Orders of the Day — Children
and Adoption Bill
Re-adoption bill -
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates
Eric
pickle’s contributions about Essex County Council and more Wow!
Eric Pickles MP
(‘Early Day Motions’) EDM 869
WORKINGS OF THE CHILDREN ACT 2004
House of Commons
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Wednesday 26 October 2005
That this House urges the Government to remove the veil of
secrecy from the workings of the Children Act 2004; considers that the
closed door policy of the family courts breeds suspicion and a culture of
secrecy which does nothing to instil confidence in those using them, which
affects not just the courts but the social services departments of local
authorities; and believes that it is possible to preserve the anonymity of
children involved in the proceedings without the cumbersome rules which
obstruct parents from receiving advice and support, which in particular
works to the disadvantage of parents with special learning difficulty.
Ask your MP to sign the EDM 869
Eric Pickles (Brentwood
& Ongar, Con) Link to this | Hansard source
I am grateful for the
opportunity to make a modest contribution to the debate. It is a
particular pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for
Redcar (Vera
Baird). I hope she will forgive me if I do not pursue some of her
excellent points, as I want to concentrate on a narrower aspect of the
Bill, namely adoption. I want to say something about the secrecy of the
family court. I think that some of the general rules on adoption
concerning foreign nations are relevant to our own system. A particularly
sad case in which I have been involved over the last few months has a
direct bearing on how adoption works in practice, especially forced
adoption, the most extreme of the many issues that we must consider.
My hon. Friend the
Member for Peterborough (Mr. Jackson) described the
Under-Secretary of State as sparky. I am not sure that I can follow him
down that avenue, but I want to record my enormous appreciation for the
courtesy that she has shown me in connection with that case and my
concerns about adoption. We have had three formal meetings and many more
informal meetings. The Under-Secretary has changed my views on a number of
important issues. She has also reinforced some of my prejudices, which is
a nice feeling—but I am genuinely grateful to her, and grief-stricken by
the fact that she is plainly suffering from a heavy cold. I wish her a
quick recovery.
As I have said, I am
concerned about the secrecy of the family court. I tabled an early-day
motion on the subject. Looking around the Chamber earlier, I noted that
almost every Member present, apart from Ministers and, obviously, the
occupant of the Chair, had signed it. Early-day motion 869, entitled
"Workings of the Children Act 2004", stated:
"That this House urges
the Government to remove the veil of secrecy from the workings of the
Children Act 2004; considers that the closed door policy of the family
courts breeds suspicion and a culture of secrecy which does nothing to
instil confidence in those using them, which affects not just the courts
but the social services departments of local authorities; and believes
that it is possible to preserve the anonymity of children involved in the
proceedings without the cumbersome rules which obstruct parents from
receiving advice and support, which in particular works to the
disadvantage of parents with special learning difficulty."
The hon. and learned
Member for Redcar spoke about the concept of the
rights of the child being paramount. Her explanation was a good deal
clearer than some that I have received from social services departments.
However, I am less concerned with the effect on the courts than with the
effect on social services. There is almost a process of Chinese whispers,
whereby that noble concept becomes bastardised into an unwillingness to
disclose, to justify, to listen to arguments, or even to see a need to
explain decisions. The law was changed because of Members' difficulties in
obtaining information from social services departments. At one time, they
were threatened with contempt proceedings and prosecutions for pursuing
constituency cases. Since the beginning of April last year, however, we
have been able to look at case files and discuss the issues. I may be
wrong but I think that I was the first Member of Parliament to take
advantage of that, after a constituent who was going through the process
brought it to my attention in the early part of April last year.
The change in the law
seems to have wholly passed by Essex social services department.
Despite the will of the House and the change in the law, it led me through
quite an elaborate dance when I wanted to get some basic information from
it. At one point, it insisted that I went to court to get special
permission, when by Act of Parliament I already had that right. Had it not
been for my noble Friend Lord Hanningfield, who happens to be the leader
of Essex county council, I do not think that I would have been able to
pursue the case to the full.
I cannot go into the
details of the case, but I can talk about it in the abstract and discuss
the way it affects the law. It concerned the decision by
Essex social
services to remove two children from a family because they considered the
mother to be stupid and incapable of bringing up the children because of
her lack of intellect. The mother had an IQ of around 60. Social services
sought to present her as stupid to the point of being unable to understand
maternal feelings. In my view, she was a little slow but someone who
clearly loved her two children. She was faced with an unending stream of
social workers dealing with her case—at one point, I counted 16—who were
pushing her in different directions. She was left bewildered and unable
adequately to rebut social services' allegations. I want to say a few
things about people with learning difficulties and then move to the
general question of social services. I want to stay firmly within the
terms of the Bill.
A problem has been
identified recently with the Meadow case. I do not want to go down that
route but it illustrates the fact that, sometimes, proceedings have been
initiated because hospital consultants or social workers have been a
little over-zealous. It is typical for the person who initiates
proceedings to see the complaint through. There is a need for a separation
of powers between those who take the decision to initiate an investigation
and those who actually conduct it. I am worried—I will come to this a
little later—about the targets for adoption and the obvious financial
benefits that accrue.
The principal problem
is that social services departments cannot be entirely non-partisan in the
way in which they identify the issues. Few people who initiate a serious
chain of events are likely to admit it when it goes wrong. The temptation
is to tailor evidence to fit the complaint. That should be resisted.
I can give a few brief
examples of how that happens. As I said, I think that I was almost
certainly the first MP to go through the process of wading through a
social services file concerned with a forced adoption. It was thick,
repetitive and at times confusing. I have talked to the Minister about
that. I speak as a former chairman of a social services department and was
used to seeing that kind of thing. I was shocked at the sloppiness of
record keeping, the shoddiness of the process and the basic injustice. In
that file—this is directly relevant—there was misinformation,
embellishment and inappropriate assigning of motives.
I shall give just two
examples, which illustrate the general problem. In the first example, the
husband did not have learning difficulties but was, by mistake, described
as having them. The mistake was recognised and corrected in the file but
subsequently, such allegations continued to be made, as though it was a
proven fact. More seriously, it was suggested that the child had witnessed
domestic violence. It became clear that this was a single incident in
which the husband, in a moment of pique, had picked up his slippers and
thrown them against the wall. He is a gentle and passive man and at no
time were the slippers aimed at anybody; nor was any damage caused,
except, perhaps, for a slight mark on the wall. However, the file on that
family states that the female child
"has witnessed domestic
violence and this will have an impact towards her development".
Following close
scrutiny on my part, social workers told me that there was no evidence of
any violence toward either child in the family. No doctors or casualty
departments had expressed concern, and there was no evidence of repeated
accidents involving the children. Yet the allegation remained on the file.
An allegation was also
made of poor parenting and I asked for various examples. I was given two.
First, the female child had been given sandwiches and a packet of crisps
for her lunch, and because she chose to eat the crisps first, she was too
full to eat her sandwiches. That was deemed sufficiently important to be
regarded as an example of poor parenting. The second example—we should
bear in mind that at this point, I was pressing for another such
example—involved allowing one of the children to stay up late at night to
watch television. I asked whether "late" meant
10 o'clock at night,
or perhaps 9 o'clock. I was told that she was allowed to stay up until 8
o'clock to watch the end of "EastEnders" or "Coronation Street". I have
many middle-class friends with children of a similar age who are allowed
to have crisps and to stay up until 8 o'clock. None of them is subject to
a care order.
I turn to the issue of
stories being embellished. By this point, the social worker was finding me
a tad provocative. He said that the mother had screwed up a baby-wipe
tightly in her fist and had repeatedly rubbed it against the genitals of
the young male child, to the extent that they were "red raw." However, the
report actually said that the mother had used heavy pressure, and that the
genitals were flattened and "very red". There is a world of difference
between "red raw" and discoloured.
I found distressing the
way in which motives were ascribed in the report, without any obvious
discipline. The father was criticised because he had refused to leave his
job of some 23 years to become the full-time carer. It was said that that
showed a lack of commitment. I believe that holding down a job—in his
case, a humble job—for 23 years and putting bread on the table week in,
week out sets a fine example to one's children. The social workers wanted
the father to live off benefits. That might have been a solution, but if
someone can set an example to their children by working hard, that is
something to be proud of.
I want to return to the
way in which the primacy rule can be bastardised. I confess that by this
time I was beginning to irritate people, although I am sure that hon.
Members will find that hard to believe. I found myself being lectured by a
very senior person whom I shall not name, as that would be embarrassing.
He said, "We have to consider the welfare of the child. That is absolutely
paramount; whatever is best for the child is what we do."
I replied, "OK, but if
that rule is applied generally, let's apply it to your children. If I
arranged for them to live in the house of Mr. Bill Gates, they would get
enormous intellectual stimulation—probably more than you can offer—and
they would certainly enjoy much greater financial well-being." The very
senior person did not seem to like that, which made me glad that I had not
used my second choice of example—Michael Jackson.
I have talked these
matters through with people who really understand them. They have said,
"Look, Eric, what about the guardian? The guardian is there to look after
the interests of children and to be impartial in the process."
I put that approach to
various leading counsel with an interest in the matter. Although some
guardians may exist who are prepared to stand up to social services
departments and act as bastions of freedom, they are very hard to find.
Generally speaking, guardians act as cheerleaders for social services
departments. They are entirely compliant, and seem incapable of doing more
than being a cheering section.
I had the opportunity
last night to speak about such problems to the Under-Secretary of State
for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for
Liverpool, Garston
(Maria Eagle), and I shall give one example of the role of guardians. A
leading counsel on these matters—who, by the nature of things, acts
sometimes for the local authority and sometimes for parents—told me about
one occasion when he was acting for the local authority. Just before
proceedings began, people started to gather round the table. He was not
paying attention to who came through the door, and was about to begin his
contribution when he noticed that the guardian was sitting in the room.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, to which the guardian replied, "Well,
you know, I'm here as part of the team."
That person should not
have been in the room, because the guardian's presence could demonstrate
partiality. The system needs to make sure that the different strands of
the process can be separated.
I was enormously
surprised to find that there is no national system for the regulation or
disciplining of social workers. No royal charter exists that sets out
professional standards or disciplinary procedures and thus allows peer
judgment to take place. The social work profession needs to address that
defect. The solution does not need to be elaborate, but peer evaluation
among social workers on relevant matters is important. Without that, there
is enormous variation between authorities, which can be as slack as the
one involved in the Climbié case, or as tough as
Rochdale in the face
of ridiculous accusations of satanism.
I shall quote briefly
from Andrew Scott, an admittedly newly qualified barrister who deals with
these matters on a daily basis. I suspect that he may be known to some
hon. Members, as he has made quite a reputation for himself. He said:
"I don't think the
public appreciates how low the threshold is. When children are taken from
their parents, it is not because there is a certainty of future harm or
even that, on the balance of probabilities, those children could be
harmed. It is enough that there will be a possibility of future harm. If
there is a 70 per cent. risk of a child being harmed and every child with
that risk was taken into care then, in 100 such cases, 30 children would
be taken from families where they would come to no harm. Sometimes, I
wonder whether children are being protected, or whether it is social
workers' careers."
Those are wise words.
There may be a temptation for local authorities, possibly because of the
financial advantage, to move towards adoption when other solutions may be
possible.
Mr. Scott goes on to
say:
"There's an unspoken
fear that children from poor backgrounds are being freed up for
middle-class adopters."
I would like to give an
illustration which, of all the features of the case, has really chilled
me. It is about the question of duty of care. In the April before the
children were finally taken with a view to an enforced adoption, there was
a case conference. The second child had not yet been born. The conference
was considering whether to put the child on the at-risk register. The
daughter was already on it. On the basis of the facts before it, the
conference decided that it was not necessary to put the young boy on the
register and furthermore that it was appropriate to take the young girl
off it. Somebody at that conference, notably the chairman, did not like
that decision. There was no change of circumstances and no other
substantial incidents had taken place. Yet the same circumstances were
seen as making it appropriate to put the children into care with a view to
permanent adoption.
Let me say what I think
needs to be done. Those who investigate a complaint must be independent of
those who initiate it and those who may in due course be called on to care
for the children. A proper code of conduct for social workers is long
overdue. I certainly believe that those with special learning difficulties
deserve special care. We are told that in 1 per cent. of all families one
partner or the other has learning difficulties. We are also told that 20
per cent. of children in care have one parent with learning difficulties.
There is some dispute over the figures, but whether they are precisely
right or not, they demonstrate a problem.
The secrecy of the
family courts needs to be opened up. We wait for the consultation
document. I believe that there is a strong case for judgments to be
published and that they can be published while retaining the anonymity of
the child. I have one additional suggestion. It goes back to the Meadow
case. There is a question whether the professional witnesses should be
identified. If the Government take the decision that they should, I will
generally support that. Once you become involved in a case you get e-mails
from all over the country. Some are heartbreaking, but they all have
strong emotion running through them. Very normal people sometimes become
irrational. I recognise that there might be a problem obtaining witnesses
if they are routinely named.
As an absolute minimum,
each professional witness should be given a unique identifying number. I
think that that is important—I suspect that hon. Members
understand—because we need to establish a pattern so that if we get a
problem with the veracity of a witness we can have another look at them.
We need to change the
rules with regard to advice. Parents are put in the dreadful position of
being unable to seek advice. They cannot talk to their county council or
unitary authority; they cannot talk to friends or members of their family.
Only recently could they come and talk to us. I can give examples of where
there is a problem. In care or adoption proceedings it is understandable
that parents want to take a fair amount of time off. Under the existing
rules, parents cannot tell their employer why they are absent from work
without going back to the court. Psychiatric evaluations are also often
necessary in such proceedings, but people cannot make full disclosure
without first going back to the court. We have to find ways to solve those
problems, and I wholeheartedly endorse the Committee's recommendations for
greater transparency.
It might be slightly
controversial to say so, but some cases resemble attempts to make bricks
without straw. Once the facts have been established, the courts are
reluctant to revisit those facts or their interpretation. However, if
adoption has resulted from fraud or seriously erroneous evidence, we
should have a procedure to enable that adoption to be overturned, although
the period in which that could be done should be limited. In care
proceedings, any carer who is accused of abuse should have an automatic
entitlement to legal aid; the opportunity to instruct an expert of their
choosing; a right of appeal against any findings; and legal aid for any
appeal.
I am grateful for the
opportunity to raise these issues, but I wish to make one final point. I
hope to be a Member of Parliament for many years to come—[Hon. Members:
"Hear, hear."] Well, that is marvellous and makes me feel wonderful.
However, the case I have described will haunt me, because a grave
injustice has been done and the system has let those people down. Those
two young people now live in my constituency in a flat that is spotlessly
clean and well maintained, with a bedroom full of toys that their children
will never see. The beds are made up and presents are waiting for them.
While there will be an attempt to overturn the original care proceedings,
everyone understands that the likelihood of reversal is not great. When
the state intervenes in people's lives, we must ensure that it does so
fairly. In the case that I have dealt with over the past few months, that
intervention was "intervention beyond the humane."
