Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I agree with the noble Earl that social work is a challenging and difficult job. That has never been adequately recognised over the years; the noble Earl has already addressed the pay issue. One could turn it around the other way, however, and say that social workers in general have done a rather good job if there is one tragedy with social workers involved every three or four years and one relates that to the numbers of children with whom social workers are involved year by year. These families are chaotic, if I may put it that way. They are difficult. They do not answer the door and so on; it is sometimes difficult to make contact. These are not easy situations to work with, but we live in a blame culture. I happen to work in mental health. Occasionally, one of our patients commits a homicide. There have been terrible headlines about a homicide in my trust. But the fact is that homicides on the part of people with mental health problems have remained static over 50 years; homicides among the rest of the populations have increased markedly. You would never dream that from the press. I am sorry to raise something outside the debate, but it is related because the blame culture of the tabloid press is the problem. I am afraid that we are all affected by it. I feel for any Government dealing with legislation in the difficult areas of social services and mental health. One tragedy: headlines, pressure, reports, bureaucracy; that is what happens and what has happened in this field. All I am asking is whether we, as a legislature, can perhaps encourage our Government to sit back and say, ““Let’s ensure that we are getting the balance right””. But I completely agree with the noble Earl about professionalism and adequate pay.