David Kidney (PPS (Rt Hon Rosie Winterton, Minister of State), Department for Transport; Stafford, Labour)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He has offered a way forward on who could be an advocate for a child. A CAFCASS officer is a perfectly acceptable person—independent of everyone in the process—to step in and be that advocate if that is what the child wants. However, we should give the child a diversity of choice. My amendment differs from amendment No. 33, which was fully debated in the other place. That amendment seeks to ensure that the advocate chosen by the child is absolutely independent of the local authority. My amendment does not go that far. If, for example, there is a member of staff in a residential children’s home who has been trained to be an advocate and has gained the appropriate qualification, and a child wants that person to be their advocate, we should not say, “You cannot have that person because they are employed by the local authority so they are not independent.” If the child is confident that that person could speak for them, even against their employers, that is fine by me.

The hon. Gentleman mentions the 2006 Act. I would go back a little further to the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, because that is when the big debate about advocacy first emerged in Parliament. We were given assurances during the passage of that Act—which came to fruition two years later, I think—that a child in care would have access to an advocate if they wanted to make a complaint or a representation about their care. Fortunately, the number of complaints is quite low, but not many youngsters appreciate that they could have an advocate to make their complaint for them, and they certainly do not know what a representation is. Roger Morgan, the children’s rights director, often has difficulty—even though it is his job—explaining to  people that representation could be read widely, and that there could already be many situations where a child could access an advocate if they wanted to. Even wanting to have their voice heard at a statutory review could be classified as a representation. I argue that perhaps the Government have done a good thing in the past, but they have, through the kind of language used and the lack of publicity about representation, denied a lot of access to advocacy to children who already probably could have had recourse to it. Later, one or two new clauses that try to reassert the general access to an advocate that a child should have will be proposed.

I want to draw my comments to a close by referring to the recent report by Roger Morgan, the children’s rights director, on children’s views of advocacy. He gives helpful guidance based on his interviews with children. Children and young people regard the independence of the advocate as important, mainly because the advocate would not be involved with the issue at stake, they would be less judgmental than people closely involved, and the process of consulting with the advocate would be more private. On page 13 of the report it states:

“Many children and young people expressed very strong views about this. Some thought it was important that advocates did not work for the same organisation as the people looking after them. Others thought that advocates should not be people in the same home as themselves.”

That shows a healthy pragmatism on behalf of the children and young people: the advocate would be somebody they trusted and their status—whether or not they were an employee of the local authority—would not necessarily be important.

Roger Morgan asked children when they thought an advocate would be of use. These are some of their answers:

“When you feel like complaining”.

They could already access advocacy in that situation.

“When you’re in a meeting and you don’t understand it”.

It is frightening that the professional process can go on around somebody and they do not know what is happening. A good one is:

“When you’re locked up”.

That is an obvious reason for wanting somebody to say something on your behalf.

“When you have been arrested or in trouble at school or in any other bad situation”.

“When I’m too afraid to ask the council”.

The latter is an enlightening comment, which links to giving people the ability and the confidence to know that with someone’s help they would be able to say the right thing at the right time. The final situation quoted in the report was:

“Whenever you feel unable to speak for yourself”.

As a result, Roger Morgan made some recommendations, and I would like to refer to four of them.

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