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Debate on the Address

My Lords, in light of the fact that I cannot be here tomorrow, I shall speak today about my portfolio—children, schools and families—so do not expect answers from the Minister today. On the Children and Young Persons Bill, I welcome the focus on transparency in care planning. It is vital that the voice of the child in care is heard. Many children in care feel isolated, which is why it is very important that mechanisms and resources are put in place to ensure that each child can really influence his or her care. It is frustrating for a child to hear a lot of good intentions and then for nothing to happen or for their view to be ignored. I also welcome the move to address the child’s educational needs and put the designated teacher on a statutory footing. How can a child attain good grades when he is constantly moved around and forced to go to the school with a vacancy rather than to the best school in the area? Friends are important to children. They can be devastated when dragged away from their friends, and often the result is that they protect themselves by not making any. They become isolated, introverted and lonely. That is not a life that any of us would want for our own children. Most of us with adult children know that their need for us does not go away when they leave education. Indeed, they never go away. Yet the corporate parent sends children out into the world with little or no backing when they reach 18. It is right that those in foster care should be able to extend their time with their foster parents if they wish, but I would like that right to be extended to those in residential care and for there to be a set of transitional arrangements until they are 25. Evidence from the Children’s Society shows that, despite government guidance that says that advocacy providers should ensure that their services are accessible to disabled children, a quarter of those surveyed said that they had not been able to respond to a referral from a disabled child. These children need a statutory right to an independent advocate. All children in care need someone to talk to who is independent of the local authority and who will promote their interests without fear or favour. Every year 300 frightened children arrive in this country, unaccompanied minors who arrive here fleeing from who knows what. Unlike other children in care, local authorities do not have parental responsibility for most of them. That makes it difficult for them to access help and advice about their asylum appeal and harder for them to settle down here. I will suggest a system of guardianship for these children. It is a great pity that the Government have not taken the opportunity to commit themselves to therapeutic services for all abused children, including children in care. Abused children are damaged not only physically but mentally and emotionally. These scars take years to heal and need professional help to do so. If such children are to grow up happy and well balanced, if we are to put a full stop to the recurring cycle of violence and abuse against children, we must act. Sadly, far too often, abused children go on to abuse their own children because it is the norm for them. It is all they have ever known. That has to stop. One important contribution to stopping it would be for the Government to change their attitude to parents hitting children. Sadly, despite the overwhelming opinion of the professionals that was recently expressed in the Government’s consultation, they have told us that the country has no stomach for giving children the same protection under the laws of assault that adults enjoy. When the Government of Sweden became the first of a dozen European countries to give their children this legal protection more than 20 years ago, the Swedish population did not demand it either, but that Government took a lead and had a massive public education programme in which they explained why it was harmful to hit children and showing parents better, safer and more effective ways of instilling discipline. The whole attitude to children in Sweden changed. The Swedish jails are not full of caring parents who occasionally lose their temper, as the Government lead us to believe would happen here if we followed the Swedish example. The law should set a standard of protection that our most vulnerable citizens should be entitled to expect. How can it be right that someone can beat a small defenceless child as long as he does not leave a mark but, if he raises a hand to someone vandalising his car, he may be in trouble with the law? Let us not be deceived. All over the world there are police and security forces, expert at inflicting pain without leaving a mark. That should be as illegal in this country when it is done to a child by its parent as it would be if it was done by a police officer to a suspect in custody. The Education and Skills Bill, which will extend the compulsory education leaving age to 18, is, as we understand it, full of duties and penalties. It is a great clunking fist, taken to a matter that would respond much better to options and persuasion. We will seek to amend the Bill to bring a better balance between enablement and compulsion. By proposing to spend £600 million over a decade on a complex registration system and on hiring inspectors to go around checking on small businesses, Ministers are missing the point. Yes, of course it is a problem that around 200,000 16 year-olds drop out of education. But the right approach surely is to look carefully at these young people, detect the reasons why they drop out at that age and fix them. Many of those young people have already been failed by our education system. Are we then going to penalise them if they say, ““Enough, I don't want any more of this””? Many of them do not even have the basic skills to go on to further education. That is what needs fixing. Many of them have had behavioural or health problems and have been excluded from school for long periods. For many, the curriculum has been irrelevant. Many of them need money. The Government are about to introduce a set of national diplomas in the practical skills that young people need to get a job in our increasingly technological world. Why not wait and see how well that works before dashing off a piece of legislation forcing young people to stay in education? Yes, of course, all adults should have an entitlement to training to enable them to attain a level 2 qualification. That has long been Lib Dem policy so I am not going to argue with that. But for some young people, it would be better to let them do it a little later. Last week, I heard about a 16 year-old girl who had a child at 14. Of course she should be given every opportunity and help to get qualifications so that she can support her own child, but it could be that she needs to spend her time with the child just now. After a couple of years, when the child is at school, might be a much better time for her to complete her education or training. What about a young person going through an episode of ME or some other debilitating illness? Mental age is not the same as chronological age. To put these duties on someone at an absolute age is ridiculous. I hope that the Government will think again and do things differently. Young people should have funded options and high-quality choices at 16, not duties and penalties. With 50 per cent of children leaving school without five good GCSEs, this is not the time to do this. The Government should provide resources to ensure that every child with special needs has professional help to get over those problems. That should be the right of those children and also the right of every other child in his class whose own education is disrupted because the poor over-stretched teacher is distracted by the need to cope with a disruptive classmate. That is the way to spend £600 million.