Bill Esterson
MP for Sefton Central · Labour · United Kingdom
“As the Prime Minister said on Tuesday, our energy supply and our energy security are not a question of having either oil and gas, or renewables; they are about both. It is a great pity that proper process was not followed in 2022 or 2023. [ Interruption.”
“I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to continuing Britain’s global leadership on climate action, including by going to COP31. I also welcome his focus on breathing space for people and businesses, but, as he said, it will take a lot more than that to deliver the growth and reindustrialisation that he is so committed to.”
“Last week the Committee heard from Claire Dykta, the director of strategy and policy at NESO, who told us: “Operational decisions are taken by authorised, trained personnel only.” Her comments were confirmed by Alastair Martin, the chief strategy officer at Flexitricity, who, in the same session, said: “I do not think the idea that the he…”
“As the Minister has just said, new nuclear is essential for energy security. It is also essential as an alternative career for workers in oil and gas.”
“Paul and Susan Robinson each worked for the Health and Safety Executive for more than 40 years. They have not been able to plan for their retirement since finishing work last year; they have been living off their savings and the small loan that they have had. They are typical of the dozens of constituents who have contacted me.”
“Hudson primary school in my constituency does a brilliant job. It is a family hub, it specialises in support for children with SEND and autism, and it has a nursery, but its building, which is 80 years old, suffers from a high water table that brings damp, mould and structural problems for the building—as does occasional flooding.”
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“On the point about voluntary agencies and smaller agencies, Hugh Thornbery told us that, “there is no necessary direct correlation between quality and size, and it would be tragic if we lost some of the real expertise that exists within some of the smaller voluntary adoption agencies, which focus particularly on trying to find the right family for some of the hardest-to-place children.” –– [ Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2015; c. 53, Q19.] His expertise, experience and credibility are such that we should take that on board. When the Minister replies to the debate, I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, will be keen to hear how he plans to make sure that such specialist knowledge and expertise are not lost because smaller agencies become less viable in the new structure.”
“Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak mentioned the experience in Wales. We should work hard to ensure that in our attempts to improve the situation, we do not end up making matters worse. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak said that delay can sometimes be the right thing for siblings or children with complex needs—provided, it is fair to say, that they are in a good placement. Although I do not disagree with that, I think there is always a balance to be struck between delay in order to get the right decision, and ensuring that that delay does not continue longer than necessary and that it is not bound up in lack of expertise and opportunity to find the best permanent placement for children, particularly those who find it difficult to be placed. I want to pick up on some of the evidence that we heard on Tuesday.”
“I want to pick up on some of the points made about the smaller agencies’ concerns about the establishment of regional agencies. The quality of work often found in the smaller agencies is incredibly important. I come to this issue having experienced the value of a small adoption agency that specialised, at the time, in placing hard-to-place children; my wife and I adopted two siblings. The expertise, advice, guidance and support we received were all exceptionally good, and some of that was due to the fact that we used a smaller agency that could concentrate its time, energies and expertise. Its inevitable problem, of course, was that funding was always a struggle. It ended up becoming part of a much larger organisation, and I am afraid that much of that expertise is no longer with us. I know that there are other examples; my hon.”
“Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, some of which I have touched on in my remarks, not least about children who are sometimes described as harder to place—although I feel that that is an unfair description of children who, through no fault of their own, have ended up in a situation where they need the support of a new family. Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.— (Margot James.)”
“That is an excellent point. Support is needed to make sure that those of us who adopt children overcome the very difficult challenges that we may face. Of course, children who are adopted have often had the most difficult start in life, which is why they have ended up being placed for adoption, and the challenges of dealing with the emotional difficulties and other background issues that those children present when they come to live with a new family are immense. It is incredibly important to ensure that support services are in place, albeit the level of breakdown overall is relatively small. I am glad that my hon. Friend raised that point, and I hope that the Minister will address the concerns expressed by my hon.”
“While we are debating this amendment, I take the opportunity to say that we had written evidence from Link Maker Systems making the point that getting arrangements wrong could result in the downside of too many placements. Multiple placements cause children additional emotional damage, making matters worse, not better. Does the Minister agree that the point of this probing amendment is to ensure that we do not end up making a situation worse? Getting the balance right is essential, and that is what my hon. Friend’s amendment, which was signed by a number of us, drives at.”
“Amendment 12 states: “the Secretary of State shall consult children who have experience of adoption functions, adopters and such persons as he considers appropriate.” I think that we mentioned in passing on Tuesday that we may have been remiss in not hearing evidence from children and young people. I repeat that comment now. It would have been a good idea had we had written or, in particular, oral evidence from children and young people themselves.”
“The members and supporters of the Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Trust and other groups that are supporting the APPG are often people who have adopted children who have been damaged by alcohol during pregnancy. There is a need for better identification—that is certainly true in the context of adoption—and for much greater support. The evidence I have seen shows that behavioural problems among children who end up in care or being adopted, with which we are all familiar, are far worse among children who have foetal alcohol spectrum disorders. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to that serious problem. The problem is not growing, but awareness of it is, so perhaps he will refer to it in his response.”
“The damage caused to babies by foetal alcohol spectrum disorders can continue for their whole lives, as the brain damage is irreversible. In this country, we are only recently coming to realise how much of a problem foetal alcohol spectrum disorders are. One estimate is that 7,000 children are damaged each year in that way, but the true figure may be much higher. The all-party group on foetal alcohol spectrum disorders was formed just two days ago—I happen to be its chairman. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Thank you. I urge all Members to follow our work in raising awareness and attempting to improve support. A high proportion of the children who are damaged by alcohol during pregnancy end up in the care system, and a significant number end up being adopted.”
“I, too, have my name on amendment 9. I want to comment briefly on the identified support needs of adopted children. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields said, there is often a lack of services for supporting mental health problems. Perhaps the Minister will take on board her well-made point about the need to improve child and adolescent services, particularly for children who end up in the care system. For those of us who have adopted children, the lack of ongoing support can make the process even harder. From personal experience, I can say that the promise of ongoing support by the placing authority is not the same as its delivery once the child is adopted. An area of concern that has recently come to my attention is the damage done by alcohol consumed by mothers during pregnancy.”
“I thank the Minister. He chaired both groups, so he is well aware of the good practice over a number of years of taking evidence from children and young people.”
“As parliamentarians looking to get this right for that group of children and young people, we should take every opportunity to listen to what children and young people and in particular, as she says, care leavers have to say.”
“The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We served together on that Committee in the previous Parliament. We held inquiries into leaving care and the quality of 16-to-19 care options and, indeed, a further inquiry into residential care. Previously, there was an inquiry into child protection. All those things are in the space that we are discussing under this aspect of the Bill and all will probably lend themselves to slightly fuller discussion under some of the other amendments. She is right to say that we should listen to what those who have left care have to say about their experiences. The experiences and life chances of children and young people who end up in the care system, whether they go on to be adopted or, we hope, into other forms of permanence, are affected very much, and for the same reasons.”
“Yes, and I realise that the hon. Lady has her own experience of these matters. When social workers become involved, which from time to time is right and proper—I am sure that she was not suggesting otherwise— what is important is continuity and that relationships between children and social workers and between families and social workers are, as far as possible, built on a basis of trust and longevity. A breakdown in trust between children and adults is one of the problems that lead to challenges as children grow. Often, what one social worker or professional may say to a child is contradicted by subsequent events. It is very important—I know that the Minister is aware of these matters—”
“My hon. Friend is of course right. There have been suggestions about how to ask children for their views without putting them in a situation where they are uncomfortable or stressed, as the hon. Lady indicated. Good practice can be taken on board; I know the Minister is aware of some of that good practice, so perhaps he can refer to it in his closing remarks. I want to draw attention to the fact that the amendments raise important issues about a child-centred approach that takes in such considerations. I am pleased that we have been able to discuss them in this way. I look forward to his response.”
“I thank the Minister for his words about the APPG, and take the opportunity to invite him to give evidence to the inquiry that we will hold in the autumn.”
“My hon. Friend finished his contribution by saying that whatever we do must be in the best interests of the child. His comment says everything about what we should do for vulnerable children and children who end up in the care system, whether or not they are adopted. Everything we do should be done with that in mind. The principle of paramountcy matters above all else. The interests of the child should come above the interests of any adult. That is why these three amendment are important. I put my name to amendment 11. It seems that I was slightly more fortunate than my hon. Friends on the Front Bench, in being allowed to use the term “foster care” in my amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields went further and managed to get “kinship care” and “residential care” in her amendment.”
“The essence of his remarks was that, by focusing only on adoption, there was a danger of missing a “large part of the picture”––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2015; c. 56, Q25.] When I asked him and the other witnesses on that panel about the Bill’s impact on other forms of permanence, he made the point that a number of local authorities have already created permanence teams and he expressed the concern that, unless the changes the Government are considering are carried out very carefully, they may create what he called “a separation”. I think that he was saying that there is a danger that we will damage existing services, and that is what my amendment seeks to avoid.”
“Annie Crombie was probably the first witness to touch on it when she suggested that it is only right to think more broadly and not think only about adoption: Many of the voluntary organisations that work in this area provide services across more than just adoption; some do not, some are very adoption-focused, but many do. –– [ Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2015; c. 47, Q10.] Most of her remakes were about adoption, but she also made that point. The other witnesses spoke in more detail. When Andy Leary-May spoke about the challenges in adoption that the Bill was trying to address, he mentioned that there are barriers within fostering, too.”
“Indeed. I have a sense that the Bill is a missed opportunity, and I said as much on Second Reading: it “raises concern that adoption is being considered the gold standard” —[ Official Report , 22 June 2015; Vol. 597, c. 647.] — at the expense of other forms of permanence. That point has been put to me on a number of occasions. Let us bear in mind than only a very small number of children end up being adopted. The best way forward for the much greater number—in excess of 90%—of children who end up in the care system is to be kept with their families, perhaps extended family, with special guardianship orders or in foster or residential care. It is a great shame that the Bill does not pick up on that. We heard in evidence that point being made in one way or another by a number of witnesses.”
“To paraphrase his evidence, it is clear that adoption offers a greater chance of stability, hence the low number of breakdowns in placements—3%—that we have talked about a number of times. However, if adoption is the solution for only 5% of children who end up in care, how do we ensure that we provide solutions that give the other 95% the best chance of permanence and stability, so that they can make the best of their lives and we do not end up with the poor outcomes that I mentioned for so many children and young people?”
“That improvement would make the legislation right. He said that this was not about adoption numbers but about increasing the quality of permanence. He spoke of the value of special guardianship orders and foster care, and urged us to consider how we, as a Committee, could help with those permanence options. It is, of course, important that we do the best we can for those who are adopted. A number of Members have spoken about Julie Selwyn’s research, which showed that adoption is on the whole a very good thing for children. Hugh Thornbery, who also mentioned that research, made the point that while adoptive families struggle through tough times and survive them, adopted children still have very challenging needs.”
“Friend is absolutely right to raise that point. We heard evidence from a number of witnesses. I have quoted Andy Leary-May already when I was talking about permanence teams. He called for the Bill to look at other forms of permanence in full. Another witness, Andy Elvin, an experienced adopter, was able to give evidence from a personal perspective, and we should listen carefully to that. He made the point that we cannot overstate the importance of early, stable and permanent placements. He talked about concentrating not on one solution—the Bill refers only to adoption—but on permanency. When asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West what change he would make to the Bill, Mr Elvin said that he would substitute the word “permanency” for “adoption”. Improving the outcomes in all permanence options would make a big difference.”
“I certainly do not want that to be at the expense of the very many for whom, sadly, the end result is as I have described, despite a lot of investment, intervention and good work by dedicated professionals, volunteers and people who act as formal or informal carers, with the support of people in schools, the health service and beyond. There is massive investment and support over many years, yet there is a stubborn lack of improvement in the life chances of this group of children and young people, with a considerable cost not only to their life chances but to society. The cost of young people who end up in the prison system is enormous. We need to consider the numbers who come through the care system first. If only there was a way of reducing those numbers, it would make an enormous saving further down the line, so my hon.”
“They find it difficult to establish stable relationships in adult life and find it difficult to get decent, well-paid employment. We have already talked about the mental health problems that young people in care suffer. All those indicators, all those problems, start early in life. The damage is done in the early years, is it not? So we should invest in support for children and young people as early as possible to improve their chances later in life. If we focus only on adoption, we are focusing, sadly, on the few.”
“There is a danger of that, and it is right to highlight the danger. The last thing I wanted to do in tabling the amendment was to undermine any good practice, and that was not what my hon. Friend was seeking to do, either. However, it is only right and proper that we express the concern that if all the focus, attention, energy and resources are directed towards something called adoption when that is not necessarily right for the child, other forms of permanence will not receive the same support and the best life chances for children and young people will not be provided. We are all familiar with the very sad state of affairs that large numbers of children in care end up in the criminal justice system. They end up not getting good results at school.”
“That is absolutely right. Whether it is about adoption or other forms of permanence, we have to find more people to come forward to look after children. In my experience, there are many things we could do to make it easier and more attractive. The issue of support came up in the evidence, for example. We need to improve support for adopters or others who care for the children who end up in the care system.”
“Perhaps the Minister will tell us when the Government will introduce equivalent proposals to address the support for the much larger group of children and young people—the 61,000 or 62,000—who are not covered by the provisions in the Bill.”
“Yes. We heard evidence from Andy Elvin about the increase in the number of children who are subject to special guardianship orders, so something is clearly working for those children, and he said that the outcomes were just as good. We have 65,000 children in the care system, and we might have a piece of legislation that deals only with 3,000 or 4,000 children a year. Although it is important and right that we do as well as we can by those 3,000 or 4,000, we must do something for the other 61,000 or 62,000 as well. My worry is that this is a missed opportunity. It is a second missed opportunity, as my hon. Friend has reminded us.”
“Q 18 We have talked predominantly about secondaries. What about primaries? What is the impact of the draft regulations on coasting when it comes to primaries? Robert Hill: It is a threshold measure, as I understand it. If you get above the 85%, you are let off the hook. There will be a lot of primaries that will be above that measure where there will potentially be quite a lot of coasting going on. It seems to me that when people thought that the Government was going to act on the concept of coasting, they thought it was going to be seeking out underperformance in good or outstanding schools. In primaries the extent it might do that will be pretty limited.”
“This is an issue and means that the proportion of schools that are deemed to be coasting will relate to the size of primary schools.”
“When you have small schools, the measures of progress made by children from one year to the next are a relatively poor reflection of the true underlying quality of teaching and learning that are taking place in the school. The consequences of that are not quite in the direction that you think. A small primary school is going to have very volatile progress measures, which is not necessarily bad, under the definition of coasting; under that definition, a school has to be bad for three years in a row. The risk is that for very small primary schools—by which I mean a one-form entry and below—there will be poorly performing schools that manage to always just about escape being deemed to be coasting, because they maybe get lucky one year in their intake.”
“Q 19 Rebecca, you said that identifying coasting primaries would be more difficult. Dr Allen: I did. On the current definition, which includes a threshold measure—65% achieving level 4—and a median progress measure, by including the threshold measure you are knocking all of your schools that serve affluent communities out of having any risk of being deemed to be coasting. You have to be okay with that happening. If you are not okay with that happening, there is a simple solution: just cross out the threshold part of the measure and base it purely on progress. I would recommend that that happens. The second thing to say about primary schools, which is serious, is that some primary schools are very small.”
“Q 47 Should high-performing local authorities be allowed to take over coasting academies? Richard Watts: There is a real challenge that the Government will face in pushing through this legislation: the capacity of high-quality sponsors to take on more schools. There are some excellent sponsors and there are some not so good sponsors. We have seen that capacity problems can develop where sponsor chains expand very quickly. The Department for Education has rightly intervened in a number of those rapidly expanding chains. If you are going to expand the pool of high-quality sponsors, it is common sense that good quality local authorities, or even outstanding maintained schools, should be able to become sponsors.”
“Q 48 Sir Daniel, do you agree that local authorities should be able to take over if they are high performing? Sir Daniel Moynihan: I don’t, actually. No.”
“Q 49 Okay. So we are not interested in high quality. Sir Daniel Moynihan: It depends. How do you define local authorities as high performing? They are not directly responsible for the management of their schools, so what does that mean? If the schools in a local authority are doing well, does that mean the local authority is high performing? I think the headteachers of those schools would have something to say about that; their view would be that they have delivered. Emma Knights: Or the governors. Sir Daniel Moynihan: So if those heads and governors could take over schools, yes, I would agree with that.”
“When we talk about thresholds of 60% or 85% being over a certain grade, or progress measures, we should apply those to children as a whole, and also to those children from poorer backgrounds. I would therefore measure academy chains alongside those data.”
“All our evidence suggests that that is the one major issue in schools. If you have good leadership that focuses on that, you will get results. It sounds simple, but that is the basic issue that the evidence throws up. Over and above that, we found that the successful chains had steady growth. They were not taking on too many schools too quickly. They had a clear strategy for school improvement. They had geographical clusters of schools, which I think you were alluding to earlier. What should you do to encourage that? I am in favour of Ofsted inspecting chains of schools as well as schools themselves. We are heading in that direction. We may come to this point later, but I think the accountability measure should explicitly look at disadvantaged students as well.”
“Q 67 Dr Major, the evidence that the Sutton Trust came up with suggested that, overall, multi-academy trusts—chains of academies—are not performing as well as local authorities, when it comes to looking after the schools they are responsible for. Given that academies are increasingly where we are going—and this legislation is going to accelerate that process—what is the answer? How do we make sure that sponsors improve so that they are outperforming the existing system? Lee Elliot Major: We found that overall there was a variation. Some academy chains were doing incredibly well and improving attainment progress and others were not. We tried to look at the factors behind that. Basically, they are the things that we all know about: good leadership and a focus on teaching in the classroom.”
“Q 68 Will you say a bit more about the accountability measure you are looking at for disadvantaged children? Lee Elliot Major: Our argument would be that the accountability measures that we are discussing here, for example, for coasting schools or for inadequate schools are as follows. At the moment, you have general accountability measures, which say that children need to get over a certain proportion of grades to be successful. We would say that you should have an explicit separate measure, to which schools should be accountable, which would measure that for disadvantaged children—those on free school meals.”
“It is perhaps outside this Bill, but we need a stronger programme of development and learning for teachers and we also need the leaders. We need more leaders and I think that will come from the system.”
“Q 69 You mentioned the quality of leadership and teaching. Emma Knights mentioned that the accountability measures and the increasing complexity are not helping governors to recruit school leaders. What are your thoughts on what Emma Knights told us? Lee Elliot Major: There is some real challenge here. I would argue that one of the biggest challenges facing schools now is recruitment. You will all know about the situation with both maths and English teachers. We all need to think about that. One of the big challenges is getting good teachers into the system. The second challenge is how to develop teachers. I still do not think that we have a strong enough system in this country to develop teachers to observe and appraise each other. The biggest variation in teaching is within schools, not between them.”
“I am not sure whether that is in the scope of the Bill, but I would say that you need that counterbalance.”
“Q 70 Coming back to the point about accountability measures and the changes that the Bill will bring about, are there things that you think we should look at as we examine the Bill line by line? Are there things we should look at changing to reduce the concerns that Emma Knights raised about recruitment? Lee Elliot Major: It is difficult. I think you have to go outside the Bill. I totally agree that you have to have strong accountability measures, but they have to be counterbalanced with very strong professional development of teachers. All the international evidence suggests this. The countries that do best in education have strong autonomy and accountability, but also a very strong sense of how they are going to develop their teachers.”
“That is the main area of capacity that we need to grow.”
“Q 71 A question for Tim Coulson. Where will the additional sponsors come from to meet the expansion in the number of academies? Dr Coulson: The additional sponsors will come from schools that Zoe has described. The really big trusts such as Harris have limited additional capacity, although they are terrific and we are delighted when they do agree to take on another school. However, even in the last couple of months since the direction of the Bill was announced, I have been encouraged that I have been contacted by more schools in the region I work in which are interested in stepping up and starting to set up their own multi-academy trusts. For me, the big capacity to generate is, locally, the very best school in an area, to set up a trust that is capable of running three or four schools.”
“The second thing is the work we have begun to do in the last year to hold academy trusts accountable much more quickly when schools do not appear to be doing as well as we would expect. There is also the use of mechanisms in the funding agreements that allow us to give warning notices and pre-warning notices to academy trusts, which make clear that, unless things change, we will have to move schools from one trust to another.”
“Q 72 How will you assure the quality of those sponsors? We have seen some high-profile problems. How will we avoid those? Dr Coulson: There are two things. One is that the system is learning a bit about sponsors—those that have been successful and those that have been less successful. The work that Zoe described about headteacher boards has brought greater scrutiny by headteachers of those kind of decisions. That has been a very helpful development in the last year. When someone wants to be a sponsor, they have to go through various processes when they apply. Potential sponsors now have to go into a level of detail, and they have to demonstrate why they would be any good at this, what the governance is and all those kinds of things. Certainly on this the bar has been raised very significantly, even in the last 12 months.”
“Even after the recent slowdown in placement orders, we still have children waiting for adoption who need it as soon as possible. We are right to try to make sure that we have a system that is more fit for purpose and can fill that gap.”
“There were 5,000 adoptions last year and 75,000 fostering placements. Adoption has been in long-term decline, despite some spirited attempts to revive it by the Labour Government, who inherited figures of about 2,000 adoptions and got them up to about 3,700. The figures then immediately fell away again. This Government have brought great leadership to it and have got the numbers up to about 5,000. In 1975, there were 24,000 adoptions a year in England. Adoption has been in long-term decline, despite the evidence that it offers quite extraordinary advantages in terms of permanence and outcomes for children. Despite all the difficulties that adoption can present, it offers quite extraordinary options for changing the lives of neglected children.”