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Children and Families

My Lords, I join all noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, on initiating this timely and pertinent debate. Like all noble Lords, I believe that to achieve health and prosperity in our country we must ensure that our children and young people, and their well-being, are at the heart of any government priority. I declare an interest as a provider of social care. I have visited many schools, children’s centres and local community groups, which has enabled me to meet remarkable parents, children and young people—parents seeking to do the best for their children and children wanting to achieve their aspirations, excel and make the most of their lives. One of my most recent visits was to Shadwell children’s centre in Tower Hamlets. Meena Hoque and her team work against a very challenging backdrop and need to be congratulated. Yet, sadly, for many families, while there is a desire to achieve aspirations, unfortunately, personal circumstances greatly reduce opportunity and choice. For some there are no children’s centres or community groups. Many families have become institutionalised to state dependency, worklessness and poor or zero educational attainment. Children born in these circumstances face such enormous challenges that they often resign themselves to failure and the cycle continues. I join wholeheartedly with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester in arguing that the Government should look closely at inner cities, where problems are aggravated by language difficulties and lack of cultural knowledge. We have had initiative after initiative and report after report, but very little progress has been made in narrowing the gap to enable real economic mobility to work among the most disadvantaged families. Britain rates 24th out of 29 developed countries in the University of York’s measurement of child well-being, produced in April 2009. My noble friend Lady Morris of Bolton referred to that report. Sadly, we are still failing our children. The Child Poverty Action Group found that countries with a higher GDP tend to have more children reporting high-quality life satisfaction. Britain is one of the exceptions to this rule. Despite a high national GDP, our children report a low level of life satisfaction. France, with a similar GDP, ranks nine places higher. Research into well-being shows us that as economic pressures increase well-being decreases. With Britain’s poor track record of well-being, and the OECD predicting that unemployment in Britain will rise at a faster rate than in other G7 countries, it is crucial that the Government act robustly to slow down the added disadvantage facing struggling families. UNICEF defines well-being as being adequately clothed, housed, fed, supported, loved and protected and where families and children are not disadvantaged in that their circumstances do not prevent them participating fully in the world and opportunities around them. But well-being is not a list of qualities against which we can tick boxes; it is a matter with real long-term consequences for many people. My noble friend Lady Morris of Bolton passionately recorded the findings of the report. I agree with her that little has changed since it was published. Many children today cite themselves as unhappy, more children are showing signs of depression at an earlier age and the lack of participation in collective activities has brought isolation and created rising obesity. Through his excellent work with the Centre for Social Justice, my right honourable friend Iain Duncan Smith has shown us that society is becoming more and more broken, and that the state alone cannot hope to fix it without individuals being supported to take responsibility and play an active part in it. Time and time again we have been shown that children do better and are happier in stable family structures. They are more confident and are more likely to achieve better educational attainment. Therefore, it is vital that in supporting families we ensure that appropriate systems are in place to provide children with the outcomes that we all desire. Early year support is particularly important to parents and children. The Government plan to create a children’s centre for every community by 2010. In 2007, the target for 2010 was 3,500 children’s centres. Will the Minister say whether this target will be met? Will she also say how centres are being monitored to ensure that they are responding to the needs of the local community? Between 2003 and 2006, the proportion of privately-owned nurseries declined from 78 per cent to 65 per cent. The number of childminders has decreased by nearly 40 per cent since 1997. There has been a continued decline in childminders. Nursery closures arise as the Government have reduced funding to PVI nurseries. While maintained nurseries receive £3,800 per pupil per year, the PVI sector receives just £1,800 per pupil per year. Good quality early years provision is one of the most important steps in equipping families with the information and support they need to bring up their children and to give children the early opportunities to lead a happy and fulfilled childhood. It is certain that if parents are to be encouraged into employment, affordable childcare places will have to be easier to access. I welcome the Government’s play strategy launched in December 2008, which set out that the Government would invest £235 million over 2008-09 to 2010-11 to develop play facilities for children of all ages. What progress has been made in developing the facilities? How many play facilities do the Government aim to develop by 2011? There are more children suffering on the well-being scale in Britain as British society is more unequal than ever before. This is visibly apparent in the education system. More than 3 million children have left primary school without the basics in maths, reading and writing since Labour came to power. Since 1998, the Government’s expected level 4 in reading, writing and maths at key stage 2 has not been achieved by 3,114,000 children. Last year, almost 230,000 did not achieve this standard. Can the Minister say why she thinks that there has been so much prolonged failure? Will the Government reverse their wish for themed teaching and implement a primary curriculum that is rigorous and protects proper subject teaching. It is the most vulnerable who are worst affected by this unequal education system. Government figures released in April show that only one child in seven in care reached the Government’s expected standard of educational achievement at the age of 16. The gap in educational achievement at GCSE between children in care and other children has risen again this year and has widened by more than a quarter since 2001. Will the Minister say what the Government are doing to improve the education of children in care? Will they take up the Conservative proposals to set up residential academies to help children in care to fulfil their potential? Many of the hard-working and bright children I have met at under-performing schools and schools in deprived areas are working incredibly hard to achieve good marks in their GCSEs and A-levels. Teaching staff and head teachers dedicated to teaching their pupils still struggle against the cultures of poor outside experiences. If we wish to create equality, this is an area that needs real will and direction. Children need to have confidence to participate in activities that develop different skills. I turn briefly to the young people in, or on the edge of, care who are not getting the help they need. Part of this is due to high social worker vacancy rates and part due to excessive bureaucracy. According to figures from the Minister’s own department, 34,000 new children were put on the child protection plan in 2008. Sadly, we tragically saw, with the case of baby Peter, how important it is that children do not get lost in a system mired in bureaucracy and poor training. The lessons of baby P must teach us that the Government must take an axe to social work red tape so that professionals can spend the bulk of their time with children in need, not tied to their desktops. Can the Minister say what the Government are doing to reduce bureaucracy and red tape in social care so that frontline staff are able to do face-to-face work? I put to the Government our suggestion that there should be in place a chief social worker. Will the Minister say whether there are discussions to review requirements needed by social workers to leave their desks and move forward into face to face with multi-agency working? The 2009 Institute for Fiscal Studies report informs us that the Government would have to spend an additional £4.2 billion to meet the 2010 targets for child poverty reduction. Currently, the Government are on course to miss the target by 600,000 children. Sadly, we in Great Britain have the highest rates in Western Europe of binge drinking, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse and sexually transmitted diseases among our young people. While we have increased in material wealth, we have increasingly become poorer in time and human contact. Children may have the latest hand-held gadget, plasma screen or designer wear, but the loss of family structures, extended families, neighbourhood activities and safe and secure streets constantly threaten the happiness and well-being of our children. This debate raises many questions. I will listen very carefully to the Minister’s response.