Welfare Reform Bill

I strongly support these amendments. Our earlier debate on childcare was very helpful, and the Minister understandably focused on the issue of whether the parent or the personal adviser was the person who should make the decision on a childcare facility. We did not address looking through the telescope the other way. The child may be aged three or 10, going to senior school, settling into senior school, perhaps going through a sickness, or perhaps a teenager. They all come under different regulations and systems, which deal, one way or another, with children of different ages. The same principle, wonderfully elucidated by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, is precisely right. What, at any point in time, is in the best interest of the child at age three, 10, 11, 12 or 16? We will come back to some of these issues when we debate Amendment 75. I brought up four children, and I am very conscious that there are all sorts of stages when placing that child in some sort of childcare, even if it is moderately good, might be a disaster for that child. In addition to the assurances that we had earlier from the Minister, for which, as I said, I was extremely grateful, to have something in the Bill that focused the mind of the personal adviser on the crucial importance in every situation of taking account of the best interests of the child must be something that this House would support. I am not sure that the wording of either Amendment 22A or 22B is exactly right. I would not talk about whether there is a conflict between the interests of the parent and the interests of the child, but it needs to be clear, when considering these matters under any of these schemes, that the first consideration should be that whatever is decided is in the best interests of the child. I simply put that on the table and invite the Minister to consider it most carefully because, ultimately, that is what matters to the nation. The only other point I want to make has to do with Amendment 22D, on training. The Minister will not be surprised when I again raise my concern that the whole system may well create untold misery and unforeseen consequences if the people making these decisions and giving these directions are not adequately trained in the many different disabilities and problems that human beings have. Who knows what will happen? The Minister will say that there is an appeal system, but having worked in social security many years ago, I am conscious that appeal systems can take a very long time and, in the mean time, the claimant is in a state of great anxiety and may have lost their benefit. One cannot emphasise the issue of training too strongly—once again, most particularly for people with mental health problems of various kinds. These are complex issues and complex decisions. Even in a mental health trust, where we have highly professional staff, deciding when someone is well enough to do this or that is a professional decision and we do not always get it right. I appeal to the Minister to think about what can be done to ensure that negative decisions are not made where there are questions about the competence of the personal adviser making the decision.