Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 63: 63: Clause 13, page 11, line 14, after ““must”” insert ““— (a)”” The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 63 I also speak to Amendment No. 64. Here again there is potential for confusion. These amendments would ensure that local authority visits to looked-after young people and others are made by their lead professional, who must be a person known to the child or young person. It is important to be clear that we are talking about local authority visits in relation to Amendment No. 63. In speaking to these amendments, I, along with the NLCAS very much welcome the Government’s plan to formalise the arrangements for visiting children and young people in care. The amendments would ensure that the laudable aims of Clause 13 are fully achieved, providing the benefit intended to young people. If the clause remains as it stands, the discontinuity and confusion for the young people can be expected to continue. Again, I am grateful to the National Leaving Care Advisory Service for its help in drafting these amendments. We can draw attention to the research findings of the NLCAS which highlight the importance of relationships in making the difference to outcomes for young people in care. Good relationships will provide the attachment that these young people so desperately need if they are to succeed. But scattered across all the briefings from organisations working in this field are the sad cries of young people about the large number of professionals with whom they have to deal and the high turnover of all these people with the result that, half the time, the young person does not really know who is who. If the legislation does one thing, it should build in continuity whenever possible. However, I want to draw attention to the wording in Amendment No. 64. It makes clear that the person chosen as the visitor, representing the local authority, is the child’s lead professional, ““except in exceptional circumstances””. Clearly, it may not always be possible for the child’s lead professional to be chosen as the visitor. I accept that any wording in a Bill must allow for exceptions. Paragraph (c) in Amendment No. 64 refers to the importance of the person being known to the child. The same provision is made for exceptional circumstances. I hope this wording may discourage the Minister from recommending that the principles here would be perfectly satisfactorily dealt with, or better dealt with, in regulations. The principle of continuity is so important to the interests of looked-after children that I hope we will all agree that these amendments, which are designed to achieve that objective, should be in the Bill. The only other issue to which I want to refer is the impact of the amendments on children in the criminal justice system. We know that 46 per cent of children in prison have been looked after at some time. The Youth Justice Board recognises the visits measures as those with the most direct connection to the youth justice system. The point here is that Clause 13 is designed to ensure that appropriate visits are undertaken for children in care who enter custody. That is welcome, but young people who go into custody are at particular risk of losing contact with their lead local authority professional, or people in the system who they know. The amendment therefore has particular importance for the many looked-after children who go into custody. It responds to the concerns of the Youth Justice Board that, under the new legislation, local authorities do not absolve themselves of responsibilities regarding children in care when they are brought into contact with youth offending teams. I beg to move.