New Clause 1 - Arrangements for childcare providers to safeguard and promote welfare of young children
Childcare Bill
10:00 am
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
I thought that I had better say something this morning, so I will have a go at new clause 1. Such is the strength and force of the new clause that, in your wisdom, Mr. Amess, you have also selected new clause 3 for consideration, which is identical. You have chosen not to select other new clauses, which I thought were really rather good and which are not identical. However, on that basis, we had probably better focus on new clause 1, because it would completely mess up the Bill if it were included twice—in the highly unlikely scenario that we get the Government to accept it.
The new clause deals with including welfare safeguards for children and for them to pertain to everyone involved in child care provision. In the dim and distant past, in the early stages of our consideration, we spoke about the requirements on local authorities to promote the welfare and well-being of children. We all agreed that that was essential, although we had different versions of how we thought that it could be achieved. New clause 1 is intended to place a duty on everyone who is affected by the Bill and particularly child care providers—everybody who comes into contact with children who access those services—to have regard to the welfare and well-being of the children themselves. As the Bill is phrased, those requirements are limited to the local authority, which is a weakness.
New clause 1, which would probably be inserted after clause 42 in part 3, would therefore place a requirement on everyone else to make arrangements to ensure that
“their functions are discharged having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children”.
That suggestion has been supported by several children’s charities, which welcome the requirements on early years providers to include the welfare requirements as specified in clause 43, although much of that relates to the provisions on administrative and more mechanical, practical matters. They recommend that there should be a requirement to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, for example, recommends that the Bill includes welfare requirements on later years providers for children under eight. It, too, believes that there should be a requirement to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
In many respects, we want to replicate the sort of considerations that are integral to the Children Act 2004. Given your inside knowledge of that legislation, Mr. Amess, you will recall that section 11 sets out duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children as they apply to a range of providers, including the children’s services authority of a local authority, district councils, strategic health councils, primary care trusts and other NHS trusts, police authorities and the probation board. Its purpose was to emphasise the fact that all of us have a duty to safeguard the welfare of children. None of those bodies is set out in the Bill, but in our discussions we have mentioned several different organisations and agencies that are affected and which will come into contact with children every day.
In order to replicate some of the safeguards for children in the 2004 Act, a welfare requirement should be placed on other parties so that everyone is mindful of, and has a duty to safeguard, the welfare and well-being of children as they come into contact with them. That is what the Act, which followed the Laming report, was all about.
The suggestion is straightforward and helpful. It adds to the Bill, especially to the joined-up approach that we have all agreed is essential when dealing with children and with vulnerable children in particular. Much of the Bill is, of course, aimed at more disadvantaged children from disadvantaged families who may be more vulnerable than others.