Queen’s Speech

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. He so rightly points out the importance of the workforce involved with children in developing better measures for children. I welcome many measures in the gracious Speech, set out so eloquently by my noble friend. I shall focus my remarks today on children, and will refer to the children’s skills and learning Bill and the child poverty Bill. I assume that there is still an intention to halve child poverty by 2010 and eradicate it by 2020. We shall want to know how it will be measured and to look at how indicators on health inequalities, education and employment will impact on that. Child health is vital and I look forward to the child health strategy which I assume will be published soon. Perhaps the Minister can tell me when. I should declare an interest as the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Children and chair of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse. All children need protection, love and support. Their abilities need to be encouraged and they need to be listened to, enabling them to develop their self esteem. Sadly this does not happen to some of the 12 million children in England today. The Government have done much, and will do more, on child poverty, deprivation and support for families. The development of Sure Start, with currently 2,500 centres catering for 2 million children, is a good example. The Children’s Commissioner for England, Sir Al Aynsley-Green, said at a recent meeting, which some noble Lords attended, that more has been done for children in the past 10 years than in the previous 50. Initiatives continue but some things are still going wrong, as recent incidents and reports point out. The UK commissioners’ report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child lists things that are good about being a child in England and some of the bad things, based on evidence from children and other sources. It says that increasing importance is given to children by the Government through increased investment. The majority of children say that they are happy, and most say that their health is good. They are ambitious, increasingly well educated and feel safe. Most feel engaged, motivated and that they are making a positive contribution. On the other hand, bad things about being a child in England include the punitive approach to children, with the criminal justice system being used too readily. There are inequalities in income and health, asylum-seeking children experience breaches of their rights and child poverty is still high. Large numbers of children are affected by domestic violence and abuse. Children in care have poor outcomes and they are concerned about violence and weapons in their area. They drink more, engage in early sex, and child obesity has risen by 50 per cent in the past 10 years. They feel pressured by school exams and commercial marketing. I hope that any initiative related to children will take this evidence into account. I shall address some concerns to do with child welfare and its paramount position as stated in the UN convention. There are 60,000 children looked after by local authorities—55 per 10,000 under 18s. Of those, 12 per cent achieved five A to C grades at GCSE compared to 59 per cent of all children. Apart from academic underachievement, there are other deprivations and risks to these children. There are nearly 3,000 children in custody, with 217 in secure children’s homes, 247 in secure training centres and 2,349 in prison. They are overwhelmingly boys. They return to custody over and over again, sometimes because they cannot bear the thought of being outside and unprotected. Urgent action is needed and I welcome the commitment to improve these outcomes. Many dedicated children’s charities will be working with the Standing Committee for Youth Justice on the Education and Skills Bill to meet the education needs of these young people before, during and after sentencing. The transfer of responsibility from the education and training of young offenders in juvenile custody to local authorities will be a welcome measure. The Bill will also transfer funding and responsibility for delivering 16-18 education and training to local authorities and will create a Young People’s Learning Agency. The Bill intends to improve behaviour and attendance at pupil referral units and other alternative provision. There will be a statutory basis for the apprenticeship programme, creating a new national apprenticeships service. I hope that that will include young people with disabilities and learning difficulties. The children, skills and learning Bill will seek to strengthen the statutory framework by legislating for children’s trust boards to be set up across the country. The proposals in the youth crime action plan to place YOT management boards on the same statutory footing should also be considered. So much has been done to improve outcomes related to Every Child Matters but, as I said before, much needs to be done. I was concerned recently by the UNICEF report in which we came 21st out of 24 developed countries on child well-being. A Barnardo’s report recently stated that many adults consider young people to be feral—a dreadful word—and dangerous. That is a terrible perception of young people. I wonder whose fault that is. Two other reports make depressing reading. One says that 50 per cent of 4 and 5 year-olds in some parts of the country cannot speak in sentences when they start school. A newspaper headline on this read: "““State urged to help deprived children to communicate””," to tackle the cycle of deprivation that has its roots in inadequate parenting. These children are also reported as needing lessons in empathy and self-control. Such concerns are not new; they go back many years. I believe it was Sir Keith Joseph who spoke about the cycle of deprivation. It is not enough to say that there has always been mistreatment and neglect of children. We need to do more about it. A report on child maltreatment in the Lancet, drawing on evidence from affluent countries, concluded that one in 10 children in the UK suffers physical, sexual or emotional abuse and neglect, yet only 1 per cent is referred to child protection services. We know that children who are mistreated are more likely to get involved in crime, do badly at school, use alcohol or drugs, attempt suicide, indulge in early sexual activity and suffer depression. Following the appalling case of Baby P, the Government are committed to strengthening the serious case review. It is not enough to blame hard-pressed social workers. The NSPCC is calling on the Government to invest in building the skills of professionals working with children at risk. Such professionals, it is pointed out, need sufficient training, experience and courage to tackle parents and carers effectively. They need to have time to spend with families and to talk to children themselves. They need support for their investigations. They need to be paid what they deserve. The welfare of the child is paramount, and we should have the courage to maintain that. I have just been talking to someone who has worked with children’s services for a long time, and she said that the adult must be at risk, not the child. That should be our mantra. The sensibilities and rights of adults must come second to the rights of the child. The central issue has to be good parenting, and if that is not possible, then good care services, with consistent placements, have to take over. The welfare of the child must be paramount. Bad treatment needs to be reported, picked up and dealt with. If a child's life in the family is destructive, the family has to be consistently supported from the day the child is born or the child should be removed, sooner rather than later, to good care. Without decisive action, we cannot expect to raise achievement or improve the behaviour of damaged young people. It is a very vicious circle indeed. Violence, crime, drug use, early pregnancy and other cycles of abuse may be set up as a direct result of inadequate parenting. Tackling child poverty is only part of the solution. It helps, of course, but many children brought up in relative poverty succeed in all kinds of ways because they have been nurtured and encouraged. Children placed with family and friend carers have better overall outcomes than those placed elsewhere, but we do not sufficiently reward those carers. They frequently have to struggle to get paid. The Minister joined me in looking at the plight of grandparent carers and has been very supportive. This issue was raised during the passage of the Children and Young Persons Bill. Could he briefly update the House on progress with supporting family and friend carers or write to me? I return to the welfare of the child from birth and issues of parenting and care. Money and support need to be thrown at this end of the child spectrum. Support for families and involvement with them by relevant professionals is important, but where families fail, care for children must be of high quality so that there is less reluctance to place them in suitable care. The future well-being of our children is at stake, and we have a duty to speak up for them.