my colleague whose punishment lasted several days.

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Reasonable chastisement within the family is occasionally necessary. Some of the examples given so far in the debate have been obvious examples of illegal behaviour which, I am afraid, would still take place if this provision became law. It will not improve the situation.
Lord Cameron of Lochbroom: I do not wish to comment on the spirit in which the amendment is tabled, but I want to take up the cautionary note sounded by the right reverend Prelate; namely, that it would be an innovation to the criminal law. Noble Lords will want to look very carefully at the wording in which the innovation is put before the Committee. Underlying the amendment is the proposition that an assault upon a child by a parent is not to be justified if it constitutes punishment. In subsection (2) there is the proposition that,
"Battery of a child is not unlawful if the act amounts to the use of reasonable force in order to—
"(a) avert"—
and what follows in each of the paragraphs is what is clearly intended to be a matter of fact.
Perhaps this misses something that the criminal law has recognised as being important in a defence of someone charged with an offence of intent; namely, that he or she is not guilty of the offence if he or she honestly or genuinely believed that the state of fact existed which constitutes the offence. One can see that in terms of subsection (2)(a), (b) and (c), a parent may have to make a quick decision about what is about to happen and may be entirely wrong about what was in prospect. But surely it would be wrong in such a case to deprive that parent of what appears to be an exclusion from the principal offence which is constituted in this amendment.
Equally, I comment on subsection (2)(c), as the Committee may want to look at the terms used. The paragraph states:
"prevent the commission of a crime, or an act which would be a crime",
and so on. The Committee may want to consider how that would work in the context of what effectively is being given as a defence to the person who is accused of the offence of battery as intended in the clause.
I do not wish to enter upon the spirit in which the amendment is tabled. The Committee has already heard many views expressed, but I suggest that the Committee must be careful at this stage to ensure that, if one is to take this forward, one does not deprive those who may be affected of a defence which is open to anyone in the criminal law; namely, that of honest and genuine belief in a state of affairs that has led to the act being committed.
Baroness Walmsley: I have added my name to this sensible and fair modernisation of the law on the basis that it seeks to give children the same right to equal protection under the law of assault as adults enjoy. The Government have done a good deal for human rights, with the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Freedom of
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Information Act 2000; they have given equal rights to people with disabilities, people of all races and creeds and they have even outlawed discrimination on the basis of age. So I find it difficult to understand why they are so reluctant to give equality to children. It is the smallest, most fragile and vulnerable in society who need equality the most, and yet their voice is still not being heard. Nor is the voice of the many people who support this move to give them equality being heard.
There is now massive support for this change. so the Government need not fear that to legislate would be unpopular. The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has already referred to the recent MORI poll, which shows that a vast majority of the public are in favour of a change. There is also a great deal of political support. Nearly 200 Peers and MPs are signed up to the Children are unbeatable! alliance; 55 per cent of Labour MPs support reform, with 45 per cent overall in another place supporting a change and only 35 per cent opposing it.
The pressure from those who have looked at the matter in detail is impressive. The parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, the House of Commons Health Select Committee and, of course. the National Assembly for Wales have all called for reform after careful consideration of the case for and against.
There is also enormous international pressure, to which the noble Baroness, Lady David, referred. More than 350 children's and professional organisations support reform, as do the Catholic Church in England and Wales, the Methodists, the United Reform Churches and many other faith groups. I am most grateful to hear today of the support of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester and that of his brother Bishops in this House.
With such a broad spectrum of people wanting change, why are the Government hesitating? They must remember that they govern only with the consent of the people, and the people want this reform. They want this protection for their children and grandchildren, and, if the Government were to hesitate to give a free vote, they would want to know why, given the overwhelming evidence of the benefits reform has brought to child protection, in the 10 other European countries that have introduced an equivalent change.
From our previous debates on this subject, most of your Lordships are very familiar with the case of Sweden, which was the first country to bring in this change. The benefits and the reduction of interventions in family life in Sweden that has been brought about by this fundamental change in the law is very impressive. The reasons, I suspect, are similar to those expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, on Second Reading, and in a letter to Cross-Benchers. I am sorry that the noble Lord is not in his place, but I trust that he will read Hansard, and I hope that I can set his and the Government's mind at rest about some of the issues that have been raised.
First, it is said that we do not need the change because the defence has been attempted only a handful of times and has succeeded only once. This is not true; the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has given details of a couple of cases, and I have details of about eight cases, if any noble Lords would like to see them.

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The noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, said that this reform is not needed. It is needed. because it has been used to excuse child abuse. People have got away with unreasonable abuse of children by using this defence, and that is why we need to remove it. However, it is not just the use of the defence but simply its existence which undermines child protection and the work of all those promoting the positive, non-violent forms of discipline for which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester has rightly called.
The noble Lord, Lord Laming, fears that removal of the defence has become inextricably linked with the creation of a total ban on smacking. As has been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, the new clause does not create any new offence; it removes the existing defence in so far as it allows the battery to be justified in a court of law as lawful punishment. It thus gives children equal protection under the law on assault—no more and no less. That is what we ask for today.
The new clause does not trespass upon parents' legitimate right—nay, duty—to discipline their children appropriately. Indeed, it carefully preserves parents' rights to use physical actions to protect and restrain their children when in danger, and so on. I hear the wise words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cameron, about the detail of that part of the amendment, at which we shall look carefully.
There really are only two alternatives. One is the status quo, which so many of us in your Lordships' House find so objectionable. The other is giving children equal protection from battery, as adults have. What do we mean by the current adult law? If I, for example, were to turn to my noble friend Lady Sharp, who is sitting next to me, and smack her on her arm, that would be an assault. It might get me on "Yesterday in Parliament", but it would not get me in court charged with assault. That is the way the adult law operates, and that is how we would expect the law to operate for children as well. We are asking for equality—no more and no less.
1.15 p.m.
A number of noble Lords, such as the noble Lords, Lord Blackwell and Lord Northbourne, and perhaps the Government, fear the extent of intrusion by the state into family life. We are not suggesting, and the new clause does not imply, any change in the Children Act threshold for formal investigation; that is, that a child is, or may be, suffering significant harm. But violence against children does not justify any less intrusion into the family in the form of clear law than violence against women or vulnerable adults within the family. That is something about which the Government have done a great deal, and I hope that they will follow it through and do the same for children.
These issues have been the subject of human rights judgments which have emphasised that giving children equal protection does not breach rights to family privacy nor, by the way, to religious freedom.
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It has been said that the removal of the defence is likely to endanger parenting education and support for the development of good parenting skills. I really do not see how that could happen. Indeed, the publicity surrounding this debate sends a clear message that it is as unacceptable and unlawful to hit a child as to hit anyone else.
I also hope that, following this legislative change, the Government will increase their efforts to help and support parents who are having difficulties with their children. A great deal has been done, but the public need to know that if a defence is being taken away from them, support will be given in its place. It is in everybody's interests that it should be. Besides, parents' organisations support this reform too, so they do not seem too worried about this intrusion.
I am very happy to be able to tell the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, that both the Parenting Education and Support Forum and the National Family and Parenting Institute favour removal of the defence of reasonable chastisement—
Lord Northbourne: On a point of clarification, I did not suggest for a moment that the Parenting Education and Support Forum did not approve of it, but it endorses my condition that proper support and education should be available.
Boroness Walmsley: I thank the noble Lord for that intervention, and I absolutely agree with him. I support it too. Hundreds of other organisations working directly with families, including many Sure Start projects, support this reform in the law.
Worries have also been expressed about otherwise caring parents being brought into contact with the criminal justice system through malicious allegations. Such worries are unfounded. From our contacts with police representatives, we know that ACPO does not oppose this reform, and all the other elements of multidisciplinary child protection strongly support it. ACPO has some concerns about the implications for policing, as would be the case with any new legislation, but believes that these can be overcome if appropriate and unambiguous guidance is issued. That is a very important element.
If an assault is reported but it appears that the child has not suffered significant harm, the social services would be informed and no further police action taken. The matter will not even be recorded as a crime. The professional judgment of the social services will then decide whether to offer support and help to the parents, or whatever other action might be necessary to help them. Given that, and the reassurances we have had from the Director of Public Prosecutions that it is highly unlikely that any inappropriate charges would ever be brought, I really do not see how our new clause can possibly be regarded as a total ban on smacking, however bad a method of discipline it might be, or a danger to the reputation of caring parents. However, it is crucial that clear guidance is issued to the police on the implementation of a change in legislation.

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I have admitted on previous occasions when we have debated this matter that I did, now and then, hit my children out of sheer frustration and not knowing what better to do. How I wish the help and support that is now available, as well as the understanding about how harmful hitting can be and the knowledge about better ways, had been available to me 30 or so years ago. However, we must move on. I am confident that the way in which this law reform would operate would not have criminalised me. I was a caring parent and my children did not suffer "significant harm" from my actions, even though I regret having hit them—it was never a good way of teaching them how to behave well.
In his letter to Cross-Bench Peers, the noble Lord, Lord Laming, said that he feared that the removal of the defence would be marginal and apply to only a handful of situations, but that the remedy would affect millions of parents. I hope and trust that he is right. Removal of the defence will ease prosecution in those few cases in which it is necessary for child protection and in the best interests of the affected child. If the reform is accompanied, as it must be, by appropriate awareness-raising, on the basis of the experience of other countries, we can be confident that it will lead to rapid changes in attitudes and rapid reduction in reliance on corporal punishment. In that sense, we hope that it will have implications for millions of children and parents.
Since when did this House hesitate to do the right thing out of fear that a few malicious people would seek to abuse the law? From research commissioned by the Department of Health, we know that most children, including babies, are hit and that many are hit often. We have more child deaths per head of population than any other European country. It is that context, together with the principles of human rights and equality, that this reform is aimed to address and I recommend it to the Committee.
The Earl of Listowel: I shall speak briefly on something that has been touched on in the debate: parenting education and support. I hope in a helpful way to suggest to the Government that they might consider this as an opportunity to consider whether more funding might be given to parenting education and support. My noble friend alluded to the Parenting Education and Support Forum. It currently has no core funding, although it is central to parenting support; it depends on temporary project funding. It may be helpful to point out that there is an opportunity there to offer reassurance by that method.
Earl Howe: I approached the amendment with an open mind as, like the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and all other Members of the Committee, I detest the very idea of child abuse. I am also instinctively worried by the thought that the defence of reasonable chastisement may be being used to protect individuals who have treated children in a way that would otherwise be classified as abusive. However, I fear that I shall disappoint the noble Baroness, because I cannot live with the amendment.
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We need to be clear what the amendment does. It turns all smacking of children—smacking in all circumstances other than when administered in what one might term an emergency—into a criminal offence. That is so no matter how one decides that the law should be administered. The noble Baroness says that in most cases in which parents are caught smacking children, they will not be subject to criminal proceedings. I have great difficulty with the idea that we should classify something as a criminal offence and then say in the same breath that in the vast majority of cases, the law will not be invoked. That brings the law into disrepute.
Baroness Walmsley: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Earl, but is he calling for a change in the law on adult-on-adult assault in that case?
Earl Howe: The context of the amendment needs to be seen in the round. It concerns not assaults by an adult on any child but assaults by an adult on his own children. I shall come to why that point is important in a moment.
There is another important side to this, which the noble Baroness completely glossed over. Criminal proceedings are not the only dimension about which we need to worry when a parent is reported as having smacked a child. If smacking becomes illegal, as night follows day that will lead to massive over-intervention by social services. That over-intervention carries two huge downsides. The first will be a wasteful diversion of resources to trivial incidents, when it is real child abuse that social workers should be targeting. Real child abuse may well be lost sight of amid all that.
The second downside is just as bad. I have no doubt that some trivial cases of smacking—not a large number, but some—will lead to families being split up on the judgment of over-zealous social workers. If they choose to do so, social workers will have the law on their side. Children will be taken into care on totally spurious grounds. I fear that I do not share the touching faith of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in the behaviour of social services. We need to think very hard before we decide to sanction an even greater degree of state interference in family life. Some might say that there is already enough of a risk of that in the Bill.
What the noble Baroness advocates is that any parent who smacks his child as part of normal parenting discipline to teach the child right from wrong will lay himself open to arrest. I find that completely unacceptable. I am sure that everyone should avoid smacking their children if they can, but smacking a child is not the same thing as child abuse. We need to rid our minds of any idea that it is. To say, like the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, that most parents do not know the difference between the two is nonsense. They do and they know that the law will come down hard on them if they abuse their children—the criminal law is in place to do that. But it is totally inappropriate to bring the criminal law to bear on a parent who is exercising his duty and right to bring up his own children in his own way, provided that he does not cause the child any significant harm.

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The amendment contains no mention of harm to the child. It takes as read that all smacking causes harm. I know of no evidence for that and it does not even appear intuitively true.
Baroness Thornton: I thank the noble Earl for allowing me to intervene. I cannot resist asking whether he agrees with the comments made from the Conservative Benches and other parts of the House that the beatings that people received as children did not do them any harm at all?
Earl Howe: It depends how severe the beatings were. Once again, the noble Baroness is trying to blur the distinction between child abuse and smacking. There is a real difference and I believe that most people know what it is. I can think of other sorts of behaviour by parents that, in my hook, are infinitely more harmful to children than smacking. Verbal tirades and the use of sarcasm are the most obvious ones. No one is suggesting that parents should be arrested for them—quite rightly.
What greatly worries me about the amendment is that it would mark a fundamental shift in the legal relationship between parents and children. Here I return to the question posed to me by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. The amendment says that when it comes to physical chastisement, being the parent of the child concerned counts for absolutely nothing, however reasonably the parent may have acted and however loving that parent may be. I repeat: that is just not acceptable. I sincerely hope that the Minister will strongly resist the amendment.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I shall not attempt in trying to sum up the debate and set out the Government's position to speak as eloquently or passionately or with the conviction of other Members of the Committee. I will not try to sum up what they have said, because many, if not all of the relevant issues have featured in the debate. I should like to say how grateful I am that this extraordinary debate has been full of the kind of conviction and passion that I would expect on such an important and difficult issue.
I begin by saying that we are considering two different outcomes when we discuss the amendment. One position is held by some Members of the Committee and another by others. It is important to fix those clearly in our minds. They are of course both perfectly legitimate positions. The first is that there should be a ban on all physical chastisement of children—the ban on smacking, to paraphrase. That is a legitimate position to hold. The other is that the defence of reasonable chastisement lets people off the hook, whether by their going to court and being acquitted or, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, by the fact that they never get to court because it is in everyone's mind.
1.30 p.m.
They are two slightly different propositions; people may hold both equally. I have found, especially when talking to many different organisations and people who also hold very strong and passionate views on the
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subject, that sometimes those propositions get interchanged. We are concerned with having equality before the law and removing a defence that, we believe, stops people getting taken to court for abusing their children. Others feel equally strongly that it is about removing the right of any parent to carry out any form of physical chastisement against their children. It is in that context that the Government seek to operate around the amendment in a way that coalesces the two views.
I wish to paraphrase what I said at Second Reading, because it is important that I respond in the context of noble Lords' desire for a free vote. As the noble Earl said, we all abhor violence and abuse of children, and it is vital that children are protected, with adequate safeguards from violence and abuse. The current legal framework provides that protection. The kind of punishment that results in injury is clearly not reasonable chastisement and as such is already against the law. The Government do not wish to interfere with the legitimate and necessary rights of parents within their own families; we will not create a new offence in that context. We are prepared to consider carefully any amendment on the issue, but we will not support a complete ban on smacking. That is the position that I laid out at Second Reading and the context in which I will address the amendments.
It is critical that we all accept that our aim in the Bill is to put the child at the centre of our policies and strategies. However, as noble Lords have been very quick to point out on several occasions, it must be in the context of being in the centre of family life. The Government must be sure that in what they do, through the resources they use and in how they exercise their role, they spend their time supporting families in the best possible way. There was special pleading from the noble Earl on parenting in particular. It was a well made point, and I will take it back as a specific example. The Government must look at supporting parents, to do the kinds of things that we know would help them and to deal with some of the issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and others raised about what happens to children and babies. From my experience with the Sure Start programme, I recognise noble Lords' comments about parents sometimes being too quick to use physical discipline and perhaps not understanding the need to support their children in other ways and to think of other forms of discipline. I agree that we need to do much more in all our education programmes for children, young people and parents to ensure that people think about parenting as a critical part of life and to equip them with the tools to do that. I support completely the idea that the Government's emphasis should be on helping people to be better parents.
We must look at what the amendment would do. Having taken legal advice as far as I possibly can and at the highest possible level, I can tell Members of the Committee that the amendment would ban smacking. Noble Lords may be perfectly comfortable with that, but it would be the effect of the amendment. We must therefore review the amendment in that context.

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I accept the good judgment and words of the various legal professionals who have been quoted. I shall paraphrase the words of the Director of Public Prosecutions—the transcript is not available—who attended the Joint Committee on Human Rights yesterday. He said that he had seen the amendment and believed that it clearly outlawed battery. He was very conscious that that would mean that even minor assaults would be criminalised under the amendment. Although in many cases minor offences may not come to court, his office could not issue guidance that stated that it would not prosecute in certain circumstances. He could not devise a policy where minor slaps were never prosecuted against. It is important that we understand what the Director of Public Prosecutions said.
The Association of Chief Police Officers has also been referred to. I cannot quote it directly, as it has not issued a formal statement, but as it has been referred to, I wish to outline my understanding of its position. If Parliament revises the law, the association wants the Government to issue guidance making it clear that, when it appears on the basis of the information available that a child is not suffering or at risk of suffering significant harm, the assumption should be that social services will be informed and the report will be recorded by social services but no further police action will be taken. For all of us, that raises the question whether that is the appropriate use of social services resources.
I want to make clear the reason for our difficulty with the amendment. I understand that noble Lords feel strongly that the matter should be taken out of the Government's hands and left to the conscience of each individual Member of your Lordships' House. They feel that that would follow a good record of important issues, perhaps of this nature, being dealt with in that way. I appreciate and understand that, but the Government's responsibility is to ensure that the effect of any proposition is clear and can be understood and achieved. I do not dispute for one second what noble Lords are trying to do, and I have enormous sympathy with their aim. However, if the amendment would create uncertainty in the criminal justice system, the police and social services, and make parents' position in relation to their child ambiguous, I submit that it would be difficult for the Government to allow a free vote. If we did so, we would be acting irresponsibly. I say that not because I do not understand the underlying propositions, but because of the effect of the amendment.
I pay tribute to those who have worked very hard on the amendment and looked at circumstances where parents might slap their child. I am very conscious of the words that we use. We refer to a "trivial smack", which may be offensive to some noble Lords—perhaps it is a way of describing what perhaps we would recognise. Consider the mum in a supermarket, whose child for the fifteenth time has taken the sweets off the shelf and put them in the trolley, and who says, "If you do that again, I will slap your hand". Noble Lords may find that offensive; others may feel that it is acceptable. My
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question is: would I wish the mother to be prosecuted if that happened? My answer would probably be no. In reality, we would be making her open to prosecution.
That is the basis of my difficulty with the amendment. We cannot have a free vote on something so important on the basis of the attitude, "Don't worry, it will never happen".
The Lord Bishop of Chester: I am a novice with the amendment, but would not subsection (2)(c) on the prevention of a criminal act cover the supermarket incident?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I do not think that the child would be intending to steal the sweets but rather to have the mother purchase them. I am talking about a three year-old. I am sorry that the right reverend Prelate used that example, because it takes us away from the point that we were seeking to reach.
There are circumstances that make the situation difficult. It would be very difficult, not to say irresponsible, to agree the amendment as it stands, because it would create the situation that I have outlined. Essentially, it does not do what I set out at Second Reading. We remain committed to that response and to protecting children who are being abused. If the noble Lords whose names are attached to the amendment believe, as I am sure they do, that by changing this law we can do something more to stop children being abused, we should try. It is important to do everything possible to support children in the context of family life.
I do not stand here to say, "Go away. We are not prepared to listen". If there are ways in which we could make the situation even better and even stronger for children, we should try. My commitment is to ask the noble Lords who tabled the amendment to talk to me about what might be done in that context, but within the context of what I said at Second Reading, and with the understanding of the position that the Government now hold.
Baroness David: Before the Minister sits down, does she agree that it is a tradition of this House and of the other place to have a free vote on this sort of issue, whether or not the Government support it?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I did not say that it was about whether the Government supported it. I said that it was the duty of any government, when looking at a free vote in either House, to ensure that the proposition that is before the House is completely understood and workable. That is our problem with this amendment.
Baroness Walmsley: Before the Minister sits down, the purpose of this amendment is to create clarity and certainty. She said that one of her problems with it is that it would create confusion among parents. Does she feel that the general public do not understand the law of assault when the offence is adult on adult or that they do not know what they can and cannot do? This amendment is merely trying to remove excuses for

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unreasonable physical abuse of children and to return the law of assault when the offence is adult on child to exactly the same situation as that for adult on adult. That is all that we are trying to do.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: The noble Baroness has said that adults understand what the law is. I am not sure that if you asked 100 parents in the street tomorrow what they know about the law of reasonable chastisement, they would even have heard of it. I have read all the polling evidence. I live in a household where polling evidence is literally bread and butter. It often depends on the question that one asks. If one asks anyone with a good, reasonable mind face to face, "would you remove the defence that makes children unequal before the law", it would be interesting to see who would say "no".
The question is not where the noble Baroness is trying to go. I understand absolutely what she is saying, but that is not the effect that the amendment would have. We must work in a world where there is certainty. It is not good enough to say that it will not happen. When we take legal advice, and when I read what the Director of Public Prosecutions and others have said. I see before me a situation that is at best ambiguous, and it needs to be thought through carefully.
This is not about the Government saying that there is not more that we can do or that if we can find a way through that gives us clarity, we would not seek to do that. We are saying that unless we are able to do that, we could not move forward.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff: I thank the Minister personally for having gone to so much trouble to explore the background to this amendment, and I thank noble Lords who have spoken to support the amendment. While I do not agree with the criticisms that have come from other noble Lords, I wish to listen to them carefully and read carefully what they have said. I am concerned that using the term, "ban on smacking", is an emotive sound bite behind which people can hide, do hide, and will continue to hide. When we look at the evidence, we know how the slippery slope starts, and hitting escalates into serious harm. We know from evidence that the outcomes of corporal punishment do not show positive benefits for society. Some have grown up well despite, not because of, their experience of corporal punishment.
I pay tribute to the Government for the enormous amount of work that they are doing to try to provide positive education in parenting. I am well aware of the expenditure undertaken by the National Assembly for Wales and the excellent booklets that have been produced in Wales. I have been reassured that such booklets are also being produced in England, but not living in England my experience is of the Welsh leaflets. They are excellent, but there is a sense among those working with children that the current law undermines the vast efforts that are being made to encourage people to parent positively in a society where there is increased family break up; there is increased infidelity among parents; and there is increased mobility and socialisolation.
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This amendment was seeking to establish equal protection—simply that—and safe equality for children. I will quickly address the criticism about the nanny state. I had understood that Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to a private family life, can be justifiably infringed only in the legitimate public interest. That would include the necessary protection of the young and the vulnerable. Currently, our law says that small children and babies can be hit lawfully by a parent if that parent believes that it is chastisement. That is before language and other reasoning skills are developed.
I do not believe that prosecutions would have been increased, nor was this the purpose. I welcome the invitation of the Minister, as I am sure other noble Lords do, to meet with her afterwards and talk with her. I am sure that we all have the aim that children should be protected under the law from being victims of escalating violence. We want to give society a clear message that violence is not an appropriate response to the normal feelings of frustration that every parent experiences. In the light of the very generous offer made by the Minster, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Andrews: I beg to move that the House do now resume. In moving this Motion, I suggest that the Committee begin again not before fifteen minutes before three.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Northern Ireland Act 1998 and Northern Ireland Act 2000 (Modification) Order 2004
1.45 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 20 April be approved [17th Report from the Joint Committee and 5th Report from the Merits Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move that the House consider the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and the Northern Ireland Act 2000 (Modification) Order 2004. I shall speak also to the direction given by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland under Section 5IB of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. They were laid before this House on 20 and 28 April 2004 respectively.
The order empowers the Secretary of State to act on the Independent Monitoring Commission's recommendations in respect of MLAs' salaries and financial assistance to parties. The direction stops the payment of financial assistance to two parties, Sinn Fein and the Progressive Unionist Party, for a period of 12 months. The order and direction are made in the light of the first report of the IMC on the incidence of paramilitary activity laid before Parliament on 20 April.
The commission found that paramilitary activity was still at a disturbingly high level and that, in its view, two parties represented in the Northern Ireland Assembly, Sinn Fein and the PUP, have links with paramilitary groups. It recommended that the Secretary of State should,
"consider taking action in respect of the salary of Assembly members and/or the funding of Assembly parties, so as to impose an appropriate financial measure in respect of Sinn Fein and the Progressive Unionist Party".
The modification order was designed to facilitate such a step. It modifies the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which was amended by the Northern Ireland (Monitoring Commission etc.) Act 2003 to broaden the range of measures that the Assembly could take against parties on the grounds that they were not committed to non-violence and exclusively peaceful and democratic means; or on the grounds that they were not committed to such of their Members as are or might become Ministers or junior Ministers observing other terms of the pledge of office. The Assembly may take these measures by means of a cross-community vote. They include exclusion from ministerial office, and reduction of pay and financial assistance to parties.
This legislation also inserted a provision in the 1998 Act allowing the Secretary of State to take such steps by direction in circumstances where the IMC had recommended such a step; and where the Assembly had itself tried to take such a step and failed to do so due to lack of cross-community support. However, in the absence of a sitting Assembly, it has been necessary to make a modification order to remove the prior requirement for a resolution of the Assembly having failed, in order that the Secretary of State might exercise the power in relation to the recommendation of the IMC. The Secretary of State concluded, following an interval allowed for the parties to make representations, that he should take steps in respect of the financial assistance payable to Sinn Fein and the PUP, in line with the IMC's recommendations. The direction made on 28 April therefore provides that assistance payable in accordance with the Financial Assistance for Political Parties Scheme 2002, under the Financial Assistance for Political Parties Act (Northern Ireland) 2000, shall not be payable to Sinn Fein or the Progressive Unionist Party from 29 April 2004 to 28 April 2005. The Secretary of State has stated that he will reconsider the matter in the context of the next IMC report, which is expected in about 6 months' time.
We are firmly committed to political progress in Northern Ireland and the restoration of the devolved institutions. But that requires a genuine commitment from all parties to exclusively peaceful and democratic means. We strongly condemn the continuing paramilitary activity described in the IMC report. We believe that the fact of our imposing the measures, as well as the substance of them, demonstrates clearly the unacceptability of the conduct revealed in the report. I commend the order to the House.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 20 April be approved [17th Report from the Joint Committee and 5th Report from the Merits Committee].—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I thank the Minister for so clearly outlining what these orders will do. I do not have a great deal to say. However, perhaps I may refer to the reduction of pay for Members of the Assembly. There is one point that should not be forgotten. It is a sorry state of affairs that we are still in this position, which we are in for one reason and one reason only. The suspension, in my opinion, is caused by one party and one party only. It knows, and all your Lordships know, who it is; that is, Sinn Fein/IRA.
Sinn Fein/IRA finds it quite impossible to divorce itself from paramilitary terrorist force, either north or south of the border. Daily, it is giving up so much of what has been achieved by itself as a political democratic party and by others who have made concessions and worked with it to try to create the environment in which power sharing can take place in order for the community in Northern Ireland to move forward on a power-sharing basis.
It is doing the same thing in the Republic. It is putting itself at risk. The Taoiseach said that he will not have Sinn Fein sharing power while it is linked to the IRA and has a paramilitary army. It is quite possible that after the next elections there will be a vacuum and that the opportunity for Sinn Fein will be there to take power. I sincerely hope that the Taoiseach sticks to his word and does not go back on it. I support the Government, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State in standing by the Taoiseach's word about keeping Sinn Fein out of government until such time as it divorces itself publicly, completely and utterly from militarism.
It does not look as though the situation will change very quickly. However, if that is the situation, it is obviously right that Members of the Assembly—the MLAs—should unfortunately have to take a reduction in their salaries because they are not able to fulfil their jobs completely.
This may be a red herring, but I am very concerned about the infrastructure of the Assembly while Stormont is suspended. The longer the situation goes on, the more we shall see competent officials weep away. When the Assembly reassembles, I suspect that the government of the day will find themselves short of experience, as well as competent civil servants and those who are required to run the establishment. I put it to the Government that they should pay some attention to what is happening there. Perhaps they are, but I do not know that. That is not entirely a criticism; it is more of a warning.
The second part of the order effectively fines Sinn Fein/ IRA in order to stop funds being paid to it. Of course, I support that. Personally, I think that that is too light a touch. I was horrified, and I pressed the Secretary of State on the matter, that it should still be allowed to have access and to draw allowances from Westminster. The response

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from the Government was that they wanted to keep the channels of communication open. That is a very naïve response.
The channels of communication are open all of the time. One does not have to draw allowances, walk about in the corridors and have meetings in the meeting rooms at Westminster in order to keep communications open with the Government, even if one is a terrorist movement. As we all know—I do not criticise this either—everyone can get access and have communication to government in one way or another as regards politics and what is going on in Northern Ireland.
I apologise for speaking for rather longer than I had intended. I have taken all of three minutes, but I thought that I might do it in 30 seconds. I support the Government in bringing forward these measures today.
Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for introducing the order. We are where we are. It is very unfortunate that with the Assembly not sitting the report of the Independent Monitoring Commission could not have gone, in the first instance, to the Assembly for consideration.
As I understand it, when the order was put in earlier, it was for the Secretary of State to use as a longstop if the Assembly was found to be unable to act on any of these recommendations. In the case of Sinn Fein, I do not think that the amount of money that it will lose will matter a jot to its accounts. Its impact is essentially symbolic. However, in the case of the PUP, with only one MLA, it will be a very severe loss of financial assistance.
I think that we are reiterating once more that the present impasse can be solved only if Sinn Fein now declares quite unequivocally that the war is over. That is the import of the order, rather than the amount of money involved. We must all hope and pray that there will be a restoration. However, as I have said before in your Lordships' House, that is now very much in Sinn Fein's hands. The irony is that if Sinn Fein does not move in order that we can restore the devolutionary settlement, it will have risked direct rule, I suspect, for a very long time to come unless it gives us a real initiative.
Noble Lords on these Benches support the order, but we hope that in taking a longer perspective Sinn Fein will, as soon as possible, take the sort of initiative that everyone is imploring it to take so that there can be restored devolved government in Northern Ireland.
2 p.m.
Lord Rogan: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, will be pleased to know that I praise the Government for acting swiftly on the Independent Monitoring Commission's first report and for imposing the financial burdens and penalties. That comes not a moment too soon. However, that action must be a turning point in the political process as a whole in Northern Ireland. It
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must not be a token sanction against those parties that have consistently prevented the establishment of devolution as envisaged under the Belfast agreement.
The IMC's continuing work and future reports must be properly used as a mechanism for testing whether certain organisations are eligible to be in the political process given the broken promises under the Mitchel principles and the Belfast agreement.
It is due exactly to the failures of certain parties that we are here today, and let us not forget that it is due also to the failure of the British and Irish Governments to hold those double-dealing organisations to account under their international commitments to pursue their goals by purely peaceful means. We are here today because the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right honourable Paul Murphy MP, has accepted the findings of the IMC and has finally come to hold the view of the vast majority of those living in the Province, that,
"PUP and Sinn Fein/IRA are not committed to non-violence and exclusively peaceful means".
Last week the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Hugh Orde, revealed that there have been almost 1,700 paramilitary-style attacks in Northern Ireland since January 1998. The chief constable said that just over 600 of those attacks were carried out by republicans, mostly by the IRA, with loyalists carrying out just under 1,100. While most of the paramilitary organisations in question are apparently still on ceasefire, the people of Northern Ireland are faced with the shocking reality of daily newspaper and television reports detailing murders, shootings, beatings, abductions and expulsions by these very same groups. There comes a time when one has to say that enough is enough, and now is the time for this Government to state unequivocally that the transition phase of the political process is over. The inter-governmental strategy of a carrot-led, drip-feed, softly-softly process—placating those who purport to be weaning their organisations off violence and rehabilitating their members through the cold turkey of their apparent conversion to democracy —has totally and utterly failed.
These organisations are either completely with the democratic political process or they are completely against the democratic political process. The Government must shut down the halfway house that they have allowed parties such as Sinn Fein/IRA and the PUP to take refuge in for the past six years. This situation has created a political vacuum in Northern Ireland and those who have prospered and grown in the void of political uncertainty are the political extremists who feed off inter-communal tension and fear.
The Government's response to the first report from the IMC must not be simply a token knee-jerk reaction to stave off criticism in the short term. Rather it must be the beginning of a phase in the political process that drives it home loud and clear to all those who still cast a shadow of terror over our Province. The gun, the baseball bat and the hurley stick must have absolutely no place under the negotiating table in any part of the United Kingdom.

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However, it is not just the negotiating table that we need to be concerned with. Many of these paramilitary attacks and shootings are perpetrated by groups whose political wings are completely out of the political loop. These sanctions will not have any effect whatsoever on the UDA/UVF, the LVF, the Real IRA or the other loyalist and republican splinter groups that are still fully active. They do not begin to address the paramilitary gangs who deal in drugs, run extortion rackets and fill the market on both sides of the Irish border with stolen goods. The Northern Ireland Office must not sit on its hands over the summer period concerning these issues. It must draw up plans to deal with this dilemma immediately.
As my party leader indicated in another place last week, this raises difficult questions for the PSNI, Customs & Excise, the Inland Revenue, the Assets Recovery Agency and, indeed, the Electoral Commission. Should the IMC's second report detail a continuation of such criminal paramilitary activity, the people of Northern Ireland will expect prompt action. Therefore people should be aware that the findings of the IMC will have serious repercussions not simply for paramilitary organisations and their political wings, but for the Government and a whole range of statutory agencies. I hope that they are listening to and taking note of this most serious point.
Things as they stand do not bode well for the immediate future in Northern Ireland. There have been many rumours about the intentions of both loyalist and republican paramilitary organisations concerning the Province's interfaces during the walking season this summer. My colleagues and I have heard reports of paramilitaries saying that the IMC can keep the peace at the interfaces this July and August. I do not expect the House to be too surprised by such an attitude on the part of the paramilitaries, but in the light of the IMC report, it is pure folly for them to assume that their actions will go unnoticed and that hotting things up in Belfast and at other flashpoints throughout Northern Ireland this summer will go unpunished. If these rumours are true and they do stir up inter-communal divisions and violence across Northern Ireland, then the IMC's second report will surely have to conclude that not only have these people ignored their commitments under the Belfast agreement, but that the Government's sanctions have been insufficient and ineffective.
The whole point of the IMC is to ensure that the game played by the paramilitaries immediately after the ceasefires, a game of not claiming responsibility and hoping that the authorities would turn a blind eye, is over, and over for good. That is not just because the IMC is determined to keep a spotlight on things, but because the Northern Ireland Office and various statutory agencies are determined to ensure that no one turns a blind eye to these illegal activities.
The time for an inch-by-inch process, defined by the pace of the slowest political learner, Sinn Fein/IRA, has passed. The Government must use the powerful IMC to ensure that the refractory parties engage in the acts of completion that they have long promised and
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yet denied us. It is my belief that the IMC will provide the Government with the means to enforce these requirements.
In conclusion, I would like to thank most warmly the members of the IMC, one of whom is our colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, for the impartial and constructive work that they have conducted and continue to do. Their influence has been a purely positive one. My only regret is that had the Government taken action and established it in 2002, as my party recommended, we might well not have had this divisive and disruptive period of suspension.
Lord Fitt: My Lords, I am quite certain that all noble Lords in the House this afternoon deeply regret the necessity of bringing forward this order. I am sure that we had all hoped that since the elections last year an accommodation could have been found between the various political parties in Northern Ireland whereby devolution could have been restored, along with a power-sharing executive. It would then have been unnecessary to agree this order today.
The figures just given by the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, and—even more important—the figures given a fortnight ago by the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough. in our debate on these issues make frightening reading. The people of Northern Ireland are living in a maelstrom of paramilitary activity, with the resulting murders, executions and kneecappings that are taking place. The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, mentioned this, and it is worth while to go into just a little further.
The IMC made its report and the Secretary of State has acted upon it by reducing financial assistance to Sinn Fein and to the one Member who is allegedly the spokesman for the UVF. I think he would regard himself as being unfairly treated. Whereas Sinn Fein has many members who are or were formerly attached to the IRA, David Ervine is there on his own and his party will lose all the financial assistance it has been given. However, even given the curtailment of this financial assistance, Sinn Fein and David Ervine will still retain their offices in Stormont. They have not been taken away from them; they can use those offices today just as they could before the suspension of the Assembly. That seems very unfair.
I have often repeated in the House that a former Prime Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, once said that Northern Ireland was as British as Finchley. That is not true in this case, but there is a certain parallel. Leaving David Ervine aside for the purpose of this argument, even if we take away its financial assistance in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein will retain its offices within the precincts of this building in the United Kingdom. Although its members attend at Stormont, they do not attend the House at the other end of the building—and yet they retain the financial assistance given to political parties here. It seems to be very unfair: the people who are subject to the order in Stormont are not subject to it here in the United Kingdom.
It has been reported in the press—although it has been vehemently denied by many sources—that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were members

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of Sinn Fein and the IRA. As I said, that has been denied but the people of Northern Ireland can make up their own minds as to its veracity. It seems a contradictory position for the Government to take if the top spokesmen of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland—Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness—are to be denied financial assistance within the precincts of Northern Ireland but are still allowed to claim it in the United Kingdom in relation to another place. I repeat, it is not true that Northern Ireland is as British as Finchley on an issue such as this when one considers the British and Northern Irish sides of the situation.
Does the Minister have any idea of the monetary amount that has been given to Sinn Fein and how much has been withdrawn; how much was given to so-called loyalists through the agency of David Ervine? The financial assistance had not been withdrawn; it is still obtainable here in the United Kingdom.
If the Government are to be even-handed and accept that financial restrictions should be placed on Sinn Fein/IRA and the loyalist paramilitaries, who do not have a representative in the other place, the same restrictions that are placed on the receipt of these moneys in Northern Ireland should apply here.
2.15 p.m.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass: My Lords, I endorse what has been said by my noble friend Lord Rogan and the noble Lord. Lord Fitt, both of whom emphasised very firmly the inadequacy of what has been presented in your Lordships' House today as a way of dealing with the intransigence and violence of paramilitary organisations. I do not wish to appear not to recognise the work of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in so far as he has endeavoured to respond to the report of the IMC, but I should like to put it in context with regard to the finances that are, in real terms, available to republican and loyalist organisations.
I say at the outset that I take some satisfaction from the fact that the first IMC report was to the point and highlighted the matters that those of us who live and work in Northern Ireland know as day-to-day realities. It underpins the judgment of my party, the Ulster Unionist Party, to press for an IMC. The idea was scoffed at, and it was said that it would not make a great deal of difference. I believe that it has made an immense difference in so far as it has shown to the greater public and the international community the extent to which the present situation is being exploited by those still involved, or willing to be involved, in the violence, intimidation and community bullying that is affecting the lives of young people in Northern Ireland.
Let me give an example. I am an elected councillor at local government level, and I chair a committee which works in conjunction with local government arrangements and provides funding for community projects. One matter that has struck me over the years that I have chaired the committee has been the extent to which moneys intended for community good are channelled to prisoners' organisations. The intent was to rehabilitate those who had been offenders and yet, only
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in the past week, I chaired an appeal from a prisoners' organisation because we had refused to fund a project. Your Lordships may be surprised to learn—I certainly was not—that one of the people who appeared as an appellant was the current OC of the Provisional IRA in my district.
That example illustrates the crossover between those who would perpetuate violence in our community and those who, from whatever extreme wing of the community they may come, perhaps have the intention of moving into a more democratic process. It is a point that cannot and should not be overlooked. One of the saddest things is that the funding for victims throughout the community does not compare at all with the funding that goes towards paramilitary organisations.
While I and most people will welcome the partial constraint on providing money to Sinn Fein and the loyalist paramilitaries, it is only the tip of the iceberg. We still allow these organisations to canvass for funds abroad. The same constraints that exist in Great Britain do not exist in Northern Ireland—there is talk that the Government will change that—and, so far, vast amounts of money come from abroad, from illegal activities and through legitimate channels.
I conclude by pointing out that at the last election for the Northern Ireland Assembly, according to the official declaration, Sinn Fein spent £28,000 on the election. To put that into context, my party spent more than £200,000. Sinn Fein allegedly spent £28,000, but anyone who goes round Northern Ireland at the moment and looks at the preparation for the European election will realise that the Sinn Fein candidate, Bairbre de Brun, has probably already spent in excess of that sort of money in posters put up the length and breadth of Northern Ireland. They are the very best of coloured posters, which are not cheap—as anyone who has stood for election will understand.
I do not want to detract from the steps that have been taken. However, I want to endorse what my noble friends Lord Rogan and Lord Fitt have said about this being the tip of the iceberg. There is not likely to he a long-term benefit to society in Northern Ireland unless the whole activity in this respect is beefed up, so that other loopholes are closed.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I reassure the Minister that I intend to be brief. The Independent Monitoring Commission has done an important service by confirming that continuing breaches of the Belfast agreement have been happening and are still happening. I am happy to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, that those breaches have been just as much committed by loyalist paramilitaries as by republican or nationalist ones. I also agree with the noble Lord on the great importance of combined action by all law-enforcement agencies to counter those breaches and uses of totally illegal force.
I realise that the order is very limited in its scope, but I urge the Government to do two things— perhaps even three—which go beyond the scope of the order. The first is to give a strong lead, mobilising public

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opinion against violence. In this, the Government will have the support of the constitutional political parties; they enjoy the support of civil society at large in Northern Ireland, and they deserve the support of all the Churches and all the media in organising public resistance to illegal violence. Secondly, I urge the Government to make available the maximum possible ways for individuals to leave behind violence and enter into normal jobs and employment, to work in community development and activities, and to enter legitimate political activity.
In the context of those two forms of action to counter violence, I trust that there will not be renewed political vetting of community associations carrying out legitimate community work and activities. I know that there is anxiety on that score in Northern Ireland at the moment. I hope that the Government recall that forms of political vetting were used in the past and generally found to be counter-productive.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I begin by thanking all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate.
On the matter raised by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, about the staffing issue and the Assembly staff in post, we all recognise the need to continue to strike a balance between being ready to reactivate the Assembly at short notice on the one hand and being responsible with public money on the other. Some staff have been redeployed, while others remain. We shall continue regularly to review the position of Assembly staff with that balance in mind.
I hope that noble Lords will join me in paying tribute to the staff who assist myself, my noble friend the Lord President of the Council and many other Members while we continue to have to deal with the detail of Northern Ireland decisions here. I am very grateful to them, and I know that all noble Lords are.
All noble Lords have recognised the issue as to whether sanctions on the parties proposed and the particular financial terms under the decision before us today are appropriate. The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, raised that issue, as did other noble Lords by reference. Under the scheme for financial assistance to political parties, each party receives £48,000 per annum plus £3,000 for each Assembly Member. In the case of single-member parties, the figure is £27,000. That means that the amounts that Sinn Fein and the PUP are barred from claiming at Stormont stand at £120,000 and £27,000 respectively. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, I regret that I do not have similar figures for allowances payable to Sinn Fein at Westminster. I shall seek to get that information and to pass it on to him.
On an issue that was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, we try to strike a balance in dealing with the steps that the IMC has recommended. We are not persuaded that driving republicans away from the democratic institutions would serve the goal of encouraging republicanism to make that final transition to peaceful and democratic means. I understand the
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concerns expressed by the noble Lords, Lord Glentoran and Lord Fitt, but we shall keep the situation under review in the light of progress.
The noble Lords, Lord Rogan, Lord Hylton and Lord Maginnis, referred to the serious activities set out in the IMC report. I take this opportunity to echo and endorse the words of all noble Lords who have recognised the valuable work done by the IMC. We know that the Chief Constable takes very seriously the activities set out in the report, and has always been determined to tackle these problems. The establishment of the Crime Operations Department, the introduction of the National Intelligence Model, engagement in the Organised Crime Task Force and with the Assets Recovery Agency all build on the expertise of the Police Service of Northern Ireland in tackling paramilitary activities.
As noble Lords around the House recognise, and as underlined by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, the responsibility for tackling organised crime goes wider than the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The IMC made it clear that all politicians and others in prominent roles must exert every possible influence to bring about a cessation of paramilitary activities. The IMC recognises that organised crime knows no borders, that the issues outlined are extremely serious and that all those involved must speak up on the issues. We are fully committed to ensuring that the Chief Constable is resourced to continue to deliver an efficient and effective police service. We shall not take any risks with the needs of the population in Northern Ireland.
I note the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, on the relative balance of funding between the activities involved in rehabilitation and the activities that in many parts of the country are often underfunded in the view of the local community. I am a bit tempted to echo a term used by one of my noble friends at the Dispatch Box this morning. If we can recover one lost sheep in this field, the community will be safer. But I know that people resent seeing money going towards the rehabilitation of those who have offended at the expense of those in the community who have never offended.
We understand the issues on funding raised by the noble Lord, Lord Fitt. After consulting widely, we recognise that the current arrangements—that is, disapplication—lack transparency and are open to potential abuse. We are therefore inviting views from interested parties on what new arrangements might be put in place. The consultation period will last until 30 June. I have no doubt that those reading the result of the consultation will receive extremely knowledgeable and helpful communication from Members of your Lordships' House.
I join the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, and all noble Lords in thanking the IMC. We share the noble Lord's desire to encourage all those who wish to see a peaceful summer.
I can but agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, who slightly chided the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. Not only one political party is at fault.

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However—in support of all noble Lords, specifically the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton— reinstating the Northern Ireland institutions is our absolute priority. We continue to talk to parties about how the central issue of an end to paramilitarism can be resolved and the stability of institutions guaranteed. The review of the operation of the agreement has continued into recent weeks.
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Rogan—I think that he raised the issue—it is extremely important that all noble Lords are aware that formal activity is now on hold during the European election period but will resume soon after 10 June. We hope to engage in a period of more formal dialogue at that point.
This IMC report puts down an extremely important marker. We hope that future reports will demonstrate real progress. I thank all noble Lords and I commend the order to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Direction given by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland under Section 51B of the Northern Ireland Act 1998
2.33 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I have already spoken to this direction.
Moved. That the direction laid before the House on 28 April be approved [17th Report from the Joint Committee and 6th Report from the Merits Committee].—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 2.45 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 2.33 to 2.45 p.m. ]

Children Bill [H.L.]
House again in Committee.
Clause 6 [Co-operation to improve well-being]:
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Baroness Sharp of Guildford moved Amendment No. 80:
Page 4, line 23, after "co-operation" insert "and co-ordination"
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 80, I wish to speak also to Amendments Nos. 95, 96, 97, 101, 102 and 102B.
Amendment No. 80 is a small, but, we think, important amendment. Part 2 of the Bill—Clause 6 is the first clause in Part 2—defines a new body, the children's services authority, with the specific duty of promoting co-operation between a number of bodies. The first question to ask is: what sort of a body is the children's services authority? For the answer to that we have to turn to Clause 49 at the end of the Bill, which lists certain types of local authority. Clause 13 goes a
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little further and tells us that local authorities that are children's services authorities must appoint a director of children's services to assist in carrying out a local authority's children, social services and education responsibilities.
There are three questions that we need to ask about the concept of the children's services authority. First, why are we going to the trouble of creating this new authority if all it can do is to,
"make arrangements to promote co-operation"?
Given the repeated failures in co-operation, of which the Victoria Climbiée case was only the last in a very long line, surely we want an authority that has stronger powers to co-ordinate rather than just to arrange to promote co-operation. Here some help is given by the guidance note that the Minister kindly sent to us, paragraph 10 of which notes that,
"local authorities who are children's services authorities should oversee arrangements for integrated planning, commissioning and delivery of services".
This notion of integrated planning, commissioning and delivery of services underlies the concept of the children's trust. Effectively, children's services authorities are the precursors, as I understand it, to the concept of children's trusts. However, the term "children's trust", which appears in the Explanatory Notes in relation to children's services authorities, does not appear on the face of the Bill.
It would be very helpful if the Minister could clarify for us, first, what the functions of the children's services authorities are and, secondly, the relationship between them, the concept of integrated planning and commissioning and the emergence of children's trusts. It would help those working on the Bill if that was clarified.
Why call the body children's services authority? Children's services are defined in Clause 18—but only for the purposes of Clauses 15 to 17—as,
"anything done for or in relation to children and relevant young persons".
Would not the new body have more authority if its name reflected its functions—education, as well as just children, and young people as well as just children? We are not allowed to change the title of this part of the Bill but there is nevertheless a series of amendments that question what we mean by the term "young people". We debated some of those amendments this morning, others will arise later. For whom will the children's services authority act?
Whose activities is the children's services authority supposed to co-ordinate or to promote co-operation between? Clause 6(3) makes clear that co-operation is between relevant partners. It lists district councils and county councils. The clause refers to a district council but it is important to remember that for most county councils there are considerably more than one district council to be taken into account. Clause 6(3) also refers to police authorities, local probation boards, strategic health authorities and contractors to the Learning and Skills Council for England. The questions that immediately arise are, "Why those particular partners? What rationale is there?".
There is some uncertainty about the precise relationship between "Co-operation to improve wellbeing" and:
"Arrangements to safeguard and promote welfare",
on which there is another list under Clause 7; I know that we have not yet reached Clause 7. If the Minister would clarify why we have to have a different group of people in Clause 7 from the relevant partners in Clause 6, that would be of some help.
I shall go back to that list of partners. The other amendments to which I speak really relate to the question of, "If those partners, why not others?". We have strategic health authorities, but why those? I thought that they were being phased out. Amendment No. 95 would introduce National Health Service trusts. Why are those not included? Amendment No. 102B asks, "Why not GPs?". GPs are the people who actually have contact with children. They are contractors to PCTs, which are included in the list in Clause 7. However, GPs are not included.
Amendment No. 96 looks at schools and those delivering frontline services. If we look at the Bill as a whole and consider the role of schools, it is clear that, as the National Association of Head Teachers puts it:
"Schools are to be at the heart of the 'Every Child Matters Agenda'. Their role, as extended schools, and the responsibilities of their headteachers, will change significantly. No-one should be in any doubt that the NAHT members want to play their part in making sure that no child slips through the net. Our members are heavily involved in the Early Years and Sure Start initiatives, as well as Primary, Secondary and Special schools. But multi-disciplinary teams based in schools, with heads clearly accountable for outcomes from a range of extended services, come at a cost".
The association goes on to plead for resources. There is no mention of schools in the Bill. Where do schools fit in? A series of our amendments to which I shall speak later picks up that issue.
What about youth offending teams, as covered in Amendment No. 97? Why are they not included? The guidance note states quite specifically that the guidance will give specific advice to each of the agencies listed in Clause 6(3), and to the youth offending teams on what the reciprocal duty to co-operate with the local authority means to them. Despite playing that substantial part in the guidance note, youth offending teams are not listed.
The amendment on independent care homes may seem slightly odd but, of the 1,714 homes that currently care for children and young people in our country, 1,027 are independent. However, the only ones to be represented in the Bill are the local authority care homes, through their local authority. Is it not appropriate that some representation be made for independent care homes? Amendment No. 102 refers to the governor of a local prison or secure training centre. In other circumstances, those concerned with the police, probation service and youth offending teams are involved. Is it not appropriate in some circumstances to include the governor of the local prison or secure training centre where there are young people in such accommodation?
The group of amendments seeks to probe the nature of the children's services authority and why the specific list of relevant partners was included. I beg to move.
Baroness Byford: I shall speak to Amendment No. 85, which is in the group. I feel somewhat sorry for the Minister who will respond to the debate, because we are back on the question of lists and who should and should not be included, which is always a nightmare. My noble friend Lord Howe will speak to one of the later amendments in the group, but my amendment is intended to draw the Committee's attention to the fact that voluntary organisations, charities and private sector organisations are not included. The Minister may well tell me that the amendment is not necessary; I shall listen to what she has to say.
Our intention is simply to ensure that no person or organisation assumes that the Bill applies only to those paid to carry out specific functions with regard to the well-being of children. There have always been individuals who have worked tirelessly for no financial reward on behalf of children. Perhaps the most well known—I shall get told off for this—is Barnardo, who gave his name to a world-renowned organisation that still campaigns and draws our attention to new variations on old themes. However, it is only in very recent times that volunteers have been regimented, instructed and given statutory duties.
Such volunteers take on responsibilities and accept heavy workloads in many areas. Some are school governors, who will know what I mean about the extra workload that they carry. Some belong to the citizens advice bureaux, which work up and down the country and carry on all sorts of different tasks. My background was with the Women's Royal Voluntary Service, which straddled everything in those days and now looks more to the care of the elderly. Unfortunately, I hear that there increasingly seems to be a culture that assumes that the volunteer's time is less valuable compared to that of someone paid to do the job.
The Bill should carry an open reminder to everyone associated with child welfare, protection and advancement that volunteers and the organisations to which they belong are important and should not be ignored.
The Earl of Listowel: I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 100 and 110, which are in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Elton. In a judicial review dated November 2002, the Howard League for penal reform was successful in challenging Home Office policy that the Children Act 1989 did,
"not apply to under 18s in prison establishments".
Although that was a landmark ruling, the decision meant that local authorities retained a statutory duty to safeguard the welfare of children even if they were in prison, rather than the prison authorities.
The decision has been difficult to implement. It now makes practical sense to bring the Prison Service into line with the other agencies responsible for the welfare of vulnerable young people. Therefore, my amendment

929
would include the governor of a prison, secure training centre or other institution catering for children in custody. At the least, it is targeted at that.
It seems wholly appropriate that children in custody should be included in the clause, given the list of priorities, which includes,
"physical and mental health;… education and training; '… the contribution made by them to society; … social and economic well-being".
All such children clearly often fail in those outcomes, and we would very much like them to be caught. If they were better provided for in such ways, they would contribute to not only their well-being, but the wellbeing of society and the protection of the public.
I spoke recently with a young man who had been through Feltham young offender institution. His experience had been that the prison officers there were, for the most part, sympathetic and helpful to him. But they are poorly equipped to engage with these young people. They now receive nine weeks' rather than 12 weeks' training, and that is wholly inadequate to make a difference to the lives of children who are in such an establishment. This is a real opportunity to turn around these young people's lives. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will consider including children in custody in this clause.
I also want to draw the attention of the Committee to Amendment No. 110, which would extend the clause to cover young people under the age of 25. Again, the reoffending rates of young people in this group are very high. The culture within prison is not geared up to dealing with young people making the transition to adulthood, but they would be included if the amendment were incorporated into the Bill.
Perhaps I may give the example of a young man who was a crack addict and dealer. He showed me one of the three bullet wounds that he had received. He was turned around because an adult took an interest in him. She had a specialist qualification as a child psychotherapist. She worked with him and he is now working in a centre helping other young people who come from a similar background to his. He is a young black man—perhaps not so young any more; he is 30—and he is working with other young black people to help them to turn around their lives and become constructive members of the community.
There is a long way to go in terms of changing the culture in these institutions, and incorporating this amendment into the Bill would be an important step in making progress in that respect. I look forward to the Minister's response.
3 p.m.
Boroness Thornton: I shall speak to Amendment No. 99, which stands in my name. This is a probing amendment. We are seeking to explore how to ensure that it is recognised that voluntary sector organisations are key providers of services to children and that their appropriate involvement in the proposed children's services structures is essential.
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I want to pray in aid my honourable friend the Minister for Children, Young People and Families, Margaret Hodge, who last week said that she was keen to see the voluntary sector playing a bigger role in the provision of services under children's trusts, pledging local agreements and ring-fenced funding to protect the sector's involvement in them. She said:
"Early intervention, identification, prevention and services built around the needs of the child is music to the ears of the voluntary sector, which is more sensitive to users' needs".
She added that,
"if it is to become a bigger player it will need stronger outcomes and greater accountability".
In fact, the voluntary sector is already a big player. The five largest charities in the sector—the NSPCC, the Children's Society, Barnardo's, Save the Children UK and NCH—are substantial contracting businesses, and sometimes relatively little of their revenue comes from fund-raising. For example, NCH earned £128 million of business in the year 2002–03 with the provision of publicly funded services for children. It provides a huge range of services and is a big player in this market place. It is on that basis that I tabled the amendment.
The voluntary sector does not appear on the face of the Bill, yet many voluntary organisations—whether large, small or medium-sized—play an important role in the provision of such services, as I outlined. Sometimes the efforts are voluntary and sometimes the services are contracted. In some fields—for example, family support—the voluntary sector provides the bulk of the support for families. The Government say that they wish to promote the role of voluntary organisations in delivering services and that they will express that in guidance, but obviously that will not be subject to parliamentary scrutiny, nor carry statutory force.
Many children's voluntary organisations are concerned that there should be a level playing field when it comes to the terms for local contracting and commissioning so that the organisation best placed to deliver a service is, in fact, the one that is chosen to do so, regardless of which sector it comes from. That requires the commissioning process to be fair, open and transparent and based on the principles of best value, taking both quality and cost into account. I am sure that all noble Lords will agree that that is in the best interests of children, young people and their families.
Some of the voluntary organisations are not yet convinced that the Government's current intentions to progress that through guidance will result in a fair and open commissioning process. Therefore, I invite my noble friend to explain how the commissioning process can be designed in such a way as to guarantee that valuable services are not lost by accident in the first round of giving out contracts because of procurement bureaucracy and guidelines. For example, would the pressures of the Gershon report come into play in this area? The aim of that report is to squeeze savings from

931
the procurement of goods of services. Will that read across into the commissioning of children's services and, if so, to what effect?
Earl Howe: I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 85A and 108 in this group. Amendment No. 85A is a purely probing amendment to establish whether the list of outcomes in this clause covers children in the criminal justice system and children who, for one reason or another, are considered likely to offend. From what the Minister said previously, I assume that the answer is "yes", but there is an important aspect to this issue.
There is a marked correlation between the circumstances of a child's life which lead to offending and those that lead to other forms of risk. The preventive activities which may help to address family and environmental risk factors are not so very far removed from the activities that can prevent a child being excluded from school or needing child and adolescent mental health services. Truancy and misbehaviour at school have a number of causes. Most informed people believe that they are best tackled using a multi-agency response. However, I believe it is important that the way in which that response is exercised does not label or stigmatise children as potential offenders.
It would be very helpful to hear from the noble Baroness that in this type of case the approach adopted by the different agencies will be geared to supporting families in an integrated way. I am worried that initiatives such as youth inclusion and support panels could, perhaps unintentionally, serve to create stigma. That, in my view, would be deeply unfortunate.
I turn to Amendment No. 108. It seems obvious that any arm of local government which is in any way concerned with delivering services to children should be part of the co-operative arrangements referred to in Clause 6. That, indeed, is the conclusion that one has to draw from the definition in Clause 49 of the term "children's services authority". However, it would be helpful to have confirmation of that from the Minister because the document, Every Child Matters: Next Steps, gave the clear impression that that may not be so. For example, it indicated that youth offending teams will not have to be part of the local partnership arrangements, although they could be.
There is always room for flexibility at local level. However, I think that youth offending teams, which are responsible for delivering key services and interventions for some of the most troubled children, should be included in the arrangements as a matter of course. After all, the whole point of youth offending teams is to have a multi-disciplinary group of professional people whose job it is to meet the needs of young offenders, many of which can be quite complex and challenging. In my view, there really is no case for leaving them out of the partnership.
Boroness Stern: I support Amendment No. 100, which has already been spoken to by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. I support it in the context of the recent report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, published on 12 May. The report noted that Part 2 of the Bill,
"engages the important positive obligations owed to children under Articles 2, 3 and 8 ECHR, to take positive steps to protect their lives, to protect them from inhuman and degrading treatment, and to protect their physical integrity".
Within that context, will the Minister explain why the detention institutions where children are held are not included while, quite rightly, both the police authority and the probation board are?
There is no doubt that children in such institutions need attention paid to their well-being. Many reports by the Chief Inspector of Prisons on places where juveniles are held highlight seriously unacceptable practices. It can be argued that those are now out of date. I will quote from one report that came out on 5 May about Bullwood Hall, where young girls are held. It states:
"Bullwood Hall holds the second highest number of girls in the prison estate: 20 at the time of the inspection. Some were very vulnerable, three were on suicide watch, and six were pregnant (with child protection implications for the baby as well as the mother). In spite of this, child protection arrangements were inadequate."
The Minister said that the Government,
"strongly believe that the views of children rather than the rights agenda should drive the commissioner's work".—[Official Report,30/3/04; col. 1303.]
She was talking about the Children's Commissioner and I am sure that she would say the same about Part 2 of the Bill. She will perhaps be aware of the Home Office research study Tell Them So They Listen, which carried out extensive questioning and interviews with children in custody describing their experiences.
I shall end by giving a brief flavour of that study. It states:
"Many gave detailed practical examples of disrespectful treatment, clear abuse of power by adults in authority and, in some cases, incidents involving overt racism or violence … Many spoke of being scared, humiliated and de-personalised on reaching prisons".
One young woman said:
"You … feel like a catalogue delivery. like you're nothing".
The study included recommendations that staff should treat children and young people with respect; that they should make prisons safe for young people by tackling bullying and racism; and they should reduce the use of prescribed drugs by including healthcare and emotional support for young people.
Listening to children produces the same results as observing human rights and I support the amendment.
Boroness Massey of Darwen: I shall speak to Amendment No. 102A, which is a probing amendment. It focuses on the need to take account of the needs of young people in relation to substance misuse services, including drug action teams. I declare an interest as the chair of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse.

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The Government's public service agreement to target young people and drug misuse is to reduce,
"the use of class A drugs and the frequent use of any illicit drug among all young people under the age of 25, especially the most vulnerable young people".
The success of the drugs strategy relies on effective partnership working at a national and local level. That is emphasised throughout that strategy. Achieving that target will contribute to the five key outcomes for young people described in Every Child Matters. I and my colleagues from the National Treatment Agency have had a helpful discussion on this issue with the Minister for Children, Margaret Hodge, and useful correspondence from her in relation to our concerns.
In this probing amendment, I simply want to flag up the importance of preventive and treatment measures necessary if young peoples' substance misuse is to be tackled successfully. Agencies must co-operate and substance misuse must not be linked just to criminal justice. I am concerned about that, particularly with regard to young people, some of whom would be better served through treatment outside custody.
A drug action team, where it exists, should have a young person's lead and action should be integrated into the commissioning process for vulnerable young people. In my view, drug action teams are relevant partners in services for young people and I am anxious that there should at least be sufficient guidance given on this issue with the Bill. I look forward to the Minister's response.
3.15 p.m.
Boroness Thomas of Walliswood: I rise in support of my noble friend but there a particular aspect of the issue that I wish to put to the Minister.
I had the good fortune some time ago to speak to the lead officer of a county council that had already created the internal reforms necessary to arrive at the creation of a children's services authority. He said something that is directly relevant to this group of amendments and the group that starts with Amendment No. 84. He was fearful lest the organisational pattern should be at a high level between, in effect, education, social services and the National Health Service. He felt strongly that there should be a community aspect to what was going on. To my way of thinking, these amendments have been precisely about that particular aspect of the issue. The officer mentioned the voluntary sector and schools— which is being dealt with later.
An example of something that seems to be at rather a high level is the fact the Clause 6(3)(f) lists the Learning and Skills Council for England, rather than the local Learning and Skills Council's representative. That is an example of the sort of matter that that local officer might find of concern. I hope the Minister can reassure us that the work of the many agencies at a local level—including schools, because there is a separation between education authorities and the schools which they ostensibly control—and the community aspect of the organizational
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process are what the Government and the Bill are trying to reach, even though the words in the Bill are not particularly helpful in creating that atmosphere.
Boroness Ashton of Upholland: I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken to their amendments with great clarity. I shall now attempt to deal with them all, but it may be useful to set out the contexts of Clauses 6 and 7, particularly as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, asked me about that.
The point about the Clause 6 group is that it involves the relevant partners who have responsibility for strategic decision making and the commissioning of services. It will be important that delivery agencies, such as NHS trusts and schools and the voluntary sector, are involved and that their expertise is used in planning and decision making—which will be made clear in guidance and is enabled under Clause 6(1)(c). The agencies listed in Clause 7 are both strategic agencies and those which have day-to-day responsibilities towards, and contact with, children. This duty is about the way in which these agencies deal with children and it is appropriate that the wider group of agencies are covered. Indeed, Clause 7(2)(b) ensures that those exercising functions on behalf of the agencies listed—for example, GPS and childcare providers—are also covered.
I hope that that helps the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, in particular—if it does not I shall write to her. I should also say to her that the children's service authority is the top tier local authority, whose responsibility is to make arrangements for that co-operation, whereas the Children's Trust is the main commissioning body for integrated children's services and therefore is part of that co-operation arrangement.
Clause 6 is designed to get those key organisations to work together—focusing on the outcomes, as we have said in earlier debates, moving away from professional silos and getting services to work together in a way that meets the needs of the user; that is, the child. We are keen to prescribe only where it is necessary to allow local partners to develop arrangements and to take account of local circumstances. We believe that we have got right the level of detail and many of the amendments, as noble Lords have indicated, seek to add to that detail so as to ensure that a specific group of children or young people are included or a particular agency is mentioned. I hope that I can provide the assurances that Members seek to be able to withdraw their amendments.
Amendments Nos. 80 and 186 would strengthen the need to co-ordinate at all levels. Amendment No. 85A draws our attention to the needs of young people who are at risk or who have been offenders. Amendments Nos. 85, 95 to 97, 99 to 102B and 108 are about specifying detail in the Bill.
In Amendment No. 80, the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, is keen to strengthen the clause and ensure that not only do the children's services authority have a responsibility to co-operate but also to co-ordinate the work. We believe that because of the way we framed the Bill there is no need to include an amendment to that effect. Co-ordination is a natural consequence of the way in which we set up the co-operation arrangements.

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We believe that effective co-operation is a prerequisite for co-ordination and integration. It is the starting point on which we build the relationship between the partners. We will provide further advice on the statutory guidance, which will help the noble Baroness to feel comfortable that we have effectively covered the co-ordination of services and ensure that it fits in with what noble Lords have seen in the policy statement.
Amendment No. 85A, moved by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, relates to the group of young people who are at risk of offending or who have offended. I completely and utterly agree with the noble Earl that it is important to ensure that our services do not stigmatise or label children. The way in which we have approached Every Child Matters, is to try to think of services in the round for all children and not to focus only on services for children at specific risk—although that is important. That is how good prevention and preventive measures are achieved.
I agree with the noble Earl that it is a multi-agency approach and a recognition of some of the ways in which children move from one problem to another. It is a spiralling effect. The child who is beginning to truant or be involved in some other activity may eventually be at risk of offending or may offend. It is therefore important to identify children who need support early on in order to ensure that they do not enter that spiral of behaviour. I agree, too, that it is about supporting families to ensure that we provide the necessary services.
For that reason, we have included for those young people who are at serious risk of offending, or who have offended, the police authority, the chief officer of police or the probation board for the local area. We have put them under a duty to co-operate with the arrangements made by the children's services authority to approve well-being. We therefore believe that we have covered those children who are at serious risk of offending, but I take on board the point made about the importance of recognising early the behaviour that might lead to offending or other problems and at that point put in support for families. However, we do not believe that it is necessary to put them on the face of the Bill. They are covered de facto because it is about all children. I want to reinforce the point that we have included all the agencies which we believe to be important in providing that support.
The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, moved the amendment concerned with the voluntary and private sectors. I agree with her tribute to the work of volunteers who do so much to support our statutory services. I do so not least from my own experience in the health service but in areas of child protection and so on.
Furthermore, I entirely agree with the sentiments of my noble friend Lady Thornton on the critical importance of a level playing field for the voluntary sector and of ensuring that we involve it. It is a key provider of services to children and their families. The voluntary sector has enormous expertise, identifying
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unmet need, being at the forefront of developing innovative practice. It is also true that the private sector has played an important role in this. The Government believe that local authorities will need and want to ensure that we involve the sectors in the new arrangements.
We cannot describe such a diverse sector by naming it in the Bill. We also believe it is impractical to place a duty on the voluntary community and private sector organisations to co-operate. We will make it clear in guidance that local authorities must include voluntary and community organisations among the other people or bodies, including private sector bodies, which are involved in the co-operation arrangements.
Not only that, we are committed to removing the barriers to the voluntary sector's increased participation in strategy development and service delivery and planning at a local level. That was alluded to by my noble friend Lady Thornton in terms of the role as service provider on behalf of government and local government. We are developing an over-arching strategy for our relationship with the voluntary and community sector which will aim, among other things, to develop a stronger funding relationship, build capacity and infrastructure, improve our communications and, as importantly, ensure that local structures fully engage with the sectors. We are doing that in conjunction with the voluntary and community sector with a view to publishing a strategy in the autumn this year.
My noble friend Lady Thornton specifically asked me about an issue connected with the Gershon report. We expect services to continue to commission in accordance with the principles of best value and the Gershon report reinforces that. We believe that it is entirely consistent with the Gershon report to examine the commissioning of best value as the approach we would take through our guidance to local authorities in order to ensure we involve them.
I hope that I have answered the questions on the voluntary and community sector, but I am more than happy outside—
Boroness Byford: We all accept that local authorities are key providers and innovators. Their input comes and goes in that they achieve their aims and they are then taken up by someone else. Presumably, the guidance will recommend that local authorities should "have regard" or something similar. But will it state that the local authorities "must have regard"? There is a great difference between what one may desire to happen and specifically directing.
Secondly, during financially difficult times many local authorities unfortunately consider cutting grants to voluntary groups and charities. They could find themselves squeezed if they are not named in the Bill. That is why I was anxious to include the definition. Those are my two main concerns.
Boroness Ashton of Upholland: I am grateful to the noble Baroness. It is difficult in guidance to say that particular partners must be involved. The whole point is to create flexibility. However, I take her point and I

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will reflect on it more. We will indicate to local authorities which other bodies and persons referred to in subsection (4) might be involved in the arrangements. It will make clear the critical point that the voluntary and community sectors must be included at all levels. We are therefore being clear about their relationship and will provide advice on developing a transparent process to ensure that voluntary and community sector partners with which each local authority works most directly are representative of those sectors in the locality.
The transparency of the process will help with the points the noble Baroness made about the funding issues. I recognise them—anecdotally, certainly—to be an issue. Therefore, a combination of ensuring that they must be included at all levels and the transparency will I hope go some way towards addressing the issue.
Critically, there is an absolute commitment from the Government to wish to involve the voluntary and community sector and the private sector where appropriate, not least because we would be extremely foolish not to. They are innovators and providers of services and are often ahead in terms of thinking and strategic work. They are also a critical and vital partner in supporting children. On that basis, I believe that we have got this about right but I am always happy to consider the issue further. I know that my right honourable friend Margaret Hodge is in discussion my noble friend and will continue to be so in order to ensure that we get this right. We believe we have it right; we believe we have been as positive as we can be. We are always willing to consider matters further on that basis.
3.30 p.m.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, referred to the National Health Service and NHS trusts. She was concerned about strategic health authorities being phased out—they are not being phased out as far as I am aware—and about the primary care trusts. A primary care trust is the body that has the responsibility in a local area to identify health needs and to deliver or to commission primary care as appropriate. GPs are connected to that through their contracts with the primary care trust. In guidance we shall make it clear that PCTs must specify that GP practices, including all health staff working in them, co-operate in the arrangements. We believe that that is the best way to achieve what the noble Baroness seeks.
On NHS foundation trusts, I hesitate to get into a detailed debate. I understand the need to involve NHS foundation trusts, but they retain a responsibility to provide services as agreed under contracts with primary care trusts and as such, in the same way as GPs, they will be engaged in co-operative arrangements through their commissioning relationships, subject to local negotiation. Guidance will make clear the importance of working with all those delivering services, including NHS foundation trusts. I hope that answers the point made by the noble Baroness.
On Amendment No. 96, the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, spoke of the need to engage the children's workforce in the co-operation arrangements. That gives
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me my chance to refer to the hard work and dedication of all who deliver services to children. We know that we need to involve those working with children in driving forward this agenda, but we are not convinced that naming their representative bodies as relevant partners under a reciprocal duty to co-operate in local arrangements, as the amendment states, is the best way to secure that engagement.
We are working with employer and other organisations to develop fully the proposals for a social care, children and young people sector skills council and the related children's workforce network, which we believe will be the best way to bring together those who work with children and young people and with their families, to develop plans for workforce development which is a critical part of the agenda. I hope that I have reassured the noble Baroness on that point.
Amendment No. 97, and Amendment No. 108 proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, are similar in their intent and I shall deal with them together. The amendments seek to specify the parts of a children's services authority in England that are to be involved in making arrangements to promote co-operation. As I have already indicated, the children's services authority is the top tier authority, which, in its functions, will need to take account of what impacts on the well-being of children, including, for example, youth and leisure services, when making arrangements for co-operation to improve well-being. What we would expect those authorities to do can be made clear in guidance.
Youth offending teams will have an important role in promoting the co-operation to improve children's well-being. It has always been our intention that youth offending teams should be involved in the arrangements for promoting co-operation and the Home Office is strongly committed to that. Whether or not a youth offending team decides to join a children's trust is something that will be left to local discretion, but it is important that youth offending teams work closely with the trust.
Our firm intent is that youth offending teams are fully involved in co-operation arrangements. We shall consider further, with our colleagues in the Home Office, whether the clause as currently drafted makes the best provision for that. We shall return to the matter on Report. For that reason I resist the amendments as we consider that we have covered them effectively. I am grateful to noble Lords for raising the issue.
Amendments Nos. 100, 101 and 102 draw our attention to the situation of children living in independent children's homes, in prisons or in secure training centres. I am very grateful to noble Lords for raising these issues because it is so important to remember such children. I do not believe that what is proposed by these amendments is the right way to go. The clause as drafted allows independent children's homes, prisons and secure training centres to be included in the co-operation arrangements where it makes sense locally.

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In the case of independent children's homes, the Commission for Social Care Inspection assesses whether or not a children's home should be registered and national minimum standards must be met. Arrangements for placing children already emphasise the need for partnership between parents, children and the responsible authority and between the responsible authority and other agencies.
Regulations that apply to children in independent children's homes place a duty on the responsible authority to draw up and record an individual care plan for the child. I believe that through those means the authority already has enough levers to ensure that independent children's homes are fully engaged in the local co-operation arrangements. I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw Amendment No. 101.
I turn to prisons and secure training centres. The arrangements for promoting co-operation in Clause 6 are focused mainly on children permanently resident in the local authority area concerned. Some of the children or young people living in a young offender institution or in a secure training centre will have been living in the area previously and will probably return to it, but many will not.
Young offender institutions and secure training centres need to develop and to maintain links with each child's home area and, as noble Lords will know, there are already arrangements to do that through the local youth offending teams. The Youth Justice Board is working to strengthen those links, which is important. There would be little purpose in requiring the young offender institutions or secure training centre to take part in arrangements with their local police force or probation board if few of the children in its care were likely to come to the attention of those agencies.
Of course, there are matters—principally safeguarding and child protection—on which the local authority and those bodies need to work closely together. They are provided for in other parts of the Bill, notably in Clause 7, which places a duty on the governor to ensure that he carries out his functions having regard to the need to safeguard and to promote the welfare of children, and in Clause 9 which requires the governor to sit on the local safeguarding children board for his or her area. I hope that that answers the points that have been raised by noble Lords.
Amendment No. 102A was tabled by my noble friend Lady Massey. She has had a meeting with my right honourable friend the Minister with responsibility for children, young people and families and I believe she has received the assurance that the noble Baroness seeks; namely, that this will be covered in guidance. I restate that assurance and confirm to my noble friend that we shall consult widely on the guidance before it is finalised. We want to ensure that the co-operation arrangements meet the needs of those locally. The Bill allows drug action teams to be brought into those arrangements and, given their multi-agency approach, to be an important partner.
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But that level of detail is not for the Bill to prescribe. I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
On Amendment No. 110, Clause 6(8) simply ensures that agencies are not prevented from participating because they provide services for young people over the age of 18. It is to enable better co-operation. It does not extend the duty in Clause 6 to those over the age of 18, including this particular group. We do not believe that adding them as proposed would be helpful.
As we discussed this morning, we are very concerned to ensure that in our criminal justice system the needs of those who are part of it are taken into account. This morning I said to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that that is not for this Bill.
We are making changes to the management of offenders with the creation of a National Offender Management Service from June 2004. That will have a significant impact on the way that all adult offenders are dealt with, including young adult offenders. I could go into great detail, but I shall not because I am conscious of the time. However, I shall write to the noble Earl and to the noble Baroness setting out what are important areas where this new work will impact on the young people with whom they are concerned.
I apologise if this does not meet what the noble Earl seeks, but in a criminal justice system those over 18 are adults. It is critical to ensure that the adult services in the criminal justice system meet their needs and are able to support them in the right way. I do not believe that the answer to this issue raised by the noble Earl is to extend the role of the children's services and to turn adults effectively into children. I understand the issues and, as I say, I shall write to the noble Earl and the noble Baroness to clarify what I believe is happening in regard to the Government's plan.
The Earl of Listowel: I thank the Minister for giving way. I shall read with great interest what she has said and look forward to receiving that correspondence. I simply point out to the noble Baroness that there is a very high proportion of care leavers represented in young offender institutions. I believe the figure is about 40 per cent. Elsewhere in the Bill those particular young people are given a special position, as they were in the Children (Leaving Care) Act. We recognise that their transition to adulthood has been much impeded, often by the neglect that they have experienced in the past. I recognise the difficulties outlined by the noble Baroness and I shall read her correspondence with great interest.
Boroness Ashton of Upholland: I am grateful to the noble Earl. I reiterate what I said earlier: the way in which the age profile has been determined for the Bill is dependent on where the services are. If the services are dealing with young people beyond that age, we have made allowance for the fact that that should continue and not provided an artificial cut-off point. The difference in the criminal justice system is that the cut-off point is in existence.

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I agree with the noble Earl about making sure that for those people who move into the system, the quality of the services is appropriate to their needs. Recognising that so many of these young people and young adults have been through the care system is incredibly important, and I would not detract from that for one second. However, I think it is important that the adult services respond effectively and properly, rather than saying that it is for the children's services to continue up the age range when there is not a clear differential in that way.
I think that I have answered all the issues that have been raised in this group of amendments—I hope I have. On that basis, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Boroness Sharp of Guildford: I thank the Minister for her very detailed reply—I am most grateful to her. I think that I have now understood the distinction between Clauses 6 and 7. My notes say that Clause 6 is really about strategic partners with an overarching responsibility, whereas Clause 7 is about partners being given specific safeguarding responsibilities.
In the old days, we used to have a distinction between purchaser and provider—today it is commissioner and deliverer. Clause 6 is really about our commissioners and Clause 7 about our deliverers. In that sense, it seems that most of the lists we put forward should more appropriately have been added to the list in Clause 7 because they were about deliverers. Maybe I have still got it wrong, and I would be grateful if the Minister would write to me.
We understand what the Minister is saying; it is quite clear that we cannot append all these detailed lists to the Bill. It is more appropriate that such matters are included in guidance, and we look forward to seeing the detailed guidance. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Northbourne Lord Northbourne moved Amendment No. 81:
Page 4, line 24, at end insert—
"( ) persons with parental responsibility for one or more children living in the authority's area;"
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 81, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 82 and 83. Amendment Nos. 81 and 82 go together, and Amendment No. 83 is an alternative way of solving the problem.
These are probing amendments, and I have drafted them in the simplest possible form in order to elicit the Government's views on what I believe to be an issue crucial to the success of the Bill. The question is: we intend that parents should be treated as the problem, or do we recognise that parents can and should be a key part of the solution? By "parents", in this context, I mean primarily those who have parental responsibility for a child. That will usually mean one or both birth parents, but I accept that there will sometimes be others, such as grandparents or stepparents, who make a special and long-term commitment to care for a child.
We have to accept that there are, in our society, some children who are at serious risk from the acts or failure to act of their own parents. Those parents are already being worked with by professionals and will have to continue to be so. But the number of families in which children are at risk from their parents is exceedingly small. From the statistics I have been able to obtain, it looks like being about 0.25 or 0.3 per cent. If the noble Baroness or any other noble Lord has a better statistic, it would be extremely interesting to know what it is, because it seems to me very relevant.
I suggest that we must not let our concern for those hard cases make us forget the other 99.7 per cent of parents and children. Are the Bill and this clause only about children at serious risk? We were told, as I understand it, that the purpose of the Bill is to improve the well-being of all the nation's children. The way it is drafted sometimes seems to focus almost eKclusively on our concerns arising from the tragic Victoria Climbié case.
For the vast majority of the nation's children, parents can be and are the key players in delivering the goals which we are all trying to achieve for all children. Why do I say that parents are the key players? Because the single most important factor in the well-being of a child, especially in its early years, is parental love—reliable, long-term, responsible, forgiving, parental love. Parents are the most likely people to be motivated to give that sort of commitment on a long-term basis, although, as I have already noted, there are sometimes others who do so, particularly grandparents and step-parents. That kind of commitment is not the role of professionals or carers, or professional carers. Parent and child usually have a special relationship.
I would like to quote from a brief which was sent to me by the Parenting Education and Support Forum. It says:
"In the normal order, it is parents who take responsibility for the health, happiness and well-being of children. Parents are by far the most important partners in the crucial task of safeguarding children. They are the main service providers for children and, indeed, the service provider whom children usually choose in preference to anyone else".
Professionals alone cannot raise the nation's 11.7 million children. Without the full, wholehearted co-operation of the nation's parents, any project to enhance the well-being of the nation's children is seriously at risk. Therefore, the Bill must engage, empower and give recognition to the role of parents. If the Government are seen to be ignoring parents or if they alienate parents, they will, effectively, be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
I know that the Government are developing an important strategy document about their plans for the support of parents and families. I salute them for this, but a strategy will not work unless it engages the commitment of parents in the project. Doing things for parents and doing things to parents are not enough.
It is a basic principle of community development— in which I was, at one time in my career, slightly involved—that officials and experts do not just descend on a community and impose solutions. They consult, they listen, then they work from the "felt

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needs" of the community. They engage the natural leaders of the community in working together towards solutions which will work and which have the commitment of the community itself. This is the way that Sure Start has worked and that is why it has worked so well. But alas, for some extraordinary reason which I do not understand, in this Bill the Government have written parents out of the plot completely. The word "parent" does not arise in the Bill except right at the end, in a clause which is an amendment to the Children Act 1989.
The objectives and solutions envisaged in the Bill, as it is printed, make no mention of any proposal to work with parents, listen to parents, empower parents and respect parents. In my view, this is a very grave mistake. It raises the serious risk that parents will become alienated from the Government's objectives. Many parents in this country, alas, are already becoming demoralised.
I would like to end on an optimistic note. The noble Baroness has sent us a policy statement, which offers some hope that the Government are aware of the problem. If that statement really represents the Government's policy, it may now only remain for us to get it firmly established and guaranteed by having it made clear, in one way or another, on the face of the Bill. I beg to move.
Boroness Ashton of Upholland: I agree with the noble Lord that parents and families are the most important factor in a child's life. I hope that if the noble Lord reflected on what we said in Every Child Matters: Next Steps he would see that we have tried to position parents and families at the heart of our vision for improving the outcomes for children.
The issue is whether we think that these are matters for legislation. In Clause 6(1)(c), I know that it will sound odd to refer to "other persons or bodies" but that is the legislative way in which we can invite representation that could include parents or their representatives. We recognise and agree that parents should be involved and have their views taken on board. We want to encourage the different approaches to co-operation and service delivery in all the areas that impact on children, including services to their families. We want all those involved in those arrangements to be properly focused on the goal of improving the well-being of children and young people.
Adding to the duties in the way that Amendments Nos. 81 and 82 suggest would, I contend, run the risk of merely creating extra bureaucracy. Amendment No. 83 would place parents themselves under a duty to co-operate, which many might consider a burden rather than a positive means of seeking their views.
I agree with the noble Lord's observation that it is important that we support parents. We have a new Parenting Fund worth £25 million to help build the capacity of the voluntary and community sector. The Sure Start programme, to which the noble Lord referred, is very important, as is the rolling out of the kind of scheme that Home Start represents.
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When we debated these issues I indicated that it may be appropriate to revisit Clause 6 to ensure that arrangements relating to parents and families are properly included. I reiterate our commitment to do that. I can assure noble Lords that we will do that and return on Report if necessary.
I hope that that gives the noble Lord the comfort that he desires—he shakes his head. Perhaps I can suggest that when he sees what we propose to do, that will give him comfort. There is no suggestion that we do not recognise the core and fundamental importance of children in the context of their families and the relationship and role of parents, step-parents and others who care for children.
Earl Howe: Can the noble Baroness enlighten the Committee on what the Children Act says about the role of parents? I recollect that it says quite a lot. One should read this Bill in conjunction with the Act. I did not want to catch the noble Baroness on the hop by asking her about another statute, but it is relevant. One cannot divorce this Bill from the previous Act, which, we all accept, underpins everything that is currently done to help children.
Boroness Ashton of Upholland: I am very grateful to the noble Earl. He is absolutely right and has more experience than me in understanding how the legislation fits together. It is critical to view the Bill as building on existing legislation and good practice. I have conceded that we will look again at ensuring that we have provided for parents in the right way in the Bill. However, I will resist attempts to legislate for parents in an inappropriate way. It is critical that we put them at the heart of everything we do but in the context of both good practice and what already exists.
The Earl of Listowel: I thank the Minister for making clear the fundamental importance that she places on families. She mentions that there is £25 million in the Parenting Fund, which, I understand, is over three years. I recognise all the other very welcome investment by the Government through Sure Start, but given our earlier debate about reasonable chastisement and the need to find ways better to support parents, does she consider that £25 million over three years for the Parenting Fund will be adequate to meet the concerns that we have expressed? Will she relay to the Secretary of State for Education the concerns expressed about the need for better support for parenting education and the doubt that £25 million over three years is adequate to meet the need?
Boroness Ashton of Upholland: As is always the fate of Ministers, the minute I mention one figure, people think that that is all there is. The figure that I gave is not everything. I was merely referring to the Parenting Fund, particularly in the light of the noble Earl's comments earlier. My right honourable friend has just announced, for example, the family support grant programme for this year. Much of Sure Start's work is focused on families, and huge investment is going into

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that programme. Separately, we are talking about rolling out the Home Start initiative nationally. Parents play a critical role in lots of the work that we are doing on the curriculum and much work in many other parts of government. I hesitate to say that I could reel off all the initiatives but I would not want any noble Lord to think that the fact that I put a figure on one fund meant that that is all there is. I appreciate that governments can always do more. Within the resources, I am pleased to say, we have begun the process of ensuring that we support families and children even more effectively than already we do.
Lord Northbourne: I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for the fairly encouraging remarks that she made towards the end of her response. I am still not clear whether she and I are talking the same language. I know that the Government are quite prepared to do endless things to parents: they are prepared to have strategies for parents and to tell them what to do. As noble Lords who listened to the previous group of amendments will know, a mind-boggling number of organisations will have to work together in order to do things to parents. It might be a good idea to have the courtesy to ask parents what they want; to sit down with them and to build a strategy at both national and local levels. Unless we include it in the Bill or there is some other very strong assurance, I do not think that local authorities will do that. It is a tiresome, boring, long process and they would rather tell people what to do than sit down and listen to what people want and then try to work with that. I can tell the House that if we do it my way, people will be committed, they will have ownership of the project and it will work. If you descend on them and do things for them, you will lose a lot of parents and their goodwill, or you will not get the parent goodwill that you anticipated.
In the context of the Green Paper, if the noble Baroness adds up the number of words—admittedly, very golden—in the introduction on the importance of parents and then adds up the number of words on page after page about what the Government intend to do to parents, the number of words used to eulogise about parents suggests that the commitment is not really there. I hope that what the noble Baroness comes forward with will change that impression. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 82 and 83 not moved. ]
Boroness Sharp Boroness Sharp of Guildford moved Amendment No. 84:
Page 4, line 25, after "partners;" insert—
"( ) the governing bodies of schools maintained by the local education authority, and the proprietors of academics and city colleges located in the area of the authority;"
The noble Baroness said: In moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 98 and 07. All three amendments are concerned with the role of schools in co-operation. Their main purpose is to probe what role the Government envisage for schools and school governing bodies.
Amendment No. 84 suggests that school governing bodies should be listed in subsection (1). In the light of our discussion on the grouping of amendments starting at Amendment No. 80, I think that this amendment is misplaced. Nevertheless, it is a probing amendment about the role of school governing bodies as a co-operator with the other authorities.
Amendment No. 98 refers to the body or bodies,
"responsible for the management of any education establishment maintained wholly or in part from public funds",
and what role that has to be seen as a relevant partner. Amendment No. 107 lists the same body or bodies referred to in Amendment No. 98 and applies them to subsection (7), alongside children's services authorities as needing to heed guidance from the Secretary of State.
4 p.m.
These three amendments raise two important issues. First, as we know, the children's services authority subsumes within it the local education authority responsibilities. Under current legislation, much of what goes on in a school is the responsibility not of the LEA but of the school governing body. It is therefore important to consider where schools and where governing bodies come in as co-operators in the legislation that we are putting through. Given the degree to which in Every Child Matters: Next Steps emphasis was put on schools and extended schools as primary players in action for children, it is important that we understand this issue. Schools are important; they are the one universal service that has contact with nearly all children. They should be working collectively with their LEA to achieve the Government's objective of providing support for all children.
As the recent Education Network pamphlet, Every School Matters by Chris Waterman pointed out,
"the school has the greatest potential to be the hub for the co-ordination of education, health and social services"
As I understand it, this is essentially what we are looking at when we are talking about extended schools. Her Majesty's Chief Inspector's recent annual report records that one secondary school in 20 has unsatisfactory provision for child protection and ensuring pupil welfare. However, the chief inspector also finds that the vast majority of schools are at least satisfactory, and two-fifths are very good. The proportion of unsatisfactory schools—one in 20—is higher in disadvantaged communities. That is a worrying feature.
Amendment No. 98 refers to the position of semi-independent schools, the voluntary aided and voluntary controlled schools, and the new city academies—the city technology colleges have now become city academies—which are independent of the LEAs; and what about independent schools themselves? The Green Paper has proposed further outsourcing to the private sector by way of children's trusts, despite the patchy record of the private sector in terms of the successful delivery of LEA services. The Every Child Matters: Next Steps document refers to funding and support for the local infrastructure bodies

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to build the capacity of the voluntary and community sector to ensure that their diverse interests can be represented effectively in strategic development. But there is scant reference to the private sector.
The Every Child Matters: Next Steps document also indicates that there will be arrangements to ensure that the role of the voluntary sector as an independent voice for children, young people and families is not compromised by closer integration. What role will the private sector and the voluntary sector have within these co-operative arrangements? Can the Minister explain what is envisioned here? I beg to move.
Earl Howe: The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, has covered the ground admirably. I have put my name to Amendment No. 84, but I support everything that she has said. My Amendment No. 102BA is grouped with Amendment No. 84. It is very much in the same vein and designed to ask the same kinds of questions. I realise that my amendment may not be technically correct, but its purpose it to make a school a relevant partner that must co-operate with the children's services authority in making arrangements to promote co-operation between relevant partners to improve the well-being of children. By using the indefinite singular, I mean to denote any and all schools. The point is to include an explicit, declaratory duty that schools should co-operate in order to minimise the risk and maximise the available opportunities for every child.
If we ask whether schools should be integrated into the range of children's services across the piece—surely they should be. I do not really understand, in common with the noble Baroness, why explicit mention of schools, governing bodies, academies and indeed the private sector should have been omitted from the Bill.
Boroness Ashton of Upholland: I am delighted that the noble Earl is using the indefinite singular. I am not sure that my grammar will stretch that far to understand precisely what he has done. I shall look in Hansard and check.
I hope to be able to answer the questions raised by the noble Earl and the noble Baroness. I begin by saying that there is much common ground on this issue. We are all agreed that schools, including academies, city technology and FE colleges, are central to the successful delivery of improved outcomes for children. I was particularly pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, mentioned extended schools, for which I have policy responsibility and which I declare as the future. We recognise that they make an important and valuable contribution because of the services that they offer in the community, but also, as importantly, the services that they offer to their own children and young people as part of a standard-raising agenda, which is important.
We disagree on whether this should be in the Bill. The relevant partners listed in Clause 6(3) have been placed under a duty to co-operate because they are operating at a strategic level—putting in place the co-operation architecture for what we want to see happen. They will
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work with the children's services authority to take a holistic look at the needs of children in their locality. They will identify the best combinations of services required to meet those needs, and they will plan and commission those services. We recognise that they must ground their work in operational reality, and that they must work closely with front line services including schools and colleges. However, it would not make any sense to place the same statutory duty on every school and college as, for example, we do on the local education authority. It would create additional burdens, and it would hinder the kind of cultural change that we wish to see.
I shall deal specifically with schools. We all recognise the critical importance of schools, and I will not reiterate, though I agree with, everything that the noble Earl and the noble Baroness said about the role of schools and the role of those who work, support and teach children in schools. Amendment No. 84 adds the governing bodies of maintained schools and proprietors of academies and CTCs into the body. As the clause is drafted, it allows schools, academies and city technology colleges to be included in the arrangements when and where they could be most effectively engaged.
As I have indicated, we do not believe that it is appropriate to expect every small primary school to be involved in detailed strategic decision making. That is the role of the local education authority, which is well placed to represent schools as a whole and, by keeping in contact with them, to ensure that their views are sought and passed back appropriately. Members of the Committee will be pleased to hear that we will make it clear in statutory guidance that schools and colleges must be engaged in that way. That includes academies and city technology colleges.
That does not preclude local partners agreeing that they want to have particular schools or colleges which have the capacity, or a representative of a local head teachers' group, more closely and directly involved in those arrangements. Again, we are looking for local flexibility to ensure that we have a sensible outcome that reflects different circumstances.
Amendment No. 84 would require every school to have regard to guidance from the Secretary of State in relation to co-operation arrangements. Again, where there are large schools with the capacity to participate directly in those arrangements, we would expect them to make use of our guidance, as I am sure that they would. For schools generally, it would be more appropriate for the education authority to issue tailored guidance that reflects the local arrangements that have been set up for co-operation.
Amendment No. 102BA seeks to include every school in the list of relevant partners that must cooperate with the authority. I have already stated, but I am happy to reiterate so there can be no doubt, that we will say in statutory guidance that schools must be involved in the co-operation arrangements. Some will be involved directly, others will be involved via the LEA. As I said, that will vary with different circumstances. Any arrangement that requires them all to be involved would be unmanageable and, potentially, counterproductive.

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Amendments Nos. 84, 107 and 102BA would create unnecessary bureaucratic burdens and could distract schools. More importantly, we believe that they are not necessary because of what I have said about our guidance to LEAs and their tailored guidance to schools in order to secure the engagement of schools.
As regards Amendment No. 98, educational bodies are key partners in delivering better outcomes and, where appropriate, should be included in the cooperation arrangements. I think that we are all agreed on that. However, placing a statutory duty on them is not sensible or workable. Where appropriate, a large further education college might be well placed to play a strategic role, but other institutions, such as community nursery schools, would not have the capacity. It is through the local education authority and the learning and skills council that those bodies would be best represented in the context of what I have said about the flexibility of local arrangements and ensuring that tailored advice from the LEAs actually recognises the roles that schools should play.
I hope that that answers noble Lords' questions about how the arrangements would work in practice and that the noble Baroness feels able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My noble friend Lord Howe raised a very important point which relates to Clause 6 as one construes it. The intent of Clause 6 is to improve the well being of children. The Children Act assuredly applies. It has the like intent, but it also requires that the interests of the child shall be paramount. Beyond a certain point, specific provision defeats itself. It is dependent on the circumstances in which a conflict of interest—which does arise—between the interests of the child and the interests of a parent occur. The parent may well be a natural parent or an adoptive parent, as in a case in the House's Appellate Committee. I hope that the Committee with forgive me for seeking to clarify a point made by my noble friend.
Boroness Ashton of Upholland: I recognise that point. I am sorry that the noble Lord was unable to be with us earlier. I should simply point out that Clause 6 concerns strategic planning and commissioning. As the noble Lord will recognise, a school's main contribution is at the delivery level, which is a very different role.
Where there is a large college operating in a locality that provides all kinds of services, that college might, for example, be part of a children's trust or it might be an organisation that could participate. I am merely stating that we should think in terms of a strategic overview. The usual and perhaps critical partner is the education authority, which plays that strategic function. However, I absolutely recognise the critical delivery role that the schools play. Through guidance to the LEA and, thus, through their support and guidance to schools, we believe that we have got the right balance in terms of who should participate at which level.
Boroness Sharp of Guildford: I am again grateful to the Minister for her detailed explanation. I take on
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board what she said about the fact that schools will be listed as prime partners within the guidance. I still find it slightly odd that schools have no place on the face of the Bill, although perhaps Clause 6 is the wrong place. I take on board the fact that it refers to the strategic commissioning authority and that the LEA would be the appropriate body in that sense. However, as we have pointed out, many schools will be their own commissioners and are not part of the LEA remit. I am also surprised not to see schools listed among the safeguarding authorities in Clause 7, but we shall discuss that in a few moments.
I shall read carefully what the Minister has said and I look forward to the detailed guidance when it is produced. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 85 to 92 not moved. ]
Earl Howe Earl Howe moved Amendment No. 93:
Page 4, line 35, at end insert—
"( ) The arrangements referred to in subsection (2) are also to be made with a view to supporting children within their families whenever this is appropriate."
The noble Earl said: This amendment, tabled in my name and others, returns to a theme which is now familiar to our Committee debates. The desired outcome headings for children as set out in subsection (2) surely cannot be looked at separately from the context in which most children are brought up; namely, their families. That emphasises the point made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. What this amendment really says is that the importance of family life and individual family members must on no account be ignored when support services are being planned and delivered to children. On the contrary, their importance must be fully recognised, as indeed must the primacy of the responsibility borne by parents for their children.
What we cannot have, and I am sure the Minister will agree with this, is some sort of green light for a culture of interference in family life, however well meant, by statutory and voluntary bodies. This clause is extremely worthy and well intentioned, but it has the potential to result in over-intrusiveness and officiousness. As we say so often in these debates, there is a balance to be struck. Much will depend on the guidance that is to be issued, and we are still in the dark about that. But I hope that the general point I have made will be borne in mind. I beg to move.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Northbourne: It is incredibly important to our society that children are brought up in families and that parents accept their responsibilities. This is another effort to make sure that that intent appears on the face of the Bill. Only if it is in the Bill can we be sure that it will not be changed by, say, regulation. Only when the provision is set out will it be taken seriously. This is a reasonably general and sensible proposal which I should like to support.
Boroness Finlay of Llandaff: I wonder whether the general concern that family life has not been

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adequately addressed has arisen because we are considering these matters separately from Article 8 and our human rights legislation. I would not want anyone to think, having heard our earlier debates, that there is in any way a lack of respect for the sanctity of a loving and caring family. The concern that the words "family" and "families" do not appear often enough on the face of the Bill arises because we now have in place human rights legislation which, I hope, will underpin the importance of the family unit.
Lord Northbourne: I am sorry to intervene again. I shall be very brief. It is important for the appearance of things that the Bill should say what it means to say in this context. A legalistic and intellectual approach is not likely to get on to the pages of the tabloids, and it is those tabloids that parents will read. I am concerned that parents will feel demotivated, believing that they are being put upon by society when in fact we want to engage their enthusiastic support.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: In supporting the amendment, I want to point out that there is an essential safeguard whenever it is appropriate. It is absolutely essential that it exists.
Boroness Ashton of Upholland: Noble Lords will be pleased to learn that my speaking notes are getting shorter as we debate this issue. I recognise the point made by the noble Baroness about Article 8 and the importance of supporting the rights of families. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, while the appearance of things is all well and good, I should say that this is a legal document, written in legalistic terms. Perhaps that is the problem we face in trying to persuade the noble Lord that we have addressed his concerns. I do not intend to give up and I am determined that, by the end of our discussions on the Bill, he will be more than satisfied.
I am grateful to the noble Earl for our earlier discussion about the Children Act 1989. Perhaps I may refer him to Section 17 of that Act which sets out a duty on local authorities to,
"safeguard and promote the welfare of children within their area who are in need; and, so far as is consistent with that duty, to promote the upbringing of such children by their families".
So I may, in a sense, pray in aid what the noble Earl said about the relevance of the Children Act in dealing with this.
I reiterate once more that we share the Committee's desire to ensure that the clause reflects the important role of parents and families. It is an issue at which we will be looking carefully between now and the Report stage. In the mean time, I hope the noble Earl will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Earl Howe: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Boroness Walmsley Boroness Walmsley moved Amendment No. 94:
Page 4, line 35, at end insert—
"( ) A children's services authority in England and each of their relevant partners must in exercising their functions under this section have due regard to—
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(a) the need, where opportunities for disabled children are not as good as those for other children, to promote equality of opportunity between disabled children and other children by improving opportunities for disabled children; and

(b) the need to promote equality of opportunity between—

(i) children of different racial groups, religions or beliefs, family status or sexual orientation; and

(ii) between boys and girls generally."

The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 94 would ensure that in making arrangements for local co-operation to improve the well-being of children and young people, a children's services authority and its partners will focus on securing outcomes which reduce inequalities based on impairment, gender, race, sexuality, religion, family status or anything else that I have not thought of. The amendments would give stronger legislative effect to a key policy aim behind the Bill—namely, to promote equity for the most socially excluded children.
Of course, cultural change will be the key to this and there is considerable evidence that such positive equality duties are effective in embedding equality principles in the work of public authorities. While local authorities already have positive duties to promote equality under race relations law, and are set to acquire complementary duties under a future revision of the Disability Discrimination Act, what is really needed in the context of children's services is a cross-cutting duty that takes full account of the multiple sources of discrimination that many children face. Disabled children in care, in residential schools, from black and ethnic minority communities, or religious minorities, will be best served by such a duty. Without such broader equality duties, children's services will remain hamstrung in dealing effectively with exclusion.
Local authorities and other agencies are increasingly familiar with the concept of equality impact assessments and there is already a good deal of practical advice and guidance in existence to support them in the proposed new duties. On disability, for instance, the LGA and Disability Rights Commission have worked together to produce guidance for local government on how to implement disability equality within local authority service provision. This can be complemented by guidance under the Bill and additional support from agencies such as the DRC.
Embedding equality in the new arrangements for children's services will ensure that the new inspection arrangements provide a means of monitoring improvement. Liaison and partnership working with local disability and other equality groups will, of course, be central to the effectiveness of such duties. Clause 6 includes a duty to promote co-operation between,
"such other. … bodies as the authority consider appropriate".
This could include voluntary organisations, as has been said already, and it would be helpful if the Minister could provide clear guarantees that children's authorities will be expected to consult and involve local disability organisations. I beg to move
Boroness Finlay of Llandaff: I rise to speak to the amendment standing in my name, which is in this

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group. It is a probing amendment and has almost the same wording as the amendment of the noble Baroness. I am slightly concerned that we may not have got the words right and I am grateful to Children in Wales for having pointed that out to me. The wording is not as broad as that in the surrounding framework of legislation from within Europe.
The clause is about ensuring that at every point there is no discrimination and disability abuse, which very often takes place in terms of either mental, physical and, usually, motor-type disabilities. I am concerned that we do not forget those children who are disfigured. either through their genetic features or through accident, and who can be subjected to terrible discrimination. Such discrimination can be incredibly damaging, particularly when the disfigurement is newly acquired through accident.
In our previous debates we referred to equality of opportunity as the principle that has to run through everything, and I wonder whether or not that is the wording we should be looking for when we revisit this issue at a later stage.
I would just like briefly to draw the House's attention to two things. One is Article 13 from the European convention, which is very clear and contains a broader list than the one that we have in this amendment. The other is that in December 2000, the European Charter of Fundamental Rights stated that any discrimination,
"based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited".
I wonder whether those are not stronger words than the ones in the amendment.
Boroness Byford: I rise to speak to Amendment No. 94. I take on board what the noble Baroness has just said with regard to wording. When we discussed similar amendments earlier in Committee, we recognised that perhaps the wording was too explicit in some cases and perhaps missing in others. It is the advantage of Committee stage that we can consider such things.
Under an early amendment, Amendment No. 33, I spoke at great length about my concerns about needing to have regard to children and young people with disability. I shall not take the time of the Committee to go over those arguments, which are as valid to this amendment as they were to the previous one. However, it is important that at various stages of the Bill we keep coming back to our concerns, because they apply right through the Bill.
I have nothing to add to what has been said, except that I hope that the Minister understands our concerns, as she earlier indicated that she did, while suggesting that the amendment was not adequate. Will she shed more light on the matter, as we discussed it at an earlier stage'?
Boroness Ashton of Upholland: I am never sure whether I can add more light, even if we have discussed the matter at an earlier stage. However, I am grateful
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to Members of the Committee as it is important that we continue to consider the issues of equality of opportunity for specific groups of children and young people.
As Members of the Committee said, Amendment No. 94 refers to England and Amendment No. 190 to Wales. We can say categorically that we are all sharing the same concerns about equality of opportunity and want to maximise opportunities for all children. I hope that although our deliberations are focused on the legislative framework, we recognise that it is only part of what we seek in terms of a whole system reform—practical changes underpinned by clearer accountability and partnership, putting children's well-being at the heart of policies.
For disabled children and other vulnerable children we want earlier identification of disabilities and better family support services. I am very proud of our early support pilots. They work in a multi-agency way with the parents of disabled children to enable them to get the right kind of support as early as possible and to understand what that support will be. The Bill is part of that programme—perhaps the legislative spine to ensure that we develop better services.
Existing legislation that applies to both England and Wales creates rights and responsibilities in respect of a number of the groups which are mentioned in the amendment, particularly children with disabilities and children of different racial groups. We share the belief with all noble Lords that children and their families should have access to the services that they need, to help them to achieve the five outcomes that children and young people themselves have indicated as important.
I assure the Committee that we will make it clear in guidance that all organisations involved in the co-operation arrangements in England must—I emphasise must—have regard to promoting equality of opportunity. Within that, they must consult local groups, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, suggested, when those local groups have important information to impart, as do all bodies who work to support children. In Wales, the Assembly aims to publish its national service framework next year, which will go some way to address the issues.
I have made the same point in other debates on the Bill, and it is a bit of a refrain, but I am averse by nature to lists. The legislation must cover all children. What I know from discussions with organisations and with those responsible for ensuring that we do things legally and appropriately is that the minute one calls attention to one group, one runs the risk of undermining the principle that the legislation relates to all children. I know that that is not what Members of the Committee would wish to happen. I absolutely understand the wish to single out particular groups of children who are especially vulnerable to discrimination or neglect—I understand that entirely. However, noble Lords will know that for every list with which they might come forward, I can think of another one.

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I am mindful of the need to raise the profile of children and to make sure that their needs are not overlooked, but the strength of the Bill lies in its inclusiveness. If we begin to list children, we run the risk, however unintentionally, of being less inclusive because we either have to list everyone or we fail to list somebody. That would not be helpful. On that basis, and on the understanding that our guidance would be clear, I hope that noble Lords will feel reassured and able to withdraw their amendment.
4.30 p.m.
Baroness Walmsley: I thank the Minister for her response. I look forward to seeing the very clear, unambiguous guidance which she has promised us. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 95 to 102BA not moved.]
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Baroness Sharp of Guildford moved Amendment No. 102C:
Page 5, line 8, leave out subsection (5) and insert—
"( ) A children's services authority in England and their relevant partners should share resources which may include establishing and maintaining a pooled fund, for the purposes of arrangements under this section."
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 102C, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 102D, 105, 106 and 111. All the amendments are probing amendments. They seek elucidation on the functions and workings of pooled budgets as proposed in Clause 6(6).
Amendment No. 102C, and associated Amendment No. 102D, would widen the concept of sharing resources from the narrow limits of a pooled fund to the wider sharing of other forms of resources. We are particularly concerned that the concept of the pooled fund is unnecessarily restrictive and could act as a deterrent to sharing resources, whereas a wider power, which the two amendments propose, would encourage a more creative and flexible approach to the sharing of resources among partners.
In particular, we are conscious that, if the concept of partnership is to work as it should, it will include many voluntary and private sector agencies which may be unable to contribute monetarily to a pooled fund but can contribute ideas and participate in projects. They could contribute experience, expertise and local knowledge. For example, it is often the voluntary agencies that work with the hardest-to-reach children and families.
This interpretation of shared resources is much nearer the spirit of the legislation than the limited notion of pooled budgets. It ensures focus on achieving outcomes through the creative use of resources and encourages participation and cooperation among the relevant groups. The amendment is supported by the NSPCC, the NHS Confederation, the NCB and the National Council of Voluntary Child Care Organisations. All of them support the amendment.
Amendments Nos. 105, 106 and 111 relate primarily to the interests of schools and their relationship to pooled funds. The implementation of the Bill's proposals has to be underpinned by sufficient funding. Virtually no reference is made to how each of its strands would be resourced. Education is a major player and, if its role in the partnerships is to succeed, there has to be a clearly identified and guaranteed funding stream. It is very difficult to cope with uncertainties and variations from year to year. That was well illustrated by the funding shortfall experienced by schools last year, which led to a net loss of many teaching and support staff jobs. Such developments could jeopardise the implementation of the Government's proposals for children's services and throw the whole project into disarray.
It remains unclear how, within the pooled funding formula, the Government propose to make sure that their and other priorities are maintained. The great danger is that the removal of ring-fencing between education and social services funding streams, for example, will lead to a lack of transparency and an increase in the possibility of both services, in different areas, suffering a loss of funds.
In short, the potential for "robbing Peter to pay Paul" could increase. The new educational funding mechanisms, in particular the schools and the LEA block budgets and the schools forums, have only just been established. Clarity in funding streams is vital if each service is to know to what it is entitled.
For example, a recent DfES circular on the standards fund included details of the ethnic minority achievement grant to vulnerable children and the vulnerable children grant. There has been a welcome 4 per cent increase in the DfES's contribution to that grant. However, by locating the ethnic minority achievement grant within the standards fund mechanism, the DfES lays the grant open to being raided by other priorities. A separate long-term grant to meet the specific educational needs of minority ethnic pupils is, arguably, the only means of safeguarding its purpose.
Every Child Matters makes no reference to the needs of Traveller children. Traveller pupils are another group most at risk in the educational system. Although some make a reasonably promising start in primary school, by the time they reach secondary level their generally low attainment is a matter of serious concern.
Access to schooling is another particular concern for Traveller pupils. In the report Raising the attainment of minority ethnic pupils, Ofsted found that the majority of Traveller children were on the SEN register. In one primary school, 74 per cent of Traveller children were on the register, and in one secondary school the figure was as high as 80 per cent. Alarmingly, in half the schools in the Ofsted study, no Traveller student had yet sat GCSEs. Are the resources going to be available for such pupils when there is a special need for it? I beg to move.
Baroness Byford: I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 103 and 104 which are in my name. For the convenience of the Committee, it might be sensible—I referred the matter to the Chief Whip's Office—if I spoke also to Amendments Nos. 192 and 193, which deal with related matters.
Like other noble Lords, I have already spoken of the importance of voluntary organisations in the life of children. Their contribution is not always financial, although fundraising has been an important part of any voluntary body with which I have been associated. The Minister acknowledged earlier the work and valuable input that many voluntary organisations provide to ensure the well-being of all our children.
Sometimes volunteers combine financial assistance with donations of their own time. I ask the Committee to think, for example, of the huge number of charity shops manned by volunteers, many of whom, together with others, spend the money they raise in taking handicapped children on days out, taking children and their families to the airport for trips abroad, and working in the various children's hospices. I could draw upon many examples.
Some volunteers do not fundraise, but spend large amounts of their own time working on behalf of children in areas such as schools where they are governors, unpaid reading helpers or responsible adults on the educational trips. Hospitals have large numbers of these generous people. Indeed, many hospital trusts now employ someone with the task of organising all the volunteers and training them to accomplish even more.
No less a person then David Miliband acknowledged to a recent DfES/Ofsted conference that were governors paid at the national minimum wage for the work they do, the bill would probably be in the region of £1.6 billion annually. I think that that puts the issue in context.
This Bill is exciting in many ways as it is pulling together the threads of the professional and the voluntary sides of community life. Earlier, one noble Lord described it as a community Bill. It is worth mentioning the recognition on the part of David Miliband that the figure we are discussing is huge. I am sure that many others who establish organisations to help children have not been included in that figure.
It is surely not right that the Bill should exclude the input of a huge volunteer army. On the contrary, I believe it should demand that those in charge use that army to the best possible advantage. Pooled funds will be used to pay for work, some at least of which may safely be delegated to one or more volunteer associations. Our amendment attempts to ensure that this is not only recognised but is factored in. I have been speaking to Amendments Nos. 103, 104, 192 and 193.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, that I shall address Amendments Nos. 192 and 193. They comprise equivalent measures for Wales.
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The co-operation arrangements in Clause 6 cannot be effectively developed without a strategic commissioning strategy supported by pooled funds. Developing pooled funds under this wider pooling power in subsections (5) and (6) is integral to cementing and sustaining relationships between partners and enabling them to work together effectively.
I turn to Amendments Nos. 102C and 102D spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, arid to Amendments Nos. 103, 104, 192 and 193, spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford. I should like to deal with those amendments together as they all raise the important issue that local partners should be able to pool non-pecuniary resources. I absolutely recognise what the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, said regarding the role of volunteers. My honourable friend David Miliband mentioned the costs that would arise if governors were paid at the national minimum wage rate. As the noble Baroness said, some hospitals now have full-time staff members to look after volunteers. Certainly, when I was involved in the health service we recognised that we simply could not operate without the volunteers who carry out so much extraordinary work. It is very important that we keep reminding ourselves of those critically important individuals.
We recognise the importance of the ability of local partners to pool non-budgetary resource. As it stands, the Bill makes provision for that. The duty on the relevant partners to make arrangements for cooperation is sufficient to allow them to contribute resources such as staff and premises. However, I recognise the concerns of both noble Baronesses that they wish to see the option made explicit on the face of the Bill. In light of that we will take away the underlying issue to consider it further and to consult with lawyers on the precise drafting. I cannot accept the amendment as it stands but I hope that they are happy for me to take it away and consider it very carefully; in other words, I accept it in principle. I appreciate the issues that have been raised.
The amendments raise the issue of the crucial role of the voluntary and community sector which we have already discussed in your Lordships' House. We can, and must, involve the voluntary and community sector.
I turn to Amendments Nos. 105 and 106. We again understand the intent of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, to ensure that school funding is not threatened, as it were, but also to recognise the importance of services that work alongside schools. Decisions will be made by local education authorities, and increasingly by children's services authorities, as to the most appropriate method for allocating their resources. These will have to reflect local circumstances. Flexibility will be required. The authority should recognise that it needs to develop the most suitable response to local assessments of need.
As noble Lords know, a series of controls is already in place to ensure that schools receive sufficient funding. We share the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, in that regard. The Secretary of State for Education and Skills has a reserve power under the

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School Standards and Framework Act 1998, as amended, to set a minimum schools budget for an authority. We have the powers to ensure that that happens.
The noble Baroness referred to Traveller children who have the highest level of special educational needs. It is important to recognise that in raising standards schools want to support children with additional services, either provided directly by the school in terms of study support, after school activities, breakfast clubs and so on, but also by bringing in other services that can offer the kind of support that will enable those children and young people to make progress. I do not differentiate in quite the same way. So long as we are clear that the role of schools is about raising educational standards, I am always keen to see the innovative ways in which schools recognise that they can support the individual needs of their children. We want to make sure that that continues in the best possible way.
In that context, we believe that we have the levers to make sure that our schools receive the funding. As I have indicated, we are very concerned to add to the Bill the amendments to which I referred. I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
4.45 p.m.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I am delighted that the Minister will take some of the amendments away and consider the role and contribution of volunteers. The non-pecuniary contributions made by agencies that cannot necessarily make pecuniary ones is vital. It would be splendid if something could be reflected in the Bill to that effect.
I accept the Minister's reply on schools. Given the size of education budgets in relation to the total, I find myself worrying, in relation to pooled budgets, how far there can be a satisfactory pooling of resources while maintaining the two things that schools need; namely, certainty—the ability to plan one year with another for what they will provide—and the identification of the specific streams of funding that go to resource, for example, some of the special educational needs. One hopes that there will be an ability to feel one's way along the trajectory—that, as time passes, some aspects of the pooled budgets may he more satisfactory than others. Within the provision, it is very necessary that there be an ability for such pragmatism.
I am very grateful to the Minister for her explanation. I shall read with interest what she said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 102D to 109 not moved.]
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Baroness Sharp of Guildford moved Amendment No. 109ZA:
Page 5, line 21, at end insert "who are defined as in need under sections 17 (provision of services for children in need, their families and others) and 47 (local authority's duty to investigate) of the Children Act 1989 (c. 41);"
The noble Baroness said: I shall speak very briefly to the amendment. Its purpose is to ensure that the arrangements very clearly define people to whom they apply. Subsection (8) states:
"Arrangements under this section may include arrangements relating to—
"(a) persons aged 18 and 19".
We wish to add at the end of that,
"who are defined as in need under sections 17 … and 47 … of the Children Act 1989".
That picks up the point made earlier in relation to Section 17 of the 1989 Act.
The intention of the amendment is to ensure that those aged 18 and 19 defined as in need under the Children Act—for example, asylum seekers, looked-after young people, young people who have faced abuse or with drug and alcohol problems—continue to receive appropriate services after they reach the age of 18. The appropriate services for young people over that age may fall within the remit of the children's services authority. Therefore, the arrangements under the section should be extended to such young people.
The problem with subsection (8)(a) as it currently reads is that it could result in the arrangements under Clause 6 being applied to all 18 and 19 year-olds. Paragraphs (b) and (c) of the subsection define specifically to which persons over the age of 19 the arrangements can be extended. But paragraph (a) is open-ended and has the clear potential to include all 18 and 19 year-olds. That would result in resources not being properly focused on those with greatest need. Unless resources are properly focused, young people with additional needs may not receive the support that they need. I beg to move.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: As the noble Baroness indicated, Amendment No. 109ZA adds further detail to the enabling subsection at the end of the clause, which seeks to prevent the creation of artificial boundaries around the age of certain groups with whom agencies involved in the arrangements currently work. The effect of the amendment would be to limit the involvement of the local Connexions service to a particular group of young people—that is, those defined in legislation as children in need. That would make it difficult for the Connexions service to participate as it provides services for all young people between the ages of 18 and 19. I am not at all convinced that that is what the noble Baroness intended the amendment to do, but I thought I would say that that is what its effect would be.
As I said previously, the purpose of Clause 6(8) is simply to ensure that agencies which provide services for young people over the age of 18 are not prevented from participating because they do that. The subsection enables better co-operation, and it does not extend the duty in Clause 6 to those over the age of 18. It is drafted to ensure the full participation of the Connexions service. We expect local partnerships to identify the groups of children whose needs are greatest and how those needs can be met.

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Perhaps I may return to one of the first discussions that we had today. The table that I shall send to noble Lords demonstrates the different ways in which the Bill seeks to ensure that the services are appropriately encapsulated within it. I hope that that will put the noble Baroness's mind at rest. The purpose of the subsection is to ensure that we do not prevent services participating because they offer services beyond the age limit or when a child becomes an adult.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I am grateful to the Minister. We tabled the amendment on behalf of the LGA. I take on board what she said about the Connexions service. It is certainly true that some services apply more broadly, and we need to be aware of that. Clearly, the amendment is deficient and we need to think about it a little more. I am grateful to the Minister and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 109A to 111 not moved.]
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Baroness Sharp of Guildford moved Amendment No. 112:
Page 5, line 26, at end insert—
"( ) For the purposes of section 4 of the Local Government Act 2000 (c. 22) (strategies for promoting well-being) arrangements made under this section shall be considered to be part of the community strategy of every local authority which is a children's service authority and shall be specifically identified as a section of that community strategy and co-ordinated by the authority concerned within such community strategy as a whole."
The noble Baroness said: The purpose of this amendment is to seek clarification on whether or not Clause 6 overlaps with existing legislation—in particular, Section 4 of the Local Government Act 2000, which is concerned with the duty to prepare a community strategy to promote or improve wellbeing in an area. The amendment has been tabled in order to seek clarification that the integration of strategies under the two Acts will not lead to confused lines of responsibility. In particular, further clarification is needed in terms of the role or roles of the lead officer or officers.
There can be few people who have not experienced, and bemoaned, the decline of local services and amenities and the effects on their personal and community lives. The decline in neighbourhood shops and services is sounding the death knell for many of Britain's local communities and has a serious knock-on effect on the lives of children in those communities.
According to the think-tank, the New Economics Foundation, between 1995 and 2000 the UK lost 20 per cent of some of its most vital institutions—corner shops, grocers, high street banks, post offices and pubs—amounting to a cumulative loss of more than 30,000 local economic outlets. A further 28,000 outlets stand to be lost by 2005. Overall, on current trends, the number of local outlets will have dropped by nearly one-third in the two decades to 2010. The result is "ghost town Britain"—a phrase coined by Andrew Simms, policy director of the New Economics Foundation think tank—in which communities and
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neighbourhoods in poor urban and rural areas are without easy access to essential elements of both the economy and the social fabric of the country.
There is a danger that in some areas extended schools will no longer have a community to serve. What strategies are envisaged to ensure that local authority planning and regeneration departments properly work together to consider children's well-being? For instance, when planning a new supermarket there should be consideration of how shops full of fast food desserts can be avoided in areas of deprivation. For example, would it be worth while for DfES to explore with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister the possible introduction of requirements for local authority planning departments to consult with local boards for safeguarding children? What input would those boards have into the health, environment and equality aspects of impact assessments? I beg to move.
Earl Howe: I shall speak to Amendment Nos. 179A and 244, which are grouped here. Amendment No. 179A is simple. What it proposes is a new duty for local authorities to produce an overarching local children's plan. The intention behind the idea of an overarching plan is that it should cover all the statutory plans across the complete range of children's education and social care services provided by all of the partners. Of course, that does not preclude the development of more specific plans to address the priorities identified in the single plan, if that is what is desired; but it would give a tangible boost to the aim, which we all endorse, of achieving a more integrated approach to service delivery.
All the partners would need to sit down together and decide what the priorities were for promoting the wellbeing of children. Having a single plan would serve to reduce the current planning burden on the public sector, by removing the requirement for a single education plan proposed in Clause 45 and other statutory plans.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, was referring to "food deserts". It is a term coined to represent the fact that some of our most vulnerable families, particularly in inner cities, are not able to find appropriate shopping facilities, because supermarkets do not exist there, so they have high-priced local shops with food that is not of high quality. I was not suggesting that she did not know that, but the issue is really important and affects many of our most vulnerable families. Indeed, those shops do sell very high-priced desserts.
Amendment No. 112 is intended to set the co-operation arrangements within the broader community strategies that local authorities have set up. We would expect children and young people to be included in the wider community strategies that local areas will develop and that the co-operation arrangements to improve the well-being of children will contribute to achieving the ambitions of these strategies. But it would be unhelpful to prescribe exactly how the two will fit together, because we want to make that a decision for local areas, based on their individual circumstances.

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Regarding Amendment No. 244, we are taking the opportunity presented by the Bill to remove the duty on local authorities to produce plans concerning their services for children in need and that is what subsection (2) of Clause 45 enables. We are not in any way seeking to devalue the planning of services. However, this particular duty concerns children in need served by the Children Act 1989. It is too narrow to use as a basis for the streamlining of planning arrangements across education and social and health services, as envisaged by the Green Paper.
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The letter of July 2003 jointly from the LGA and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister explained that a single strategy for children and young people would be developed in the light of the Green Paper. This was to cover the children's services plan as well as other plans.
Plan rationalisation is linked to the policies introduced by this Bill which are designed to improve local authority performance; for example, integrated inspection and the duty of local authorities to co-operate with key partners. It is also set in the context of other policies designed to improve local authority performance; for example, the comprehensive performance assessment and compacts.
We are introducing a statutory single education plan for local education authorities to replace requirements for most statutory and non-statutory education plans and to encourage LEAs to plan more strategically across their responsibilities.
We believe that this kind of rationalisation will help local authority planning to contribute to the outcomes for children. We want local authorities to plan more effectively and more co-operatively in the interests of providing a better service and to reduce prescription by central government of local authorities, allowing them to tailor their planning more to local circumstances.
We do not believe that it would make sense for local authorities to be hampered by the duty this amendment is seeking to reinstate, while at the same time trying to plan strategically across the whole range of their responsibilities.
On Amendment No. 179A, we are sympathetic to its intentions. It seeks to introduce a duty to have an overarching children's plan. We support the principle behind it of an integrated approach to service delivery. I referred to the principles set out in the letter of July 2003.
I have also explained that we are in the process of introducing a statutory education plan and that we will build it to take account of the whole children's agenda. I say to the noble Earl that we started talking to partners across government and in local authorities about how to achieve the transition from a single education plan to a whole children's agenda plan.
At this stage, we prefer to continue our discussions rather than accept the amendment. One of the reasons is technical—we would want to lift the existing planning arrangements which we consider to be necessary for the introduction of a single children's plan, otherwise we would be imposing too much of a
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burden. The other reason is simple—we need a little more time to consult key partners. We plan to reach a decision as soon as possible about a children's planning framework.
On the basis that I will keep the noble Earl and other Members of the Committee in touch with those deliberations and an assurance that it is our intention in principle to support the amendment, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw it.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I am grateful to the Minister for consideration of the amendment and accept that she does not intend to consider it further. However, it is important that within the overall planning framework, there is consideration of the needs of children. I am delighted that she will accept the other amendment, which seems to be sensible. In the light of that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Walmsley Baroness Walmsley moved Amendment No. 112A:
Page 5, line 26, at end insert—
"( ) The Secretary of State may under this section give a children's services authority or any of its relevant partners under subsection (3), such directions as the Secretary of State thinks expedient for the purpose of securing the co-operation of the authority or its partners to ensure that the objectives of this section are fully met."
The noble Baroness said: The amendment inserts a new subsection (9) to ensure that the new duty to co-operate to improve children's well-being can be enforced. The current arrangements in the Bill will be covered by guidance, but, unfortunately, it is well known that if the guidance is breached it is not possible to take legal action.
The NSPCC, which suggested the amendment to us and in relation to which I declare an interest, recognises that there will be inspection frameworks that can be used to determine whether the relevant partners are co-operating. However, such inspections occur only every three years and a great deal can happen in three years. Provided the public services can meet inspection targets without necessarily providing a high-quality service, the mandatory order will ensure that the new duties under Clause 6 will be enforceable. In the unlikely event that there is a breakdown in co-operation that causes detrimental harm to a service deliverer, there has to be a final recourse to the Secretary of State.
The amendment ensures that the direction given by the Secretary of State to intervene is stated on the face of the Bill and is based on a similar provision inserted after Section 497A of the Education Act 1996. That is the precedent on which we have based our amendment. We hope that it will be acceptable to the Committee. It is important that the Bill not only has ears but also teeth. That is a phrase that has been used in relation to the commissioner's powers in Part 1. I believe that I can appropriately use it here as well. I beg to move.
Earl Howe: I dislike having to disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, but on this occasion

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I feel I must. We have to be careful before extending the Secretary of State's powers of compulsion and intervention over elected local authorities. There are already significant powers of intervention in the Local Government Act which are there, as I understand it, to cater for failures in performance or service quality. Those powers are being extended under the provisions in Clause 41 of the Bill. I am in difficulty about inserting yet more powers in the same vein.
I also have a general point to make. If one gives local authorities and their partners the legal duty to co-operate with each other and to assess the level of need in an area, surely the last thing one wants is for the Secretary of State to second guess that process. The noble Baroness posited the situation in which one or more of the partners failed to co-operate. I take that point. I suppose the answer is that in the ultimate extreme, such a partner could be judicially reviewed. Of course, there may be a situation in which one or other partner co-operates only half-heartedly, thereby failing to pull its weight. Presumably that kind of matter would emerge during the course of an inspection and be corrected.
I take the point that the noble Baroness made that inspections will not happen every day of the week, but an inspection could be triggered at any time. I do not see how the Secretary of State would be in a position to make a rounded judgment about the performance of a particular children's services authority and its partners. Even if he were given such a power, there would need to be good reasons to create yet more centralisation. I am not sure that I am persuaded that the noble Baroness has provided them.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I am sorry that the noble Earl is not able to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, but I have to say that we are inclined to agree with the noble Earl. I hesitate to give the Committee this information, but I have here the distinction between guidance and direction in Laker Airways v Department of Trade, 1977. Perhaps I shall save that for another day. The principle behind that was that a direction requires the person to whom the direction is given to decide as directed, depriving the individual of any freedom of decision or any power to make his own decision as opposed to that which he is directed to make. However, guidance is assistance in reaching the decision. Having learnt that I wanted to share it with the Committee.
I agree with the noble Earl that the joint area reviews will assess not only the quality of services delivered, but also will make judgments about how well those services have worked together to improve the well-being of children and young people. As noble Lords would expect, we want services to be better than the sum of their parts. We hope that the joint area reviews will enable us to assess the effectiveness of local co-operation.
As the noble Earl has indicated, we have various powers to intervene where a local authority or key partner fails to fulfil their existing functions. The Bill provides an addition to the power in Clause 41 to intervene specifically where a children's services authority is failing to discharge its duty under Clause 6.
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That means that where inspectorates report failings around the arrangements for co-operation, safeguarding and promoting welfare, intervention measures can be triggered to improve those arrangements. Where failures are identified in services provided by the relevant partners, a range of options exist. They include performance management frameworks and statutory powers of intervention.
We are developing an agreed framework within which national partners may use the measures as appropriate to ensure that failures are tackled as part of an overall intervention strategy within an area. We will consult and we are working with national and local partners, as appropriate, to develop this framework. The framework for engagement and intervention in children's services will be discussed in detail with our key stakeholders and with practitioners before being finalised. I hope that in doing that, we will address noble Lords' concerns to ensure that the framework is adequate and sufficient and also that it is appropriate in terms of the way in which it works with those seeking to co-operate and with the children's services agencies.
Where we are aware of poor or deteriorating performances, we will consult early and closely with the authority and its relevant partners to design what we describe as a bespoke support package acceptable to all, where possible.
We recognise that local authorities cannot be held to account for the delivery of actions in areas outside their area of responsibility, such as health service provision for children. But they are responsible for leading on establishing co-operation arrangements locally and will be expected to ensure that appropriate arrangements are in place to co-ordinate a comprehensive response to those joint area review findings. There is, of course, provision in subsection (7), as noble Lords have indicated, for the Secretary of State to issue guidance on the exercise of their duty.
We think we have this about right. We have powers, and we recognise that we need to develop the framework in consultation with our key partners. I hope that that will go some way towards satisfying noble Lords and that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Barker: I have not troubled your Lordships with my thoughts on these matters since Second Reading for a number of reasons. However, have followed your Lordships' deliberations with some care. It has been rather a strange process, akin to being a shepherd in the school nativity play and hoping that Mary and Jesus will get on with things quickly so that the important part can start.
This is perhaps one of the most important parts of the entire Bill. I should like to press the Minister to say a bit more about the word "trigger". Will she outline the circumstances in which one of the local partners could trigger a concern about a safeguarding arrangement? This is fundamental to the whole of Part 2 of the Bill. What does one of the partners with a duty to co-operate do when it has reason to believe that one of the other partners is not fulfilling its duty?

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The noble Earl, Lord Howe, is, like me, a veteran of many health Bills, where duty of co-operation is sometimes legislatively expressed in a negative way by the use of fines, and so on. I am not clear from what the noble Baroness said exactly what the capacity of any one partner will be to trigger an inspection.
Will the noble Baroness say whether or not there is any hierarchy within local partners as to their ability? For example, if two or more local partners have a concern about another, is there any precedence between them with regard to who can trigger a course of action? This is all about enabling partners to identify failing services before matters become critical. It therefore goes to the heart of the rest of Part 2.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I am not sure about Mary, Joseph or the stable at this point, and I am sorry that the noble Baroness was not able to be with us earlier today. I recognise the sincerity with which she says that this is a critical part of the Bill.
Instead of giving the noble Baroness examples of triggering concerns, I would rather write to her with them, with a copy to the Library of the House, so that I can make sure that I am completely accurate. We are looking to a complaints procedure related to the failure to co-operate which will require investigation if not necessarily inspection. That is what I was alluding to in terms of discussions with our key partners—to make sure that we have the framework correct.
Baroness Walmsley: I thank the Minister for her reply. The words of my noble friend Lady Barker went absolutely to the heart of the comments that I was going to make myself, but she made the point in a much more entertaining way. Three years is a long time and children have only one chance. They are more like a piece of putty than a rubber ball: if you press into them, they do not spring back very easily concerning their well-being, their one chance at education, and the possibility of their being abused. So it is terribly important that if things are going wrong that is picked up quickly.
I am so sorry that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, is unable to agree with me on this occasion—not for the first time today. Those Members of the Committee who were present during consideration of the Education Act 2002 will know that I am usually reluctant to give additional powers to the Secretary of State. However, on this occasion, it was concern about the need to act quickly if co-operation is not taking place as it should and children's services are suffering that persuaded me to table the amendment. I, too, would be interested to know a little more about what triggers inspections in the middle of the normal cycle, because it is vital to catch things early if they are going wrong and not working properly. So I shall be most interested to be copied in to the Minister's letter to my noble friend. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 6 shall stand part of the Bill?
Earl Howe: The noble Baroness need not worry that I am about to aim any big guns at the clause—far from it—but I want to talk about some of its practical implications. Clause 6 is likely to impact on a wide range of statutory and non-statutory agencies and it is not clear how the partnership arrangements are supposed to work in practice. It is also unclear how anyone will be able to measure the extent to which the Clause 6 duty has been fulfilled. If we cannot measure success or failure, we are in some difficulty.
I am concerned that Parliament will be unable to scrutinise the detail of the arrangements that will be the subject of guidance. Can the Minister throw any light on that general aspect of the clause, because it is important?
Working together is a wonderful concept but, in practice, it will involve the confluence of a great many disparate cultures. All partners will bring to the table their own very different ideas about how things should be done—or not done—and, somehow, there will have to be some pretty clear guidelines for everyone to follow concerning what is and what is not acceptable practice. Youth offending teams, for example, tend to have a different outlook from that of teachers. Many partners will have their own targets, which will he seen as competing, and a competing target culture is not necessarily conducive to a co-operative, child-centred culture.
I may be wrong, but I fear that there could be quite a bit of mistrust at the outset between individual partners, which will need time to dispel. So I very much agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said earlier about the need for proper co-ordination as well as co-operation. There are also bound to be some practical difficulties in some areas. In rural parts of the country, for example, some services are not readily available and there are inevitable problems associated with delivering services across long distances.
All that points to the need for time, training and real commitment from everyone involved. I am sure that it is possible—indeed, it is absolutely necessary—but perhaps we ought to sound a mild note of warning that the arrangements foreshadowed in Clause 6 will not just happen at the wave of a wand.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: Those are very wise words. The Government approach the impact of the clause in very much the same spirit as the noble Earl indicated. We are under no illusion that there is not a huge amount to do. There is cultural change to ensure that it happens and there is change in practice. There are ways in which we want professionals to operate that will mean they have to think very carefully about their practice. I was involved in bringing together education and social care in Hertfordshire as chair of the health authority, not integrating fully but working closely with practitioners. There were huge issues about how to make things function effectively.

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The good news is that the motivation for much of how people want to co-operate comes from professionals themselves. They recognise the need to pull together and co-operate effectively to support children and families. But we do not underestimate the extent to which the Bill is only a small part of the story and the work needed to support professionals and enable them to work well. It is imperative that they receive the training that they need. I fully accept what the noble Earl said: it will not be easy. There is a huge amount of support from all those who know—far better than I could ever know—that on the ground this makes complete sense in terms of how they operate. We have a lot of support from the agencies and the local authorities, many of which have moved in this direction long before this Bill came before Parliament. That is very important.
As regards the measurement, I hope that noble Lords will have received the discussion paper from Ofsted, the lead agency. If they did not, I apologise and shall ensure that they receive it. It is signed up to by all the inspectorates working together to develop the framework. It is a discussion document—a preamble—to the formal consultation that will take place in the autumn. I suggest that noble Lords read the paper before we return to these issues at a later stage. It begins to break down some of the criteria that one might look to. It might also help to address some of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker. on how to go about that measurement and ensuring that we understand and know when we have success on our hands.
We are trying very hard to bring together the partners, to give them flexibility to recognise the individual circumstances in a locality and to put that in a framework driven by the outcomes for children rather than the inputs from government. On that basis, I hope that noble Lords will feel able to allow the clause to stand part.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Arrangements to safeguard and promote welfare]:
Earl Howe Earl Howe moved Amendment No. 112AA:
Page 5, line 37, at end insert—
"( ) a general practitioner and any other independent clinical practitioner:"
The noble Earl said: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 113, 114, 115 and 117. Much as the new duty in Clause 7 has been welcomed both in and outside Parliament, there is a wide sense of unease that the critical services responsible for the welfare and support of children have not all been included within the scope of the duty. The amendments that I have tabled are aimed at exploring that concern. I hope that the Minister will be able to provide the necessary reassurances.
I shall begin with medical services. Subsection (1) lists four kinds of NHS organisation—a strategic health authority, a PCT, an English NHS trust and an NHS foundation trust—that will be subject to the new duty. That is fine, but the obvious question arises: what about those doctors, nurses and other practitioners who are not employed by the NHS but
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who deliver services within it? Unless such individuals, particularly general practitioners, are bound by the new duty, an enormous gap in the coverage of the duty is unavoidable. A very similar point can be made in relation to schools. I shall not labour that, as we have already had that debate in the context of the previous clause. The children's services authority, and hence the LEA, is to he bound by the duty. What about the individuals delivering education to children? How will these people be brought within the scope of Clause 7? We also need to think about those organisations and people operating statutory databases on children. Those people will be in a privileged position. What duty will they have to ensure that the way in which the databases are run does not compromise the welfare and safety of children?
As the Minister may know, there is a particular worry in relation to refugee children. They are children first and foremost, and we ought to start from the proposition that they should be afforded the same rights and protection as any other children in the United Kingdom. It follows from that that the agencies responsible for providing them with support and accommodation and for looking after them while they are being detained with their families should be included in the new duties. The same applies to those who make the critical decisions about their entry into the country in the first instance.
It is at least questionable whether the detention of any child is compatible with the UN Convention, and reports by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons on inspections of five removal centres in 2002 highlighted the inappropriateness of detaining children in this way. In Dungavel in Scotland, for example, HMIP spoke about the likelihood of the welfare and development of children being compromised by detention. Independent research has backed this up. There are numerous examples of children missing key vaccinations, suffering weight loss, sleeping trouble, boredom and fear while being detained. Those concerns are almost always bound to arise so long as any child is kept in enforced detention. They certainly arise in the case of children detained in prison. which is why Prison Service establishments have been included in Clause 7. It would be one thing if social services had access to refugee children in detention, but at present they do not. We need to hear from the Minister the precise reasons why, if refugee children are to continue being detained, those directly responsible for their care should not fall within the scope of the new duty.
There is widespread concern about unaccompanied children who are vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation at ports of entry. A report by ECPPAT—that is, End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking—three years ago, identified a key gap in relation to communication between immigration services and social services departments. This leads to children being picked up at ports by adults who claim a relationship with children, and there is no one who regards it as their business to see that those claims are verified.
Similar points can be made about asylum-seeking children. Why on earth is the National Asylum Support Service not included in the new duty? The NASS is the organisation responsible for providing emergency accommodation to asylum seekers and for making decisions about dispersing families to different areas of the UK. In doing that, it must of necessity consider the safeguarding of children, and it should be obligated to do so. I hope that the Minister will be able to provide some comfort on these issues, perhaps by saying that she will at least take the concerns away with her. I beg to move.
Baroness Walmsley: I rise to speak to Amendments Nos. 112AB and 116 in my name, which are grouped with the amendment just moved by the noble Earl, Lord Howe.
This group of amendments is essentially about which bodies and persons should have a duty to make arrangements for ensuring that their functions and services are discharged, having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. As the noble Earl has just highlighted, there remain some important omissions. Amendment No. 112AA relates to the British Transport Police and whether such police authorities are included in Clause 7(1)(g). The British Transport Police have enormous responsibilities given the large number of children who use the railway system unaccompanied by adults to go to and from school, and also for leisure purposes.
5.30 p.m.
A very unfortunate example of how things can go wrong was reported in the Evening Standard on 14 May. The article stated:
"Police and a 50-strong crowd of schoolgirls clashed in front of passengers at a south London railway station after a routine operation to check tickets turned to violence. … The disturbance broke out when pupils from [a south London school] arrived at New Beckenham station on their way home to find eight British Transport Police waiting to check their tickets … a group of girls, whom police say had no tickets, tried to rush the platform to join friends who were holding the doors open. After police grabbed two girls, violence between the officers and pupils—some as young as 12—quickly escalated. … Order was only restored when Met reinforcements arrived along with … [the] head teacher".
She of course said that most of her girls at the station were not involved, many of whom were very distressed by the level of violence that they had witnessed in the incident.
The incident was witnessed by a former teacher who commented:
"Certainly, what I saw was inappropriate behaviour by the police. A big, burly policeman dragging a 15-year-old girl down a platform is no way to calm a situation like this. … If the police had not been there, there wouldn't have been a riot".
That sort of incident requires the British Transport Police to have the same duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Therefore, are the British Transport Police covered by the Bill? If they are not, how do the Government intend to ensure that the Chief Constable manages the force with a view to ensuring that all officers act at all times to safeguard
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and promote the welfare of children? That includes even when they are carrying out revenue protection duties for the railway companies, which could include refusing access to the railway system to children who are going to and from school. It would be helpful if the Minister could clarify that.
The main points have already been made by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in relation to Amendment No. 117. Perhaps I may point out that the JCHR 12th report, Scrutiny of Bills, draws attention to the fact that organisations working with refugee children are omitted from Clauses 6, 7 and 9. The JCHR highlights the positive obligations under Articles 2, 3 and 8 and questions whether this omission gives rise to unjustifiable discrimination in the enjoyment of convention rights.
In the debates on the asylum Bill on Tuesday, Members of the Committee may recall that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, resisted the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Avebury, which would ensure assessments of children's needs when they are in detention. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said that that was on the basis that immigration removal centres are adequately providing for their needs already.
In view of the noble Lord's comments, can the Minister possibly resist the inclusion of the refugee agencies in this duty "to safeguard and promote welfare"? As the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said, those children are at their most vulnerable when they are in the care of the various immigration agencies. Therefore, the duty to safeguard them should certainly be on those organisations as well as all the others in the Bill.
Baroness Massey of Darwen: With my probing Amendment No. 112B, I simply wish to build on the matters that I raised in my first amendment about the issue of substance misuse. Again, I declare an interest as the chair of the National Treatment Agency for substance misuse. Substance misuse among young people is a key concern for parents, carers and communities. Each local authority has a responsibility. Again, I plead that substance misuse should not be inevitably linked with the criminal justice system.
In local safeguarding teams, will there be a person with designated substance misuse responsibility? Would that person be a signatory to the local young person's partnership grant? I assume that substance misuse services will be included in the integrated inspection framework and in the common assessment framework. Again, I want to be reassured that there will be reference to those issues at least in guidance to the Bill.
Baroness Barker: My name is attached to many of the amendments grouped with the amendment moved by the noble Earl, Lord Howe. I too am a veteran of debates on many a health Bill and I share his anxiety. I want to refer to private therapists who see children, such as psychotherapists and a variety of physical therapists. I am not convinced that they would be included under the present drafting of the clause. It is very important that they are brought into the Bill.

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I want to speak in particular to Amendment No. 115, which would ensure the inclusion of the operator of the database. Above all others, that person or organisation ought to be charged with a duty, clearly expressed, to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. I do not wish to steal anyone's thunder before we debate Clause 8, but perhaps this is the key role in the whole of the exercise.
I want to put to the Minister what may seem a naive question, but it is one that is rather important: what exactly does the word "arrangements" mean? I know what I think it means, but I would like some clarification of the term. That said, it is clear that the operator of the database will hold, in one place, some of the most sensitive and potentially damaging information about vulnerable individuals. Therefore, while all the other bodies have a duty, it is inconceivable that that person or body should be left out of such a critical obligation.
Lord Colwyn: When speaking to Amendment No. 112AA, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, talked about giving the clause some teeth. I wonder whether the noble Baroness, or perhaps my noble friend Lord Howe, could say whether the term "a general practitioner" refers to both a medical practitioner and a dental practitioner or whether a dental practitioner would be included under "other independent clinical practitioner". It is important to make this clear, in particular on behalf of my profession.
Lord Hylton: I support what the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said about inter-agency co-operation and the lack of accountability of the various agencies in terms of co-operating. I think he raised that in the debate on whether Clause 6 should stand part. In that context, some improvement on the present situation could be made if, whenever possible, the catchment areas of the various agencies were harmonised. I realise that it will not always be possible and that some bodies, by their nature, have much bigger catchment areas than others. But there is, I believe, a quite unnecessary degree of variation, in particular at the local level. It is possible that the Ofsted report, which I have not seen but to which the Minister referred, might say something about that. I hope it does.
I turn to Amendment No. 112AB. The British Transport Police are very likely to come into contact with the very large number of children who each year run away from home and quite often make a beeline for London. It is important to include the British Transport Police among the other agencies.
As regards Amendments Nos. 116 and 117, I urge the Minister to look at our debates on the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill, which have been referred to, albeit briefly. Both in Committee and on Report I moved amendments to that Bill which sought to try to improve the situation of trafficking in persons for exploitation. That issue affects many children, whether or not they are
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technically asylum-seeking children. I look forward to what the noble Baroness may have to say about that matter.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I hope that in the course of my remarks I shall be able to address all the issues. I am very grateful to noble Lords for indicating their concerns by raising a number of substantial points.
As noble Lords have indicated, the first three amendments in this group seek to place the duty to have regard to the need to safeguard children and promote their welfare on to GPs and other independent clinical practitioners, substance misuse services for young people and individuals providing medical or clinical services.
In regard to Amendment No. 112B, tabled by my noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen, she will know better than I that substance misuse services for young people are funded in England through the young people's substance misuse partnership grant. This is paid to local authorities, which act as bankers for local drug partnerships. The partnerships are the young people's joint commissioning groups and consist of local authority and NHS representatives.
Services may be provided, too, by the voluntary sector or directly by the NHS, but in all cases will be covered by the provisions of Clauses 7(2)(b) or 22(2)(b) as they are all provided under arrangements made by the local authority or NHS bodies in discharge of their functions. I hope that that addresses the amendment of my noble friend. Such services are indeed covered by the Bill and I hope that she will accept that her amendment is unnecessary.
As to those providing medical and clinical services within the NHS, including general medical practitioners and nurses—this relates to Amendments Nos. 112AA and 113, and its Welsh equivalent, Amendment No. 201—such practitioners are either employed by an NHS trust or contracted by the local primary care trust, or in Wales the local health board, to provide primary care services.
I should say at this point that I am not a veteran of all the health Bills and I recognise the expertise available to both Opposition Front Benches. I shall choose my words carefully and hope that I properly reflect the position.
As the Committee will know, as a result of a new GP contract the current arrangements for the provision of primary medical services made with individual GPs came to an end on 31 March this year and were replaced by a system based on practice contracts. From 1 April 2004, primary care trusts are under a duty to provide or secure the provision of primary medical services to meet the reasonable needs of their areas, either by providing the services themselves or through contracts with a range of providers, who may be individual GPs, partnerships and so on.
Given the new PCT duty and the range of providers available, it will be better for the duties to co-operate to improve well-being and protect the welfare of children to rest with the primary care trusts, an issue

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we touched on in our earlier deliberations today. We can then direct primary care trusts to ensure that contracts for primary medical services include a term requiring the contractor to safeguard the welfare of children and provide supporting guidance as appropriate, setting out in practical terms what this duty will mean for them. As I am sure the Committee will recognise, this will have the advantage of capturing—that is the word I am given—not only GPs but all healthcare professionals who deliver primary care.
Clause 7 does not apply to independent providers of medical and clinical services that are funded personally by individual patients or their insurance policies. It does, however, apply to an NHS organisation that commissions and funds the provision of services by an independent contractor or contract. In this case, they will be covered by Clause 7(2)(b).
We considered whether private providers treating private patients should be covered by this duty but have concluded that it would not be appropriate. In the first place, such providers do not have statutory functions and so cannot make arrangements for their functions to be discharged having regard to the need to safeguard children. Secondly, they are independent bodies which can enter into private arrangements with others.
However, they have to meet any regulatory rules where they provide certain kinds of services such as those covered by the Care Standards Act 2000. Where they are providing a service to a private citizen who is procuring the service—for example, a parent—the provider should not take on the same kind of role as the public authorities in Clause 7. The Care Standards Act enables the Government to regulate how such providers conduct themselves, which we think is the right way to ensure that such providers provide services which safeguard children.
The Care Standards Act provides for the Department of Health to publish, following consultation, statements of national minimum standards to be met by the providers of such services. We believe that that is the right way to ensure that these issues are dealt with. I hope that on that basis Members of the Committee will feel that their amendments are unnecessary.
We have discussed schools a couple of times in our deliberations. They are covered by Section 175 of the Education Act 2002, which came into being not least because of the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, in our discussions of the tragedy of Lauren Wright. We believe that the Education Act 2002 imposes a stronger duty than that within the amendment. I refer Members of the Committee to that, and if they need any further explanation I shall be happy to give it. In issuing guidance under this clause, we intend to ensure that it is consistent with guidance under Section 175, so that no inconsistency or confusion is created.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, had particular concerns on the back of the amendment introduced by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, about database operators.
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The first thing I should say is that no decision has been reached on whether the person should be a database operator. That is simply part of the discussions being undertaken and on which we shall form much of our deliberations in the time to come, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, suggested. I am very much looking forward to that as we deliberate how best to deal with the issues raised under Clause 8.
First, the amendments are unnecessary because no decision has been made. Secondly, if there were to be a database operator under Clauses 8 or 23, should the Secretary of State or Welsh Assembly decide that there should be established in children's services authority areas a database that would require such a person, that would be covered by virtue of the fact that local authorities are covered. In addition, the purposes for which such databases would be set up are tied explicitly to those of Clauses 7 and 23—that is, to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. That is not in my brief, but that is the belt and braces approach. I hope that the noble Earl and the noble Baroness will accept that that person, if he did exist, would be covered both ways.
On the issues of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, the Immigration Service and the National Asylum Support Service, I have some sympathy with the next three amendments in this group. I would say at the outset that the Immigration and Nationality Directorate takes its responsibility towards the children that it encounters very seriously. I am sure that Members of the Committee would accept that. I have not had the privilege of reading the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, moved, as my work on this Bill and another Bill has prevented me reading Hansard as closely as I should like. However, now that the noble Lord has drawn my attention to it, I shall make sure that I do so, and I shall have a conversation with my noble friend Lord Bassam in the light of the noble Lord's remarks, for which I am grateful.
Members of the Committee will know about the matters under debate from those particularly involved in the Bill and from the experiences of the Immigration Service and NASS. Those bodies encounter many different children in different circumstances and are acutely aware of the need to ensure that the children are properly identified and referred to the appropriate agencies. They have well established arrangements with local authorities and other agencies to ensure that concerns are swiftly dealt with. The Immigration and Nationality Directorate also carries out an essential task in providing immigration controls for the UK and ensuring a tightly managed asylum system.
The duty in the Bill would not be an appropriate one for that body. It would, I fear, damage that role and be exploited by anyone seeking to abuse the system. The amendments go much further than our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and could be exploited.
It is important to recognise that unaccompanied asylum seeker children are not directly supported by NASS—they are supported by local authorities under the Children Act 1989 and are directly referred to local

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authorities by the Immigration Service. The role of NASS is to provide accommodation and cash support to families with children. In those functions, NASS acts in the same way as any other provider of accommodation or subsistence to families and it seeks to respect families' rights to private and family life. We do not believe that it is not necessary or appropriate for NASS, in particular, to be placed under the Clause 7 duty.
A better approach is to ensure that NASS safeguards the rights of the children it deals with by working in close partnership with other agencies. NASS was set up from the beginning through extensive consultation with local authorities and its work has been carried out in partnership with local authorities wherever possible. Of course, NASS funds local authority consortia to help facilitate and develop all aspects of partnership working.
Arrangements are already in place to notify the relevant statutory bodies about children arriving in their area. All concerns about children are referred to the proper authorities. NASS is supported to ensure that that is done properly.
The Immigration Service also has established partnership arrangements with local authorities and the police to ensure that any concerns about a child are promptly acted upon. It is extremely concerned that the proposed amendment would provide another basis for exploiting the appellate and judicial review systems by arguing that the detention of asylum-seeking families with children is not compatible with safeguarding children or protecting their welfare. Detention is an unfortunate but necessary element of our immigration control procedures.
Noble Lords will be aware that children are detained for only the shortest possible time. Families entering detention for removal are expected to have removal directions already in place and are therefore usually detained for no more than a few days. As noble Lords may know, we have recently introduced enhanced arrangements for the rigorous and frequent review of family detention and put in place a system of regular ministerial authorisation for the detention of children beyond 28 days.
Noble Lords will know too of a number of different measures that have been put in place during the past few years aimed at significantly improving our policies and procedures. For example, a single point of contact has been established for all local authorities and social workers who want to clarify the immigration status of children. Another example is the best practice guidance that was distributed to all UK ports of entry. A point was raised about the procedures to be followed when immigration officers encounter children, especially those who may be at risk. Training is being offered alongside that.
Finally, Amendment No. 112AB would impose the Clause 7 duty on the British Transport Police. To be honest, we had not even considered whether that duty should be placed on the British Transport Police until the amendment was laid, so I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for doing so. As she
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indicated, the British Transport Police undertakes a public policing role which is very similar to that of local police forces, albeit that it is a national police force responsible for policing the railway network. As well as the example provided by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, spoke about its role in terms of runaway children. On the face of it, there could therefore be a case for including it along with other forces. We plan to consider the amendment further with colleagues in the Department for Transport and with the British Transport Police itself. I shall return to it at a later stage. I hope that I have given as good an explanation as possible and that the noble Earl will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Dholakia: Perhaps I may intervene before the Minister sits down. I have no difficulty in accepting what she said about NASS, but a year or so ago, the Home Office produced an internal review of the work of NASS. When we asked for that report to be published, it refused to do so. How can one have confidence in bodies such as NASS when the report is not available to Members of your Lordships' House? More importantly, irrespective of the relationship between immigration authorities and local authorities, NASS plays an important role in looking after the children of asylum-seekers by providing accommodation. Why should it therefore be excluded from this provision?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: On the latter point. the noble Lord may not agree with me, but I have tried to set out my reasons. I hope that he will have the chance to read them and to reflect on them. I am very happy to discuss the matter with him further. On the former, he will not be surprised to learn that I am unable to answer the question about the NASS report, but I will refer that to my colleagues in the Home Office who I hope will give him a satisfactory explanation.
The Earl of Listowel: I did not intend to speak to the amendment, because I know how pressed the Committee is for time. I hoped that the Minister's response would be sympathetic to Amendment No. 117 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, which had regard to NASS.
I recognise the difficulties that NASS faces, and we did not wish to put it in a position where its system can be abused. On the other hand, it is important to bear in mind, for example, that we keep asylum-seeking families in bed and breakfast accommodation whereas we no longer permit that to be done in the case of citizens of our own country. In the recent debacle involving the accession countries, families were told that they would have to leave their house and find a job on the same day; I think it was 1 May. They were given very short notice. Just imagine how those families and the children in those families must have felt when they realised, "Oh my goodness; we are going to be moved on. We won't have any income coming in". Thanks to a judicial review of the process, I believe, the timetable was put back and they were given more time to prepare.

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It was gratifying to hear from debates on the immigration and asylum Bill that, for the most part, children are not being kept in detention for lengthy periods. However, I also understand that they have occasionally been kept in detention for more than 100 days. So there are real concerns about the welfare of children under the current NASS arrangements. NASS does not seem to have such a good reputation in what it does. So if the noble Earl, Lord Howe, does not bring back this amendment at the next stage, I certainly will. However, I thank the Minister for her response and for providing information at this stage.
Earl Howe: I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and to the Minister, whose reply was partly reassuring and partly very disappointing. I shall obviously read what she had to say very carefully between now and Report. I will just say at this stage to my noble friend Lord Colwyn that I think I am right in saying that primary care trusts have responsibility for primary dental services. Amendment No. 112AA mentions,
"any other independent clinical practitioner",
quite deliberately to embrace just about anyone falling under that description. Certainly dentists are included.
I was a little surprised to hear what the Minister had to say about how independent contractors could be captured through their contract. I hope that that can be done, but it has always been my understanding—we had this debate when we were debating the Health Protection Agency Bill—that directing a body to agree with an independent contractor to do something was technically impossible because if a contractor is independent, then by definition he or she has the ability not to agree with whatever is being proposed. So you can direct all you like, but unless there is a duty in the Bill for the independent practitioner to be bound by whatever duty it is, then you may not succeed in your objective. Nevertheless I note what the Minister had to say on that point, and I shall reflect further on it.
The disappointment came in relation to refugee and asylum-seeking children. I am very grateful for what the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, had to say on that issue in particular. Like other noble Lords, I was in receipt of a letter from the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture in relation to the asylum and immigration Bill. The foundation's general experience through its child and family specialists of detainees is that seriously troubled families have not been identified and adequate assessments have not been made of those families while they have been in detention. The foundation's clinicians have concluded from that and other evidence that staff in removal centres simply lack the skills to carry out complex assessments of children, adolescents and their parents. That is very worrying. I think that to talk of the situation being exploited if the amendment were accepted is perhaps a little out place when there is clearly such a deficit in essential services being delivered to these very vulnerable children.
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Time is moving on. I am grateful to the Minister for the time that she spent on her reply. I am sure that she has given us much food for thought between now and the next stage of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 112AB to 117 not moved.]
6 p.m.
Baroness Stern Baroness Stern moved Amendment No. 117A:
Page 5, line 43, at end insert—
"( ) courts with the power to sentence a child to detention or remand a child in custody"
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 117A, I wish to speak also to Amendment No. 130C. I speak on behalf also of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu.
These are amendments to probe the Government on their intentions with regard to the placement of vulnerable children remanded or sentenced to custody. The Youth Justice Board is very interested in the discussion on the amendments.
This is a complicated area and I shall attempt as best I can to set out for the benefit of the Committee what the problem is and why we hope that some remedies can be found through this Bill. At the core of it is the decision about where to place a child who has been before the court or sentenced to secure custody, when that child is deemed vulnerable. At the moment there are discrepancies in the way that the matter is dealt with and the placement options available.
Any boy under 15 and all girls under 17 who are being remanded before trial or who are waiting for their sentence should be placed in a local authority secure unit or a secure training centre. The situation with boys of 15 and 16 who are remanded in custody before trial is different. They are assessed for vulnerability by the youth offending team and, if they are deemed too vulnerable to be placed in a prison, under Section 98 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 the court may direct that they be placed not in a prison but in a local authority secure unit or a secure training centre, but only if there is an available placement on that day.
The assessment of vulnerability is undertaken following the Youth Justice Board's assessment profile and focuses in particular on emotional health and maturity, any risks of self-harm, suicidal tendency or any other emotional fragility for which exposure to the harshness of a prison placement would be too great a risk. With under-15s and young women getting priority for these placements, however, it is often reported by practitioners that vulnerable young men aged 15 and 16 are remanded to prison custody despite having been determined as being too vulnerable to be there. This raises questions in itself. I wonder whether the Minister has any figures for those who are assessed as too vulnerable for prison at the remand stage but still get sent there because there are no other placements.
That is the situation for remand prisoners. For those who are sentenced, it is different. Any boy aged 15 or over who is sentenced to custody through a detention and training order will almost certainly serve the sentence in a Prison Service establishment. However vulnerable the boy is, the court has no power to direct where the order should be served or to require a mental health placement. However vulnerable he is and however many reports on vulnerability have been written by the youth offending team, the court has no power in that regard. This may be why the sentencing judge took 19 days to decide the sentence in the case of Joseph Scholes who was extremely vulnerable and subsequently killed himself. However, there is one other element in this explanation, and that is Sections 90 and 91 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000. Under those sections, children convicted of grave crimes and sentenced can be placed in local authority secure units—they are smaller, with higher staff ratios and a child-centred regime—or in secure training centres. Highly vulnerable children convicted of less grave crimes cannot benefit from that flexibility or appropriate placement.
This admirable Bill seeks to bring about a sea change in how all services and agencies work together to meet the particular needs of each individual child or young person. When we come to children facing a period of detention, which is a very serious thing to happen to a child, their placement is not determined by the criteria of the Bill—need, vulnerability, physical and mental health, prevention from harm—but by a not very coherent mix of legal requirements combined with a hierarchy of category priorities for the allocation of oversubscribed secure-unit places.
Prisons and secure training centres will have new responsibilities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in their care under Clause 7. However, they cannot control the decision-making that sent the child to them in the first place. The amendment seeks to probe how courts, which make critical decisions about children's safety and welfare when they decide to detain them, could be empowered and enabled to make the decisions appropriate to each child. If given such powers and responsibilities, courts could play a part in reconfiguring the range and appropriateness of secure placements available for young people. Courts make critical, life-and-death decisions about children's welfare, but do not have the power to make sentencing decisions on placements of children that reflect their vulnerability.
All courts—in both family and criminal proceedings—are currently required to have regard to the child's welfare under Section 44 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. That provision is in need of clarification and strengthening. It is clear that the courts have a pivotal role in decisions about children's safety and welfare through the sentencing decisions that they make, so they must be an integral part of the Government's new framework for safeguarding children and promoting their welfare.
We seek an assurance that the Government recognise that there is a problem with the placement of vulnerable children in Prison Service accommodation and agree that the courts have an active and critical role in relation to children's welfare and safeguarding.
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We hope that they will give further consideration to the role of the courts in the safeguarding framework of the Bill, and in the clause. I beg to move.
Lord Dholakia: I am delighted to support the amendment. On 1 April, I raised in the House the death in Prison Service custody of Joseph Scholes, and asked Her Majesty's Government to establish an independent inquiry into the circumstances surrounding it. I spelt out then circumstances leading to his death in the Stoke Heath young offender institution on 24 March 2002, when he was found hanged in his cell a month after his 16th birthday.
If the Bill has been designed to safeguard and promote welfare, we must ensure that courts are subject to the new detail to do so in the exercise of their current functions. That duty will ensure that children deemed vulnerable are not placed in Prison Service custody. Sadly, Joseph's case is not isolated, but highlights the terrible situation in which many of our most vulnerable people find themselves when sentenced to or remanded in custody. Even the coroners' powers are limited, in terms of the examination of such cases. So far as their functions are concerned, in Joseph's case, the coroner has asked for a public inquiry, and I am in correspondence with the Secretary of State on that matter. It is clear that Joseph should not have been placed in a young offender institution, and our amendment would ensure that that did not happen to others.
Joseph had an unsettled childhood and became a disturbed young boy, exhibiting clear signs of depression and periodic suicidal thoughts, and he had begun to self-harm. Two weeks before his court appearance, he slashed his face 30 times with a knife. He was clearly extremely vulnerable and in need of the utmost care and attention.
The fact that Joseph and many others like him have found themselves in Prison Service custody is a testament to the impotence of the courts in these matters. The noble Baroness, Lady Stern, mentioned the concern that even the judge had expressed in this matter. The judge was fully aware of the high level of risk and vulnerability in Joseph's case but had no powers to ensure that he was placed in suitable secure accommodation, such as a local authority secure unit or mental health placement.
Of course, we know that one critical problem in this respect is the lack of adequate placements. Whatever the outcome of an assessment of vulnerability or the opinion of the court, youth offending team worker or social worker, it is the availability or otherwise of alternative placements that determines the outcome for young people, not their need. That cannot be acceptable. No amount of concern expressed can change a situation unless a duty is enshrined in statute to that effect.
That is the important point that the amendment seeks to make. The Children Bill rightly has at its heart the aim of improving safeguards for children. Clause 7 places a duty on a number of agencies and bodies to make arrangements to have regard to the safeguarding and promotion of children's welfare. There are a

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number of concerns about whether that duty is strong enough to make a real difference to the decisions made by the bodies listed in the new duty. Nevertheless, it is a step in the right direction, and we certainly welcome it.
Significantly, prisons, secure training centres and youth offending teams are all included in that duty. But where are the courts? It is no good to say that the Sentencing Guidelines Council will deal with this matter. Guidelines are precisely that—guidelines; they are not instructions. No practice can be changed unless the change has been instructed by law. The courts have a most important role to play in determining children's welfare and safety. That was the responsibility that lay so heavily on the judge in the case of Joseph Scholes. Judges know that, once they make a decision on a sentence of detention, they have no power over the final decision about where the young person will end up. That seems to me a complete nonsense. Why do we make our courts so powerless in such matters? If courts were brought into the safeguarding framework proposed by the Bill, they could become key drivers in the placements available for vulnerable children and thereby prevent another death in custody.
The prison estate is growing and the prison population increasing. In relation to young people, it is a situation that is provider and cost-led; it is not based on the needs of vulnerable children. If it were, as pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, resources would be directed towards smaller and safer secure accommodation for the small number of children who need it.
As has repeatedly been pointed out, the treatment and care of children in Prison Service establishments has been subject to criticism from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Joint Committee on Human Rights and Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons. The JCHR recently recommended the complete separation of the organisation responsible for the custody of children from the Prison Service. Prison is no place for children.
If we cannot use the Children Bill—a Bill which the Minister has, on repeated occasions, told us is about improving things for all children—to address the current problem and to ensure that vulnerable children are not put at risk, we are failing in our duty of care to those children. I ask the Minister to assure the Committee that the Government recognise that there is a problem in the placement of vulnerable children in Prison Service accommodation, that they agree that the courts have an active and critical role to play in relation to children's welfare and safeguarding, that they will give further consideration to the role of the courts in the safeguarding framework of the Bill, and that they will further consider the role of the courts in Clause 7.
Those are the minimum assurances that we need. If they are not forthcoming, then we should be entitled to seek the opinion of the House on Report.
6.15 p.m.
The Earl of Listowel: I rise briefly to express my great interest in the debate about the two amendments in this group.
If my understanding is correct, they are about giving more flexibility to the courts. I was most grateful to my noble friend Lady Stern for introducing me recently to a legal adviser to the district attorney of Brooklyn, where there has been a magnificent project over 13 years called the DTAP. I shall not go into the details of it, but if one gives the courts more flexibility it is possible to place people and children outside prison in more therapeutic environments. This case related to an adult therapeutic community which we talked about with the American lawyer. The response around the table was that, regrettably, in this country everything is controlled from the top and there is not the flexibility to bring forward those important new modes of working. If that is what the amendment is about, I will read it with great interest tomorrow.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I begin by acknowledging that noble Lords have spoken with real expertise and I shall attempt to do justice to some of the questions raised, while recognising that noble Lords are better informed than I and that I would wish to consult with colleagues in the Home Office on many of the important issues that noble Lords have raised.
As a backdrop, noble Lords will know that we published Youth Justice: the next steps alongside Every Child Matters. Many of the concerns raised by noble Lords are encapsulated within that document. We have not finished with the Bill in that sense. I know that colleagues in the Home Office are actively looking at the issues raised in that document and seeing what more could and should be done. If I fail to give distinct answers and the reassurances that noble Lords are seeking, I shall certainly do so in correspondence and place copies in the Library, having taken that consultation to my colleagues, who will want to read what noble Lords have said. For example, I know that my noble friend Lord Bassam is writing to the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, about a number of these issues and I have asked that we discover how many vulnerable children have been placed in youth offending institutions, although we do not know whether there is information about that. We will find out whether we have that information and ensure that we give it to the noble Baroness.
We also know that there are real concerns about the welfare of children in custody—and the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia movingly raised the issue of what happened to Joseph. The noble Lord may know that we will shortly issue guidance to local authorities about their responsibilities towards children in custodial settings as a result of the 1989 Act.
Again, I know that I am speaking to real experts in your Lordships' House when I say that courts sentencing under 18s are already required to have regard to the welfare of children and young people under Section 44 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. It is against that backdrop that I want to reflect further on that.

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I have a speaking note which talks much about the Youth Justice Board, but I feel that it would he wasting your Lordships' time because so many noble Lords know so much about this matter that it would be better for me to put my points in correspondence. On the basis that the noble Baroness will withdraw the amendment I will take these issues to colleagues in the Home Office to reflect further on what noble Lords have said about the more general issues. There is one set of issues concerning the courts that are properly the responsibility of the Home Office, but wider issues have also been raised about understanding where our vulnerable children and young people are and recognising that vulnerability in society at large, as well as in our youth offending institutions.
I have been as helpful as I can and I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.
Baroness Stern: I thank the Minister for that helpful and considerate reply. I am sure Members of the Committee will agree with me that she has no need to apologise for not knowing the finer and minute details of the youth justice system. Her performance on the two Bills she is taking through at the same time is phenomenal enough.
I thank her for agreeing to look at these matters further. We look forward to hearing what she will bring forward. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 118 had been retabled as Amendment No. 1194.]
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon): If Amendment No. 119 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 119A or 122.
Baroness Byford Baroness Byford moved Amendment No. 119:
Page 6, line 1, leave out from "discharged" to "the" in line 2 and insert "in a manner consistent with the objective of safeguarding and promoting"
The noble Baroness said: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 114, 203 and 204A. I believe that Amendment No. 119 is an extremely important amendment, although I suspect that other Members of the Committee will argue that all amendments are important. The phrase "having regard to" is widely used in Bills—I suspect that that is why it is used in this context—but it is a catch-all which leaves open the possibility of disregard of the clause in question.
The growth of consultation as a means to justify the actions of an official body has, in its own way, also weakened the perception of "having regard to". Departments which go out to consultation in obedience to the structure to have regard to the needs and wants of a certain group of people often have many responses which are themselves incompatible; for example, conflicting needs or wants. The freedom to drink until the early hours in pubs or clubs as against the need for the average citizen to get a good
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night's sleep often means that the consulting department acts in a way which has no regard for either point of view.
In the context of the Children Bill, we feel that it is not adequate simply to "have regard to" the need to promote and safeguard. The actions of any authority listed in Clause 7(1) must be seen to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. The difference between the wording of the Bill and the wording of the amendment is that the Bill defines the fulfilment of the safeguarding duty in terms of the decision-making process and our amendment defines it in terms of the manner in which actions are taken. That is an important, distinct and material difference. I beg to move.
Baroness Walmsley: I rise to speak to Amendment No. 123. Its purpose is to probe the question whether the new duty in Clause 7 is strong enough to ensure that persons or bodies to whom it applies do not take decisions or undertake actions contrary to their duty to safeguard and promote welfare.
The amendment came from the Children's Society and it is supported by other children's organisations. Naturally, they welcome the new duty of relevant agencies providing services to children to have regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in discharging their normal sanctions as a positive step in the right direction. However, the critical question they ask is whether or not the new duty goes far enough, or is robust enough, to ensure greater protection for children. What additional safeguards will it provide in practice for children?
The Children's Society is concerned that the nature of the duty created under Clause 7(2) is ambiguous and insufficiently strong to guarantee that the authority subject to it could not continue to be able to act in ways that are detrimental to a child's welfare. In cases where meeting children's needs under this duty may sit in conflict with the carrying out of primary functions, the clause does not provide any clear direction to decision-making. In such situations, it is unclear what real or new safeguard would exist for children.
The duty to discharge functions, having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, is important as a positive duty, but in effect it is an administrative test, requiring a demonstrable point in decision-making at which child safety and welfare are considered. One might say that it is another piece of bureaucracy.
Our interest is in what kind of additional safeguard this new duty would provide in practice for children in the care of and/or subject to the decisions of the listed authorities. In theory at least, the actions of authorities subject to this duty need not change at all as a result of it, permitting them to place children's safety and welfare needs at a lower level of priority in favour of carrying out their primary functions. It does not provide the clear legal framework for a positive test about whether actions taken are consistent with the safeguarding of children and the promotion of their welfare.

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Any new duty must focus on the real impact on children of the actions of persons or bodies subject to its requirements, and not merely on process. That would not be a problem where both sets of interests can be met at the same time. However, when meeting children's needs would sit in conflict with the carrying out of primary functions, the duty does not appear to help in guiding decision-making.
Clause 7 needs to be of practical use in guiding decision-making in cases such as these, making clear the priority to be given to children's safety and welfare. There is a critical need, for example, for the Prison Service and other institutions responsible for children to have an unambiguous duty placed upon them in law. That is particularly so in light of the judgment by Mr Justice Munby, which established that the Children Act 1989 applies to children in prisons, but not to the Prison Service. There is a critical gap in the safeguarding of children, which means that the Prison Service does not have a clear statutory duty to safeguard the welfare of children.
At the very least the Bill's provisions should provide that decisions and actions in the exercise of functions should not be detrimental to children's welfare and protection. As currently drafted, the Bill leaves an ambiguity in the law, whereby agencies would be required to demonstrate that they had taken children's welfare and protection into account but would still be permitted to undertake a particular action or make decisions detrimental to the child. Amendment No. 123 seeks to correct that ambiguity.
Baroness Stern: I support Amendment No. 123. I have already stressed—I will not elaborate again—the importance of law in creating what the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, this morning called the nominative framework. People working in coercive institutions, such as prisons, but also in any institution away from the public eye where acts can be concealed and where children are at the mercy of others, need to be able to rely on strong clear unambiguous law to help them to make the right decisions.
The addition of the wording in this amendment would strengthen and structure decision-making for those working with children. One has to do more than just have regard to the words of the provision. The amendment puts the duty to safeguard above the obligation to keep the show on the road. I fear that without such strengthening, there will be much "having regard to", but not very much positive promoting.
Baroness Barker: I want to speak to Amendments Nos. 119 and 120 to which my name is attached. I wish to return to a point I made in regard to an earlier group of amendments, which was not answered by the Minister in her reply. I refer to the meaning of "arrangement". The definition of "arrangement" is critical to the subsections that we are discussing now. Does it mean "contractual terms", "internal policies of organisation", or "purchasing policies"? What exactly does it mean? Like the emperor's new clothes,
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everyone else may understand this, but I do not. I believe that it is absolutely fundamental to the relationship between these organisations.
Only when we understand what "arrangement" means—arrangements can be implemented in a number of different ways—can we make a decision about whether the wording in the clause as it stands, or the wording proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, which I much prefer, is what is needed. The noble Baroness was absolutely right; I think that there are a number of authorities which will believe that they have discharged their functions by holding consultations. I do not believe that that is a high enough threshold.
6.30 p.m.
My view of this is greatly coloured by some of the arrangements which exist in older people's services where organisations can, through agencies, believe that they have discharged their duty, yet the level of service provided is appalling—dangerous, in fact.
I am sorry to raise the question again, but I think that there needs to be absolute clarity about the whole of this clause and this provision in particular.
Earl Howe: I should first like to speak to Amendment No. 120, which seeks to couple "health" with "welfare" in the safeguarding duty set out in subsection (2)(a).
This is not a cosmetic amendment—achieving good health is something that most people believe is the province of the NHS, but it is not the sole responsibility of the NHS. If we agree, as we surely must, that other bodies besides the health service have the task of promoting children's health, then it is essential that those local organisations should make an explicit commitment to that objective if the role of "health" within the Bill is not to play second fiddle to that of social services and education.
I think particularly of smoking, diet and exercise—three of the issues that are addressed in the Government's health Choosing Health? consultation paper. These issues need to be at the forefront of people's minds in the context of the Clause 7 duty. If the Minister says to me that the concept of welfare implicitly subsumes the concept of health, I would have to differ from her. If we look back to Clause 6(2), we see physical and mental health mentioned in their own right as quite distinct from the various other categories of well-being. It would be interesting to know whether there is a difference in the Government's mind between well-being and welfare, but I suggest that "welfare" is not sufficiently explicit or precise to carry with it an automatic import of the health dimension in its fullest sense.
Amendment No. 128A seeks to introduce a definition of the term "safeguard" into Clause 7. Why is this necessary? The short answer is that without such a definition, it is not easy to see how those persons and bodies who are bound by the duty to safeguard will be able to take decisions that are either correct or consistent. The definition of "safeguarding" in the amendment is taken from the joint chief inspectors' report Safeguarding

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Children. It is useful because it draws attention to the dual aspect of safeguarding; namely, preventive action and proactive partnership working.
Section 175 of the Education Act 2002 places a duty on LEAs and governing bodies of both schools and further education authorities to make arrangements to ensure that their functions are exercised with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. The Minister referred to that Act earlier. There is draft child protection guidance, which the department issued for consultation earlier in the year, but this is not the equivalent of safeguarding guidance—at least, not as I read it. This implies that the duty on LEAs and schools may be more narrowly defined than that on the other agencies and bodies listed in the clause.
A number of organisations, including the NSPCC and the NCB, have expressed concern about the lack of clarity over the meaning of "safeguard". I hope that the Minister will be able to offer some explanation and reassurance.
The Earl of Listowel: I should like to speak to Amendment No. 119. Recently a child—a 15 year-old boy—died at Rainsbrook secure training centre following, if I recall it correctly, control and restraint procedures being used on him. That may have just been a regrettable, unhappy incident, but my point is relevant to this amendment.
Staff in this sort of establishment have about nine weeks' basic training and may have two or three days' additional training in working with children. The only obligatory module after that is training in restraint. One appreciates the importance of understanding training in restraint in such environments. However, we are putting very poorly qualified staff in charge of very vulnerable, troubled and troubling children. I am not an expert, but there must be a lot of weight in including in the Bill that sort of extra protection for children in custodial settings. I look forward to a more sympathetic response to that from the Minister.
I remind the Committee that in this country we have around 2,500 children in custody; in France there are around 755; and in Denmark there are 12. Other countries tend to find more constructive routes. I apologise for always raising this matter in the House, but on the Continent there is a professional cadre, with around three years' training, who work with such children. When one does not have such professionals working with these children, one needs very clear laws and regulations to protect them.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I am very sympathetic to what noble Lords seek to do in their amendments. Without taking up too much of the Committee's time, I shall respond to some of the issues raised by the amendments. I hope that I can resolve some of them.
The aim of Amendment No. 128A is to define "safeguard" and "welfare" in Clauses 7 and 22. We have thought about the matter very carefully and believe that the amendment would limit the already widely understood meaning of those words. That
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would therefore limit the activity of the agencies listed in Clause 7(1) and Clause 22(1) in relation to the duties under those provisions. It attempts to define what it means to "safeguard the welfare of children", which is not the phrase that we use. We talk about the need to have regard to the need "to safeguard and promote the welfare of children".
Members of the Committee will he very familiar with the term "to safeguard and promote the welfare of children" because it has been used already in the same context in the Children Act 1989. Under Section 17 of that Act, local authorities must "safeguard and promote the welfare of children" in need in their area. They are also under a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children whom they are looking after. Those who framed the Children Act did not consider it necessary to define that term or any of its constituent parts and neither do we at this stage.
As the noble Earl has indicated, the Joint Chief Inspectors' report Safeguarding Children, published in October 2002, already describes what safeguarding means in practice, which is identical to the one in the amendment. The meaning of "promoting welfare" is explained in the Government's Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families of 2000. I am not sure whether the noble Earl has a copy of the framework, but I will ensure that noble Lords who have spoken in this part of the debate see it. The framework explains that safeguarding children and promoting their welfare are two sides of the same coin. Promoting welfare has a more positive, action-centred approach centred on enabling children to have optimum life chances in adulthood, as well as ensuring that they grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care. In my view, that covers all the defining factors listed in Amendment No. 128A. Perhaps the noble Earl will be able to reflect on that.
The approaches to safeguarding children and promoting their welfare that I have just outlined are widely understood by agencies. We and the National Assembly for Wales will build on those approaches in the guidance that we make under Clauses 7 and 22 to set out the arrangements that agencies will need to put in place to safeguard children. On that basis, I strongly believe that trying to define "safeguard" or "welfare" might restrict the already widely understood meaning of those words. I hope that the noble Earl will reflect on the documentation to which I have referred, and that on that basis he will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment No. 120 and its Welsh equivalent, Amendment No. 204, are similarly unnecessary. As I have said, the phrase to "safeguard and promote the welfare of children" is based on the 1989 Act. It is essential for the Bill to reflect accurately the wording in previous legislation, because it has widespread currency, as noble Lords will recognise.

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It seems clear to me that the concept of welfare—the noble Earl will be disappointed in me for saying this—clearly encompasses health. We are concerned that if we include health specifically—again we are into the difficulty of the list—that might cast doubt on what else might be included in or excluded from that definition. I take the strength of feeling of the noble Earl, and I will reflect on that, because it is important. Our understanding is that we have captured it. The noble Earl made some important points about some of the issues, not least smoking, that affect children and young people. I hope the noble Earl will be reassured by this, which I doubt, or will accept that I intend to look carefully at this.
I will address Amendments Nos. 119 and 124 and their Welsh equivalents, Amendments Nos. 203 and 204A. Taken together, these amendments would give agencies a duty to discharge their functions in a manner consistent with the objectives of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, irrespective of what their other functions might be, rather than the duty currently set out in Clauses 7 and 22 for agencies to have regard to the need to safeguard children and promote their welfare when exercising their normal functions.
I understand what noble Lords were trying to achieve; the difficulty is to make sure that we do not achieve something that we did not intend. We made clear in Every Child Matters: Next Steps that this duty was about them exercising their normal functions in a way that recognises and takes into account the safeguarding needs of children. For example, we know of a drug misuse team that includes a consultant midwife, so as to ensure that the needs of both the pregnant drug users and their babies are addressed in the most effective and efficient way. In this service, the assessment process for pregnant drug users ensures that any child protection issues are picked up and that a referral is made to social services. It also prioritises the pregnant woman for stabilisation and detoxification and makes her an appointment with the midwife. That is a good example of the kind of service developments that we want to see under Clauses 7 and 22, ensuring that services take into account the needs of children in carrying out their day-to-day business.
We recognise that, because agencies have different responsibilities, it is possible that an agency in exercising its duties could take action that could be regarded as contrary to promoting the welfare of a particular child. For example, police officers have to investigate and arrest people who might otherwise be loving parents because they have committed crimes. If found guilty by a court of law and given a prison sentence, the Prison Service would then have to imprison the parent, perhaps in a prison many miles away from his or her children. This might be inconsistent with safeguarding and promoting the welfare of a particular child, but would be consistent with the criminal justice system's duty to investigate, charge, try, sentence and punish those who commit crimes.
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I understand what noble Lords are seeking to achieve. The difficulty is that that would be the effect of the amendment. I recognise that there are issues on which noble Lords feel there needs to be certainty about the way in which agencies perform these functions, but we think that in the Bill we have laid them out in the most effective way. I fear that Amendment No. 123 would have a similar effect, because none of the agencies, in discharging their functions, would be able to take a decision or course of action which was contrary to the safeguarding and promotion of the welfare of any children.
I have just explained the intention behind the existing Clause 7 duty: ensuring that services take account of the needs of children in the course of their day-to-day business. By contrast, as with Amendments Nos. 119 and 124, Amendment No. 123 would curtail significantly agencies' ability to fulfil their necessary primary functions. For example, Amendment No. 123 might constrain the ability of agencies to take decisions about funding or service provision based on particular local needs. It is important to reflect that we have got the right balance in the Bill in setting out what it is that we want agencies to achieve.
I will address Amendment No. 125 and its Welsh equivalent, Amendment No. 205. In Clause 7(1) and Clause 22(1) we are seeking to ensure, first, that agencies' functions are discharged with regard to the need to safeguard, and so on; and, secondly, that the services that they contract out to others are provided having regard to that need.
Amendments Nos. 125 and 205 would add to the second limb by providing that the agency has to ensure that the contracted-out function is carried out having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children,
"as it applies in the area served by the person or body".
The effect would be to ensure that the agency's duty is discharged as long as it ensures that the contracted-out function is carried out with regard to the need to safeguard, and so forth. The agency does not become responsible for other activities of the contractor in other areas.
However, my view is that the amendments are unnecessary. The effect of Clauses 7(2) and 22(2), as drafted, would not be to apply that duty beyond the matters that had been contracted out. In other words, it would fit precisely with what the movers of the amendment are wishing to achieve on the basis of the way in which we have drafted it. I have no doubt that Members of the Committee will wish to reflect on what I have just said in terms of ensuring that that makes sense.
Perhaps I may refer to a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, in her impassioned desire to know what the word "arrangements" means. I do not think that I shall make her entirely happy. Currently, we are trying to discuss with our partners and stakeholders to ensure that we put those arrangements in place. Therefore, one could simply ask, "Will it be about purchasing? Will it be about those other issues?". I could probably say, "Yes, it would".

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I think that the noble Baroness was looking for the kind and strength of those arrangements. I know that officials are in discussion with the different agencies. Of course, the arrangements will vary, as the noble Baroness would expect. I suggest that I set out in detail in writing to the noble Baroness where we are with those deliberations, what our stakeholders are saying to us and where we think that they will vary. I hope that would enable the noble Baroness to look again at the wording of the clauses in the light of that more detailed information and will help her to determine what she might do next. On that basis, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Lucas: I find myself convinced by what the noble Baroness said about Amendment No. 119. But will the existing wording be strong enough in practice? Let us suppose that a planning application is made by a youth club that is opposed by local people. When that comes up in front of the planning sub-committee, how strong and effective are the words in the Bill? Would they really make a difference to the way such a proposal is considered? Should not the word, "particular" be inserted before the word, "regard", for it to he sufficiently strong to make a difference in those sorts of contentious circumstances?
I see how it will work in terms of the ordinary way in which local authorities structure their services to ensure that they are doing what they should in the general organisation that will be reported on by the Audit Commission. But how would the wording in the Bill apply in a particular circumstance that was contentious? I think that it could be disregarded just by saying, "Well, we have had regard to it, but, actually, it does not weigh". I think that a bit of strengthening would help in those circumstances.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: There are two kinds of strengthening. Perhaps I may take the example of a youth club, as given by the noble Lord. It might be that the planning application for the youth club is next door to an establishment that supports, for example, elderly people who would not be desperately keen on having a great many young people running around late at night. I am sure that the children would not be running around because they would be properly supervised, but I am sure that Members of the Committee get my drift.
In that situation, there would be considerations that the planning committee would need to take into account. If one said that the needs of the young people overrode every other consideration, we would be in some difficulties. However, I would expect that in looking at the provision for young people, the planning committee could take into account whether there were facilities for young people in the locality and how important that could be in terms of preventing them from going into pubs and being there half the night. It could look at what else could be provided and listen to the views of both the agencies that are running the youth club and those supporting
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children. That should be part and parcel of what it does. In a sense, the planning committee should be looking for good reasons to support the planning application unless there were overriding reasons not to.
That is the basis of trying to put this in the right kind of framework. Of course, the guidance that goes alongside will be very important too. Because of the example that I have given—that it might be inappropriate to position the youth club in the place that has been suggested—one would not want always that to override other aspects of the work of, for example, a planning committee.
I recognise the strength of feeling on that. I shall check to ensure that we are comfortable that, within the combination of the Bill and the guidance, we have got that exactly right.
Baroness Byford: I thank the Minister for her response. However, I have to say that on this occasion I am not satisfied with it. The issue is too important to do anything physical about it at this time of night. By that I mean that I want to talk to the Minister about it rather than test the opinion of the House.
I am grateful to all noble Lords who spoke to Amendment No. 119, which addresses a crucial issue. We have heard many different examples illustrating why we question the strength of the current wording in this clause. I shall not go over all that has been said. However, in her response, the noble Baroness said two things that alarmed me straightaway. The first was along the lines of, "We are still discussing what is to happen". It is good to hold discussions, but the Bill is in front of the Committee. Secondly, once those discussions have been completed, they are to come out as guidance. That makes me doubly unhappy. By now the noble Baroness will be aware that Hazel—the noble Baroness on this side of the Committee—would prefer to see this dealt with on the face of the Bill rather than in guidance.
I shall look carefully at what the Minister has said, and I am glad that she too is going to think further about the matter. Had this debate been held earlier in the day, I think that many more noble Lords would have contributed to it. It is hugely important not to allow things just to be considered and dismissed. We want to see consultation and then action taken.
This debate reminded me of the flagging system that we have discussed and to which we shall return. The system will be used to highlight problems that need to be addressed. The difficulty with that is that while it is all very well having a flag to highlight a problem, we really need a green flag to indicate that the problem has been dealt with because action was taken. I do not think the current wording is strong enough to deal with the question raised by my noble friend Lord Lucas in giving another example. We shall certainly return to the point.

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Again, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate on all the amendments in this group. Ultimately we are trying to achieve the same result. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, was right to highlight the fact that we are dealing with some of the most vulnerable children in society. If we do not speak up for them and ensure that adequate protection is provided in the Bill, we run the risk of leaving them without someone who will stand up for them strongly enough. That is why this set of amendments is so important.
I am disappointed that the Minister could move no further at this stage, but I am satisfied with her assurance that she will look at the matter again. No doubt we shall return to it on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Northbourne Lord Northbourne moved Amendment No. 119A:
Page 6, line 1, after first "to" insert—
"(i)"
The noble Lord said: I shall be brief. In moving Amendment No. 119A I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 122, 129, 164 and 168. Amendments Nos. 119A, 122 and 129 reflect my concerns about the impact of the provisions of Clauses 6 and 7 and the Bill in genera] on parental responsibility. On reflection, I think that probably there are no implications and I hope, in that case, that the noble Baroness will be able to reassure me. However, I want to put two questions to the Minister.
First, do either Clause 6 or Clause 7 increase in any way the powers of each individual authority in relation to those with parental responsibilities? Secondly, does the imperative for co-operation between the agencies mean that when they work together they could say, "Well, I can't do that, but you can do it for me", thereby in effect giving the group of agencies more power to interfere with, influence or affect existing parental rights and responsibilities? It is important for us to know whether that is the case. I do not necessarily say that that would be a bad thing, but it ought to be made absolutely clear.
Amendments Nos. 168 and 169 concern issues about bringing "family" on to the face of the Bill, and other family friendly matters. I believe these issues will also be raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, under Amendment No. 121. I shall say no more. I await the statement on this subject that the Government are to bring forward before the next stage of the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Lucas: I shall be brief. Having missed the earlier discussions today, I do not want to ask the noble Baroness to repeat anything or to risk prolonging matters without any function.
It is interesting to see how parents will be dealt with under this clause. We have had the famous contrasting cases of the 14 year-old girl who was allowed an abortion without her parents knowing and the mother who was sent to prison because her 14 year-old girl
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would not go to school. My understanding is that the effect of the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, would be to draw such matters back together.
I hope that that is something that might happen as a result of the kind of amendment that I have been contemplating and that it will become necessary for the agencies involved to take greater account of the fact that there are parties other than themselves and the child whose involvement should be considered. I do not take an absolute position on this. I do not particularly mind whether it happens in the way described in the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, or in mine. Indeed, one hopes that something even more effective will come from the Government.
As it stands, the Bill will tend to drive things even further apart. From the wording at the moment, it is quite clear that mothers should be sent to prison as often as possible because that is likely to improve the child's welfare because it will frighten him so much; and clearly parents should not be consulted about whether or not their child has a baby because it has nothing to do with the welfare of the child.
It is for that reason that I really want "family" in the Bill somewhere. If we are going to have it anywhere, this clause would be my favourite place in which to put it. I look forward to hearing what the Government have to say.
Earl Howe: These are tremendously important amendments and I support everything that has been said about them so far. If I were to single out one amendment from this group that is of pre-eminent importance it would be Amendment No. 129 which stands in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. It seems to me that the wording he has chosen is spot on.
The flavour conveyed by the whole clause—I am sure unintentionally—is the flavour of intrusion into family life. The way to safeguard and promote the welfare of children is, more often than not, to assist parents in doing so and to take them willingly along with you as you provide that assistance. Only in rare circumstances should parents be left out of the loop—most notably when there are no parents whom one could include within the loop. Schools know this; the police know this; social services, it has to be said, sometimes forget this.
The job of those involved in children's social services is, above all, to provide support and assistance. There are a great many dedicated, highly professional social workers in our country who do a job which few of us would be capable of doing. But, every now and again, we hear of social workers who forget the main reason why they are there. It is with that kind of person in mind that I think there is a particular need for something like this to be on the face of the Bill at this point.
7 p.m.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: As Members of the Committee have indicated, both sets of amendments return us to the child in the context of its family being seen as an individual. I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that I was impressed by the press coverage that he got for this amendment, in which I got a mention. We intend to ensure that the guidance that goes alongside Clause 7 will say to agencies that they should always seek the views of children and their families before taking any action that affects the welfare of children. We agree that the principle that the child's family must be taken into account when decisions are being made about safeguarding that child is crucial. For the vast majority of children, as the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, said several times today and I am sure will continue to say, allowing them to live with their family is the best way in which to promote the welfare of those children. That is a clearly established principle that should be a consideration for all agencies involved in safeguarding children and promoting their welfare. However, I do not believe that it needs to be specified in the legislation.
I have already made my commitments repeatedly today that we are considering the legislation. I hope that there will not be a vying between Clauses 6 and 7 for where best to approach the issue. I recognise and completely accept that it is important to put children in the context of that principle and to ensure that nothing that we do undermines the duty of agencies to consider that principle. To put the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, at rest, there are no powers in the Bill and no extension of powers that would affect what agencies can "do" to parents.
I hope that I can reassure the Committee that guidance will emphasise the importance of considering the role of parents, and the wider family as well. Members of the Committee have made the point during the passage of the Bill of thinking about children in that wider context. The importance of talking to children themselves needs to be stressed, too. However, placing the need to consider the responsibilities of parents on an equal footing with a duty to safeguard children, as Amendment No. 129 would do, runs a slight risk. I hope that Members of' the Committee will reflect on that matter carefully before considering what further to do. The amendment might send a conflicting message to agencies, which might in exceptional circumstances make children less safe.
A small example of such a risk is when agencies are providing services to parents, such as mental health or drug misuse services. A professional might find it difficult to take action in pursuit of a child's welfare if he felt he had a legal duty to respect the primacy of parental responsibility. That might leave children vulnerable and prevent professionals acting in the best interests of the child. We have shied off that kind of equality of duty around those issues, where we want the safeguarding of children to take precedence. If
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Members of the Committee would reflect on that in the context of the amendment, as they consider what they might want to do further, I should be grateful.
Amendments Nos. 164 and 168 to Clauses 9 and 10 relate to the local safeguarding boards. There is provision under Clause 9(5) to allow for safeguarding boards to co-opt members to the board. We believe that it is right to leave the decisions as to whom may be co-opted on to the board to the individual local safeguarding children board in consultation with its partners, for all the reasons with which the Committee will he familiar about trying to ensure that the needs of the local community are addressed. Therefore, it would be possible for boards to co-opt representatives of parents, if they felt that was appropriate in those circumstances.
There may be better ways in which to ensure that parents' views are taken into account. It may sometimes be difficult for a parent to be heard on a board full of professionals considering these issues, and it may be better for the board or local authority to seek the views in other ways, through a local forum for parents. with their views being fed regularly into the board by the local authority. That might ensure greater representative views of the local area and not simply of the one or two parents who might sit on the boards.
Parents' views on the services delivered to their children and families are already taken into account in the good practice of service providers. The services provided for children and young people are often developed in consultation with parents in any event. Guidance will make it clear that the views of service users—children and young people and their parents, carers and families—should be taken into account in developing services.
As I have said, I hope that Members of the Committee will reflect on the impact of Amendment No. 129. I would be grateful for that. We believe that we have got the provision right and, with the proviso that we consider the Bill to ensure that we have factored in parents in the right way, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Northbourne: I am grateful to the Minister. I do not think that I buy into the example that she gave in relation to Amendment No. 129, but I suspect that the best thing to do is to withdraw the amendment now, wait to see what comes forward and maybe have some discussions later. I do not totally buy into the idea that professionals always know better than parents, nor do I buy into the idea that if parents are wrong and the professionals are right, the professionals should work not through parents rather than—
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I am sorry. I did not say under any circumstances that professionals know better than parents. I would never say that. That is not right. I was trying to give an example where a professional would wish perhaps to put the needs of the child above the paramount nature of the

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relationship with the parent. It was possibly not a great example—I shall try to do better—but I would certainly never say what the noble Lord implied.
Lord Northbourne: I did not wish to take up the Minister in that way. I am sorry if I was ungracious. Although the Minister and I do not think that professionals know better than parents, professionals sometimes think that they do. That is perhaps what I was trying to say. I am more than willing to withdraw the amendment. I beg leave to do so.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 120 to 125 not moved.]
Baroness Andrews: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.
House adjourned at seven minutes past seven o'clock.