Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot guarantee to be quite so brief this time. This amendment requires that a child who is the subject of either a Section 47 investigation or a child protection plan shall be seen by the key worker separately from the parents or carers. Section 47 requires the local authority to make inquiries, where a child is suspected to be suffering or to be likely to suffer significant harm, to enable it to decide whether it should take any action. A child protection plan is drawn up when the local safeguarding children board decides that the child is at risk of significant harm. The amendment does not envisage the child being subjected to any sort of medical or forensic examination or interrogation. I thought that I would make that clear right from the start. However, experience of a large number of sad cases has shown that it is essential that the key worker’s opportunity to get to know the child or to hear from the child is not compromised by the presence of the parent or carer. Currently there is no law on seeing children separately. However, I accept that both legislation and guidance note the importance of obtaining children’s views and perspectives. Section 53 of the Children Act 2004 placed a new duty on local authorities to ascertain and give due consideration to the wishes and feelings of children before providing services under Section 17 or making decisions under Section 47 of the Children Act 1989. I also accept that in Working Together to Safeguard Children, the statutory guidance on child protection, there is emphasis on the central importance of the child in safeguarding procedures. In paragraph 5.4, the guidance comments: ""Some of the worst failures of the system have occurred when professionals have lost sight of the child and concentrated instead on their relationship with the adults. The child should be seen by the practitioner and kept in focus throughout work with the child and family. The child’s voice should be heard and account taken of their wishes and feelings"." In paragraph 1.28, the guidance emphasises that assessing the risk of significant harm, ""depends on communicating effectively with children and young people, including those who find it difficult to do so because of their age"." Furthermore, in paragraph 5.62, local authority children’s social care has the lead responsibility for Section 47 investigations, which, ""should always involve separate interviews with the child who is the subject of concern"." In paragraph 5.109, the key worker appointed under a child protection conference should, ""regularly ascertain the child’s wishes and feelings"," and, in paragraph 5.119, the child protection plan should be, ""explained to and agreed with the child in a manner appropriate to their age and understanding"." So I am not saying that there is nothing in guidance; far from it—all these things add up to a strong imperative to see the child separately—but the facts of the terrible deaths of Baby Peter and others indicate that this is not enough. It should be a legal duty for three reasons. First, seeing the child separately from the parent is the only way in which the key worker can reliably fulfil their new statutory duties under Section 53 of the Children Act 2004. Secondly, seeing the child separately is central to the effective protection of children, a fact acknowledged by the Secretary of State, Ed Balls, in his press conference statement on the death of Baby Peter. Thirdly, it is clear from the three official overviews of child serious case reviews that guidance on the need to see children is not sufficient. These overviews all note that there is little to no evidence that the children who were subsequently murdered or injured were ever seen or talked to directly. The study of serious case reviews in 2003-05 discusses the lack of focus on the child and children not being seen alone, and comments, on page 91: ""This also applies to babies who are not yet able to speak for themselves and can be ignored"." A skilled and experienced social worker can detect from the state of the baby and the way in which it interacts with the carer the sort of relationship that it has with the carer. The baby really does not need to be able to speak. The obligation on agencies to share information is already in legislation. Seeing the child separately from their carers is just as important as sharing information, and many more children would have been protected from harm if their key workers had done so. Such a law would help key workers in their extremely difficult task of simultaneously supporting parents and policing them. It would allow the key worker to explain to parents that they are simply following the law when requesting to see the child alone and that this does not necessarily imply a lack of trust in the parent. The amendment would identify the bottom line; namely, that the child is the client in these circumstances, not the parents. This amendment was debated in another place, where the Secretary of State, Mr Ed Balls, claimed that the matter was already in statutory guidance. However, in his argument that the amendment is unnecessary, he relies on the remark in paragraph 5.62 of Working Together to Safeguard Children that Section 47 inquiries, ""should always involve separate interviews with the child who is the subject of concern"." Apart from that, there is no mention of seeing the child separately. However, this amendment is not about formal investigations under Section 47. It is about key workers establishing a continuous, professional relationship with at-risk children separate from the carers. The Secretary of State suggests that the law enables social services to take emergency action if the parents refuse to allow the child to be seen alone. That is irrelevant, since they will seek such emergency power only if they have in the first place sought to see the child alone and have been refused. This is not the time to be mealy-mouthed and claim that current statutes are sufficient. They are clearly not and the poor, little corpses of numerous children in the graveyards of this country are proof positive of that fact. It is time for the Government to listen to children in need, rather than to parliamentary counsel, and do something about it. I beg the Minister to take the lead and accept this amendment. I beg to move.