My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply, along with all other noble Lords who have contributed to the debate on this group of amendments on this important area.
I was very pleased that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, had received a letter from the Minister for Children and Families, I think he said, subsequent to our last sitting in Committee. I wonder if he might be prepared to share that with us because it might have information of general interest to those of us who have been involved with the Bill and are looking to take these issues forward.
My noble friend Lady Massey raised an important point about what the outcomes of not providing this proper mental health care could be. You do not need a very vivid imagination to foresee that there will be many effects, once children reach adulthood, if some of the issues with which they are trying to deal in childhood are not adequately cared for and are allowed to get worse as they approach adulthood, not least at a time when they have to go out into the world and live on their own. That is an important point and it was well made.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, if I noted her point down correctly, talked about the resources being targeted at need rather than category. I very much agree, as she will know. Despite what the Minister said, I do not doubt that the Government are committed to other forms of care but it looks as if this is given a disproportionate amount of attention; it is the only one involved in the Bill, and then there were the remarks—attributed to, I think, the Prime Minister in his speech in November—that further legislation
was somewhere in the pipeline,. Those working in the other categories would value something of substance from the Government to say, “We’ve looked to beef up the ability of the adoption sector; now this is what we are doing for the other sectors”. I hope that that the Minister will bear that in mind and that the Government will come forward with that in due course.
The Minister said that mental health care for children in adoption was a key issue for the Government. I am perfectly willing to accept that, but I come back to the point made on Amendment 2 that there should be an assessment prior to placement. In response to that, the Minister said that assessments were carried out prior to placement but she seemed to say, and I hope that I am quoting her correctly on this, that both types of assessments—that is, physical health assessments as well as mental—were included. That is very welcome, but it is not understood by the organisations involved in adoption, judging by the comments they have made to myself and other noble Lords as the Bill has progressed through its various stages. It therefore might be helpful if she could write, perhaps to expand a bit about what mental health assessments are given prior to placement, as I think everyone involved sees that as a key issue.
The Minister also mentioned the £4.5 million that the Government have provided to accelerate the establishment of the regional adoption agencies. While that is welcome, I made the point in moving the amendment that that is seen to be if not running dry, then already running a bit thin, and I wanted some assurance of what might follow that. She mentioned another sum of £12.5 million. I do not know whether that will be used in the same way. Some of it might be, but certainly the feeling among the adoption agencies is that £4.5 million will get things started but will not take the whole process very much further, and that additional resources will be necessary.
When the Minister assured me that the Department for Education works closely with the Department of Health, I thought, “Well, of course you would say that, wouldn’t you?”. However, a serious point is: how will the progress of implementing the recommendations of Future in Mind be reported? How can they be monitored and made available to organisations in the field that are involved in their delivery to some extent but which also care about being able to trace the effectiveness of those recommendations that are put into place? Some form of reporting would therefore certainly be valuable. Again, I ask either of the Ministers if they would be prepared to write about that, because £1.25 billion, which is over a five-year period, is a huge sum of money—although I am not sure when the five-year period started. I think I am right in saying that Future in Mind was published in 2012 but I do not know whether that was the start of the five-year period. However, that is one of the questions that may well be answered in the Minister’s response.
We have had a number of helpful comments from the Minister. Those involved will be happy to take some of them forward and, I hope, to build on them, but at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.