Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, in terms of developing the specification, can the noble Earl tell us how stakeholders are to be involved? In particular, will the young people themselves now have a voice? I declare an interest as the president of Little Hearts Matter, which deals with children with single-ventricle problems.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, I do not think any of the Minister’s replies have explained how his strategy will take out of poverty the millions of children who have just been illustrated in the report of one of the Government’s own commissions. It recognises that many families where there is childhood poverty, even though someone in the household is employed, are not being helped. What strategy do the...
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, I have one brief question. No one can doubt my commitment to this group of children and to the work of my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss and the noble Lord, Lord McColl. It is crucial that we move forward and I am particularly grateful that the Government have decided to do this with a pilot. The questions that have been asked during this short debate reflect the...
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, can I ask the Minister to draw attention to one other area? I was alarmed to read in a recent POSTnote —the very last paragraph of a document that is often very factually based and helpful to the House—that HIV/AIDS is likely to suffer from being commissioned by one group, delivered by another and overseen by yet another. I am quite sure that that is an area where we would want...
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: Will the Minister clarify the relationship between NHS England’s responsibility for mental health and that of the Ministry of Justice, and how contracts are laid between the two, not only in the private sector but in the voluntary sector, where a number of organisations have lost contracts through this confusion? I declare an interest as a trustee of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but I happen to agree with him that the most important thing is to get this right. Having heard the arguments so far, I do not think any of these options have been properly thought through to their conclusion to ensure that we get this right. Looking at what is happening on the ground at the moment, we could actually have another difficult,...
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this amendment and I find myself in a curious position in so doing. Having worked in this field for many years, I am absolutely clear that you have to approach the needs of these children with your heart. Any noble Lords who have children or grandchildren can imagine what it would feel like to discover that they had disappeared from home—had been...
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: Does the Minister share my disappointment about the way the police have been dealing recently with domestic violence? After all the work that has been carried out, what can be done to bring those forces that are clearly not meeting the needs of women up to the level of excellence of those forces that are?
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, the food chain is complex and long. As the Minister knows, it has been decided not to show all the countries of origin on meat labelling because the costs for small businesses would be too high. So how will consumers know what they are eating when they buy compound meat?
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps are being taken to use the international benchmark to identify best practice and wider commercial expertise that will augment the current Sellafield consortium's capability and capacity to secure Sellafield nuclear decommissioning objectives.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, I accept that there may be more important things to contend with at the moment, but this is a question of equality. I was concerned by the noble Lord’s reply that it was too complex. Does he remember that, at one time, it was too complex to give women the vote?
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, the Minister will be quite aware that it is the build-up of stress throughout the system that leads to these young people self-harming. He will also be aware that, at the very beginning of the process, many of them are being held inappropriately in police cells because of the lack of facilities in the rest of the system. Would he ensure that that is included in the inquiry? I am...
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, I want to speak briefly to say two things. The first is that I understood some of the early concerns about ensuring that all children in need receive equal attention and about the difficulties when one group might find themselves with greater attention. I understand where the noble Lord was coming from in trying to think through that issue, but in our discussions it was quite...
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, somehow I never manage to get my name on amendments, but it never prevents me from speaking. I welcome the package of measures being proposed. Ever since I introduced the amendment that stopped smoking in the Peers’ Guest Room, I have been one of the team quietly working towards the place that we have now reached. The Minister must forgive me if I ask him to say where we are and...
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, I am not very good at accolades, but I just add to what has been said about the Minister’s capacity to listen and respond. It has indeed been remarkable and extremely helpful, so I hope that he will forgive me for asking a few more questions—it is in my nature. I turn to the question of mediation. I had a number of exchanges with the noble Lord, Lord McNally, about the...
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, my name was also on the original amendment tabled by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I regret that the phrase, “the welfare of the child”, has not been retained. I am pleased that the Government have taken this as far as they have. Emotions run very high during divorce and separation proceedings and where children are used as chattels in the battle. For all...
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, having information online is very helpful. It is even more so when heads are able to meet and share information about the way they have been developing programmes. I have recently seen work done by family learning programmes using part of the pupil premium. Will the Minister encourage head teachers to share good practice more directly, as this seems to have a real impact?
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, I believe we are deeply reassured and very grateful to the Minister. I am only sorry that I was not able to take part in the earlier discussions. As you know, there were clashes with other discussions about other parts of the children Bill at which I had to be present. I have been in close touch with the noble Lord, Lord Knight. We are very reassured, indeed grateful, that this...
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, in a few weeks, I will join families and children celebrating 20 years of the work of the charity Little Hearts Matter. The team provides advice, information and emotional support where a child has been born with half a heart, but the fact that we have surviving young people with us is significant. A little over 20 years ago, they all died. The survival of these young people is...
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, I had not intended to intervene on this at this late hour, but I am tempted to, as I thought that every school had to have a bullying strategy and that there was a code. It may sit dustily on a shelf in the headmaster’s study but it is supposed to be there. I thought schools had to have a practice and some sort of plan to involve children and young people in that strategy....
