My Lords, we share the concerns of my noble friend Lord McColl for the victims of the terrible crime of child trafficking. I pay tribute to his determined and enduring commitment to these children. I am sorry if the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and my noble friend Lord McColl feel that they are being batted away in any sense; they are not and will not be. These debates are extremely important in taking things forward.
At the previous session of this Committee, the failure of some local authorities to fulfil their statutory duties towards these child victims was discussed. We heard, as we have heard again today, some heartrending accounts. I start by emphasising that these failures are absolutely unacceptable. Local authorities should ensure that these very vulnerable children receive the care and
support that they so desperately need. In fulfilling those duties, a looked-after child who has been trafficked should be allocated a social worker by the local authority, as noble Lords have heard. The social worker should be responsible for planning the care of the child, ensuring that they are safely accommodated and that their welfare is supported.
The social worker should plan to ensure that all the needs of the child are met. They should take particular account of the specific needs of a trafficked child, including planning to prevent the child going missing from care, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, providing safe and secure accommodation and ensuring that the child understands any procedures in which they are involved. Throughout this they should treat the child as a victim of crime.
The child should also be allocated an independent reviewing officer who would, among many responsibilities, ensure that the child is aware of the implications of their immigration and asylum status and that the local authority considers these as part of its plan to meet the child’s needs. Further, as noble Lords have said, the child would have the right of access to an independent advocate responsible for accurately representing the child’s wishes and feelings. Advocates can support children on all issues, not just their care plan. Social workers have a duty to tell all children about their right to an advocate. Advocates can and do support children of all ages, even the very young children to whom my noble friend referred. The child’s needs and interests are best protected when these professionals work well together and fulfil their statutory responsibilities.
Legal status, perhaps unfortunately, is not the point. Local authorities have a statutory duty to assess and meet the needs of trafficked children. The issue is one of practice and, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee pointed out, trying to ensure that what should happen legally actually does happen.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and others mentioned Scotland, and I inquired as to whether this had solved the problem. I understand that the pilot of guardians in Scotland has, thus far, had mixed results. I can reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that we are keeping in touch with the Scottish Government to see what lessons we can learn from them, but it seems again to come back to practice; even setting the arrangements in place has not cracked it in Scotland.
I realise that my noble friend Lord McColl does not accept this point but we continue to feel that adding another person in the form of a child trafficking guardian to those already working in the interests of the child could add another layer of complexity. There could be a real danger of confusion about the role of social workers, independent reviewing officers and the new guardians. The current system is clear about who is responsible for taking decisions about how best to support the young person. However, we accept, as I said on Monday, that this is clearly not working out in practice as it should do. Noble Lords will know that the statutory framework includes specific duties to consider the particular needs of the trafficked child and, for example, keeping the child safe from their traffickers.
From November, every Ofsted inspection report must say how local authorities are doing in reducing the number of, and supporting, children who go missing. It is therefore vital to focus on the reasons for the failure of some local authorities to provide adequate support to trafficked children, rather than perhaps to conceal those failures below further operational layers.
Noble Lords have made reference to the Still at Risk report. They may have noted that several of its recommendations highlighted that all agencies need to implement properly statutory and practice guidance. The structures already exist to provide the support required by trafficked children if the relevant authorities put them into effect. The report showed that effective multi-agency working is an essential part of providing the right support.
I said on Monday that we have already put in place a major programme of reform to transform the care system. We want to see stable and permanent placements, high-quality education and health support, and better support for care leavers as they transition to adulthood. We will ensure that, as we implement these programmes, we will take account of the particular needs of trafficked children. As I said on Monday, we have already published revisions to the statutory guidance on missing children, which strengthen advice on meeting the needs of child victims of trafficking. However, I repeat that we recognise the strength of feeling and the strong arguments around this issue. As I said on that occasion, we would like to take this issue away and I invite further discussions to try to take this forward, drawing on every noble Lord’s expertise. In the light of that, I hope that my noble friend will be willing to withdraw his amendment.