Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I certainly support these three amendments. Some areas have been gone over in discussion on previous amendments. I was particularly struck by the reference to Sir William Utting. Yesterday, I was accused of not looking back far enough, but I well remember all these issues being talked about in the 1970s—the lack of communication, the need for independent advocacy and so on. It is extraordinary that we have been arguing about this sort of thing ever since. One of the previous amendments to which I spoke has given a definition of ““independent”” that might be accepted by and useful to the Minister. I thank Voice and the Children’s Society for all their work and for all the information that they have given us, which reinforces yet again, as other Members of the Committee have said, the fact that children are making it clear to us that they do not think that they have been heard. Last night, the Minister looked rather surprised at this and suggested that communication is getting much better. I hope that it is; I hope that the fact that our figures are a little out of time means that some of these things are already happening. However, I join my noble friend Lord Listowel in saying how important this whole area is if we are to move this thing on at all. I certainly agree that advocacy is crucial, as is specialist advocacy where there are special needs. Special needs include those who cannot communicate or have not learnt to communicate and merely listen to what is said to them, and sometimes not even to that.