Children Bill [HL]

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 8:30 pm on 4 May 2004.

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Photo of Lord Lucas Lord Lucas Conservative 8:30, 4 May 2004

In moving Amendment No. 11A, I shall speak also to my other amendments in the group. These amendments have one thing in common, which is they have nothing whatever to do with each other. This is one of those groupings which is put in occasionally to hurry up the progress of the Committee—particularly after any group that involves the Welsh. Perhaps I may take my amendments in order. So far as concerns the other amendments, I will listen and learn from other speeches.

Amendment No. 11A concerns principally our Armed Forces. We currently have 25,000 children abroad with the Armed Services. The responsibility for matters relating to those children flows through the Ministry of Defence. Generally, the Ministry of Defence has other things on its mind, particularly when it comes to budgets; and children's matters rate somewhere below cigar lighters for generals. It commonly takes many years for improvements that we make in this House to children's services in the UK generally to filter through to the children of Armed Services personnel who are abroad on active service.

We should take the opportunity of the Bill to shift that gently in the right direction. I have two amendments on the subject, one at this end of the Bill and the other right at the back end—Amendment No. 247A. Amendment No. 11A would extend the remit of the Children's Commissioner to those children of personnel serving abroad. Obviously, when they come back to the UK they will be under the commissioner in whose patch they happen to be living. I shall not try to rehearse the arguments of the previous amendment. While the children are abroad they have no one looking after them. We should try and do something about that.

Amendment No. 18 is my second amendment in the group. It is really cheeky of me putting it in because I have absolutely nothing to teach the noble Baroness on the matter. I have long talked about the need for research and evidence-based policies. The noble Baroness has actually done something about it and has begun to bring that sort of attitude into the DfES, for which I am enormously grateful. The amendment merely raises that flag again and says, "When we are trying to put together policies for children, let us gather evidence and produce a solid evidence base for whatever it is that we are proposing to do. And let us allow and encourage the Children's Commissioner to promote and direct such research".

My third amendment in the group is Amendment No. 32. It really just picks up an uncertainty that I had about the way in which the Bill was constructed, in that it is clear that the Children's Commissioner will not be in a position to offer advice to individual children. None the less, a lot of individual children are going to contact him. One gets into problems with data protection rights and child protection and so on.

It is clear to me that whatever we do, it has to be possible for the office of the Children's Commissioner to direct or pass on children who come to him to those who are capable of dealing with individual children. I want to be absolutely sure that he has the powers and rights necessary to effect that passing on. It takes a lot of courage for a child to raise a matter with an adult. If the first time they do that, their voice falls on stony ground, their voice may never be heard again. I want to avoid that if at all possible.

Amendment No. 41, which is my last amendment in this group, comes back to a discussion that we had on Amendment No. 17. Subject to correction, it is my strong recollection that it is the common practice to lay out in primary legislation how a commissioner, or a similar body, might report. It rather sets the relationship between that body and the Minister and the public at large. At the moment, the commissioner has a right to report to the Secretary of State, but he has no right in the Bill to report to the public. The noble Baroness said that there is nothing to stop him doing that; yes, but there is no right for him to do it. I want the Bill to be clear that the commissioner has the right to go public. He does not have to sit and wait for the Secretary of State. He will not be one of those people who puts a report in to the Secretary of State and two years later it is not published. We have entirely too much of that.

This will be a commissioner who has a right to be heard. Although there may, out of courtesy and good practice, normally be some advance notice for the Secretary of State, and he might expect to get things a month or two in advance, he should not dictate the publication date. I advance those arguments with the object of hearing what the Government have to say on the subject; at this time of night, I certainly have no intention of dividing the Committee. I beg to move.