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Children and Families

My Lords, I, too, am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for introducing this debate. With her agreement, I am going to speak for a few minutes not so much about the Government’s programme but about the way in which we in this House as a group try to influence their programme. I want to see whether my thoughts have any resonance with your Lordships. Those of us who are speaking today and those who are not but wish that they were—perhaps those who often speak about children—comprise a voice for disadvantaged children in this House. In effect, we are an informal lobby group for children and together we have an enormous reservoir of expertise. My concern is that, in spite of all this, we as a group may not be as effective as we might be in achieving change. An equally informal disabled lobby often seems to be more powerful in its advocacy and more successful in achieving change. An example that is fresh in my mind is the Second Reading of the Welfare Reform Bill last week, when five or even six speakers talked about the problems that the Bill would create for the disabled, whereas only one, who happened to be me, talked about the potential disadvantages for children. There are two principal ways in which we in this House bring our influence to bear on the Government: one is to chivvy them and the other is to amend their Bills. There is plenty of work to do on the chivvying front, of course; lots of things need to be addressed, such as shortages of staff in children’s social services, the problems of looked-after children, children in prison and so on—many things that noble Lords have mentioned today. But I shall concentrate on the revision of Bills. Among the members of the children’s lobby there is no lack of dedication or knowledge. The problem is not a lack of dedication or enthusiasm but, in my view, a lack of organisation, co-ordination and support. The current position on support in this House is roughly as follows. We have an admirable research facility in the Library, but there are limits to what we can ask it to do. Sometimes it does the right thing but does not tell anyone; as we walked into the Chamber today, my noble friend Lady Howe told me that it had done a Library note on this debate. It would have been nice to have known a little sooner. Then there are the children’s charities. They send some of us briefings, but most of those are focused on the particular interests that the charity has at that time, rather than on the broader implications of the Bill for children. Then, of course, there are the political parties. The parties have their own priorities, which often include the best interests of children, but I suggest that, although there is overlap, we should not have to rely on the Front Benches to lead us on children’s issues. There was a time when the National Children’s Bureau was funded to undertake a series of child impact statements on all Bills. Its report was an elaborate legal statement; it was too expensive to produce, took too long to read and often came too late. Anyhow, that service funding has come to an end. We need a part-time co-ordinator for the children’s lobby whose job would be to scrutinise all likely Bills well in advance for their potential impact on children; to summarise the issues and circulate a note of no more than two pages to Members; to identify Members who were interested and who were able to be involved; to co-ordinate their inputs—whether they were going to speak at Second Reading or in Committee or just vote, or do the lot; and, when necessary, to help with research. If any noble Lord agrees that such a service would be valuable and that these thoughts are worth pursuing, would they please contact the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, or me? If there is sufficient enthusiasm, we will try to pursue the idea. I take credit from the Whips for being probably the only person who has spoken within their allotted time.