Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I am sorry. I should have replied separately on Amendment No. 101. The bulk of the noble Baroness’s remarks concerned the first amendment in the group, which is what concentrated my mind. Our view is not the same in that respect. Section 8 orders, other than residence orders, do not apply in respect of those children who are in the care of the local authority under a care order. There are good reasons for that. For such children, parental responsibility has been conferred on the local authority through the making of the care order. The making of arrangements for contact and for placement of a child who is in care is part of the local authority’s statutory duties in respect of that child. Once the family courts have made an order to place the child in the local authority’s care, it is right that the local authority has the ongoing statutory responsibility to plan for that child’s care. The Children Act 1989 is predicated on the basis that the courts are to decide whether the grounds for making a care order are met. If so, beyond the making of the order, it is for the local authority, rather than the courts, to exercise responsibility for the supervision of the care order. The role of the independent reviewing officer is important here in monitoring the local authority’s implementation of the care plan. Other important safeguards are already built into the system to meet the objectives set out by the noble Baroness, particularly the duty to allow reasonable contact with parents and others and the requirement to take account of the child’s wishes and feelings and those of his parents in taking decisions about placements and contact. A child who is the subject of a care order is, of course, also entitled to apply for a care order to be discharged and for a contact order under Section 34 of the Children Act 1989, and the IRO has an explicit duty, set out in regulations, to help the child to obtain legal advice to do so. Recourse to the full range of Section 8 orders is therefore not necessary. We do not go so far as the noble Baroness on this issue but we believe that there are already sufficient safeguards in the system.