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Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

My Lords, the Bill aims to improve services for all children and young people in care, to ensure that all have the best possible experience within the care system, and that all have the best possible outcomes. As other Members have said, I am sure that the whole House will share these aspirations. I want to confine my remarks to one group of children in care—those with disabilities. I should declare an interest here as president of the Royal Mencap Society, which is one of the four partner organisations in Every Disabled Child Matters—a campaign for rights and justice for all disabled children and their families in the United Kingdom. Most disabled children, of course, live with their families and do not fall within the scope of this Bill. The Government have already responded to the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign by promising in the Comprehensive Spending Review £340 million during the next three years for services for disabled children and their families, including £280 million to improve and increase short-break provision. I warmly welcome that as an important first that, if I may say, has been a long time coming. In 1996, I first introduced the Disabled Persons and Carers (Short-term Breaks) Bill, which unhappily failed to make progress in another place—having romped through your Lordships’ House. The need for a right to short breaks has not gone away. Short breaks are extremely important because they enable families to go on caring for their disabled children. Looking after a severely disabled child can be an exhausting, 24 hours-a-day job. Parents and families want to do it, but they need a rest from time to time to give them space to recharge their batteries and to spend time with the rest of the family, as well as safeguarding their physical and mental health. Of course, children need a break from their parents from time to time, too. When I spoke on my Bill in 1996, I said that it was, "““about people with disabilities having an ordinary life””.—[Official Report, 17/4/96; col. 755.]" That is still all we are asking for. Mencap’s Breaking Point survey last year found that eight out of 10 families caring for disabled children had reached or come close to breaking point because of a lack of short-break services. Short breaks matter for the very good reason that they help to stop disabled children being taken into care or moving into expensive out-of-authority residential placements. That is why the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign is calling, just as I did more than a decade ago, for a statutory right to regular and reliable planned short breaks for families who provide a substantial level of care on a regular basis. I hope that it might be possible to insert such an obligation into this Bill, for then we could be confident that the ring-fenced £280 million promised over the next three years would continue beyond that period and that money would be allocated to short breaks for disabled children and their families far into the future. There is one way for the Government to demonstrate that a new right to short breaks is unnecessary. They could do so by confirming that this right already exists in English law. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is in receipt of an independent legal opinion on this issue, commissioned by the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign, from leading community-care lawyers Paul Bowen and Luke Clements. They conclude that it is more likely than not that local authorities are already under a specific duty to provide both residential and home-based short breaks to families with disabled children in certain situations. These specific duties would stem from sections within the Children Act 1989, read with the, sadly, often-ignored Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. The Minister therefore has the opportunity to issue statutory guidance under the Children Act 1989 to clarify for local authorities when families with disabled children are entitled by law to claim the short breaks that should be theirs by right. Perhaps he will tell us his view of this legal opinion because, if there is indeed already a statutory right to short breaks, local authorities really ought to be delivering it. Most families want to care for their disabled children at home but some cannot. There are around 11,500 disabled children and young people in long-term residential placements, mostly in residential special schools. Of these, around 1,500 are in 52-week placements—that is, they are living away from their families permanently—and yet do not have the protection of looked-after-children status. Looked-after-children status is an important safeguard. Children who are ““looked after”” are in the care of local authorities and have a designated social worker who ensures that their needs are being met. It is a bizarre fact that, while a disabled child on a short break of perhaps only one or two nights has looked-after status, a disabled child on a 52-week placement away from home may not, yet such children are often placed a long way from their families. Their families may not be able to visit them and, to pile Pelion on Ossa, these disabled children are known to be more likely to be abused than other children who are also living away from home. As already touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, it seems to me that disabled children in such placements should, without doubt, be accorded the protection of looked-after-children status. Indeed, disabled children placed away from home for long periods which amount to less than a year should be protected with looked-after status, and the Bill provides an ideal platform to do just that. Perhaps the Minister could explain why he thinks that a child away from home for just a couple of nights needs this protection but a child away from home every night of the year does not. He may also wish to comment on the fact that many disabled children, particularly those with a learning disability, may have difficulty communicating and find it hard to express their wishes and preferences, yet the majority of such children in care do not have access to an independent advocate when it is quite clear that independent advocacy is a vital tool to ensure that the child’s views are taken into account. That is why Mencap supports, and why I, too, am very happy to support, the Children’s Society’s demand that disabled children and young people placed away from home should have a statutory right to independent advocacy when significant decisions are made about their lives. The society recently concluded a survey of advocacy services across England, which found that only 877 disabled children were receiving such services, and that the most vulnerable were the least likely to be served. I hope that the Minister will agree that disabled children living away from home are a group with a particular need for advocacy, and that he will find a way of meeting that need. This Bill presents an important opportunity to improve the life chances of all young people in care, especially those who are disabled and face huge obstacles throughout their young lives. Indeed, the Government, in their overview of the Bill, state that they, "““will play a critical role in their desire to protect the most vulnerable … ensuring children in care have the same opportunities as other young people””." I am sure that all sides of your Lordships’ House support the Government’s most welcome initiative in following up their White Paper, Care Matters: Time for Change and are delighted to have this opportunity to improve the Bill where necessary before it proceeds to another place. I wish it well on its journey.