Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I thank the Minister for his response and all other noble Lords who have contributed. When we started considering this Bill in Grand Committee, I said that our amendments fall into two categories: those that are probing and those that are Oliver Twist. This is an Oliver Twist amendment. We appreciate the rights that children already have for advocacy, but research makes it clear that there is further need. I do not think that £3 million is a lot of money; indeed, I happen to believe that this measure would be cost-neutral because of the improvement and greater stability that would arise from the child having a good voice. That is what the advocate is: someone to help the child with its own voice. I was interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said about complaints in a prison. I used to know a sales manager at a large hotel group, who always said to me that a complaint is an opportunity, not a threat. When she got a complaint, she always dealt with it so generously that the complainant became a devoted customer of that hotel chain for the rest of his life. If you make advocates more generally available and easily accessible to children, you will get more complaints. Currently, there are complaints under the surface, which people are not making because either they do not know that an advocate is there to help them to make it or they are reluctant to make the complaint because of the relationship with the people who look after them day to day whom they might be complaining about, as I hinted earlier. Does what the Minister said about IROs mean that an IRO can require the local authority to provide an advocate for a child in a particular situation if the IRO feels that that is the only or even the best way of helping that child to get its wishes and feelings over? Does that apply to any change in the child’s care plan? Perhaps the Minister would like to write to me about that.