Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister, Children, Schools and Families; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
I welcome you, Mr. Pope. I do not think that I have served under your chairmanship. I am sure that you will be exceedingly fair and accommodating. I am particularly pleased that the Minister is leading for the Government. He and I are veterans of these things, going back to the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and other legislation.
I am particularly pleased to be joined on the Opposition Benches by an ace team of veterans. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight was on Committee considering the Children Act 2004 with me, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove who will be joining us later—she sent her apologies—was on the Childcare Act 2006. There is also a debut Committee performance by my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich, after his excellent maiden speech in the debate on the Bill last week. He brings to the Committee a wealth of experience from many years on the family court circuit in the north of England. He also has great experience of fostering in his own family. I am sure that he will end up teaching all of us a thing or two.
I endorse the Minister’s comments on the excellent Second Reading, and point out that this is a pretty uncontentious Bill. It was amended for the good in the Lords, and we seek to support it as much as possible and to speed its enactment. There are areas where we want to add detail, and we want to tighten up some of the good intentions, which I think all members of the Committee will agree with. It will be a constructive debate and dialogue.
The way in which the amendments have been ordered means that there is an awful lot of activity at the back end. There are not that many amendments, and they are mostly probing or technical ones, but there are no fewer than 32 new clauses. There are almost as many new clauses as amendments. Things that might have been seen as amendments have been turned into new clauses on a whole host of subjects, including independent reviewing officers, advocacy, residential placements and some of their terms of scrutiny, and teachers and governors having responsibilities in schools. There are also some new clauses that we have tabled. One is on having a welfare checklist, which we would like to see at the heart of the Bill.
We would also like to see proposals on the role of a chief social worker. We might have debated that at the beginning, during our considerations of the first six clauses, but in your wisdom, Mr. Pope, you have decided that we should come back to that new clause later.
We are keen to move through the early clauses as speedily and constructively as possible, because new clauses have been tabled by not only the Opposition, but the Liberal Democrats and some Government Back Benchers, and we are keen to leave sufficient time to debate those fully nearer the end of our proceedings. On that basis, we are happy with the programme motion. However, rather than having only an hour during the final sitting to debate 20 new clauses, it would be nice to pace ourselves accordingly and give them the proper debating time that they merit.