Item 6 on our agenda this afternoon is a debate on the Children's Commissioner for Wales's annual report, and I call on the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services to move the motion—Julie Morgan.

Motion NDM7217 Rebecca Evans

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

Notes the Children’s Commissioner for Wales' Annual Report 2018-19 and the Welsh Government’s response to the Children’s Commissioner’s Annual Report 2018-19.

Motion moved.

Diolch. I'd like to start by thanking the children's commissioner for her tireless work on behalf of our children and young people. I know that Assembly Members will agree with me that the commissioner plays a crucial role as an independent champion advocating for children's rights and well-being.

As Deputy Minister leading the work across the Welsh Government on children's rights, I welcome the children's commissioner's annual report, its important recommendations, and her scrutiny of the Welsh Government. And it's particularly important to highlight the work of the commissioner this year, as 2019 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which we have, as a Government, made every effort to mark. In Wales, we're extremely proud of our progress on children's rights, being the first UK nation to appoint a children's commissioner in 2001. We adopted the UNCRC as the basis for our work with children in 2004, and enshrined children's rights in law through the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure in 2011. And the Measure means that all Ministers are required, by law, to consider children's rights before making or reviewing our policies or legislation. This legislation ensures that children and their rights are at the heart of everything we do, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission recently concluded that the 2011 Measure had led to a significant positive impact on policy in Wales. They said:

'We have no reservations in concluding that the Measure has achieved its objective of embedding the Convention in policy-making in Wales.'

A very practical demonstration of our commitment to children's rights is our work to bring forward legislation to remove the defence of reasonable punishment. This is in line with our commitment to a child's right to grow up in a safe and nurturing environment. We believe that physically punishing children is simply not acceptable in Wales. Article 12 of the UNCRC emphasises the central importance of hearing and taking into account the views of children and young people when taking decisions that affect them. It's for this reason that we have introduced legislation to ensure that 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in the Assembly election in 2021, and local government elections in 2022. I know these reforms are considered as radical by some, even controversial for some, but I think what we're doing is demonstrating our commitment to children's rights by making progress in these really crucial areas.

Let me now turn specifically to the commissioner's annual report and the Government's response to it. In this year's annual report, the commissioner has made 14 recommendations for the Welsh Government across children's services, health, education and transport. We published our response to the annual report on 3 December, which sets out our comprehensive response to each of the commissioner's recommendations as well as the actions we have taken or intend to take in these areas.

Our commitment to children's rights, I think, is clearly demonstrated by the Welsh Government accepting, or accepting in principle, 12 of the 14 recommendations in this year's annual report, and I think this shows the seriousness with which the Welsh Government takes children's rights and our absolute commitment to work very closely with the children's commissioner.

I know that Assembly colleagues will be keen to discuss the annual report and our response in more detail, but I'd like to highlight briefly one important example of the way in which we are responding positively to the recommendations in the annual report. This is in the crucial area of tackling bullying. This is an area that the children's commissioner has done a lot of valuable work in, and I know that many Assembly colleagues have got a very keen interest in this area of work. The children's commissioner's recommendation in this area calls for the Welsh Government to ensure that schools keep a record of all incidents and types of reported bullying. The commissioner would like to see all schools use this information to plan, monitor and evaluate their preventative and responsive anti-bullying work.

Now, the Welsh Government has accepted this recommendation. On 6 November this year, 2019, we published new anti-bullying statutory guidance, 'Rights, respect, equality', to help schools deal with bullying. This guidance sets out the expectation that schools record all incidents of bullying, outlining the specific types of bullying and that they monitor processes regularly and analyse data as part of their self-evaluation. The guidance is clear that schools should respond to specific trends and emerging issues in a swift and effective manner, in consultation with learners and their parents/carers.

I think it is with practical reforms like this and the others in our response that we will ensure that we make progress towards the health, happiness and safety of all our children, because it is their right and it's our responsibility.

Where we have the levers for change, we will act in the interest of children's rights. We have to acknowledge, however, that decisions made in Westminster profoundly affect children's lives here in Wales, and I think that has been amply illustrated in the debate we've had previously—

Will the Member take an intervention?

Certainly, yes.

Thanks for giving way, Julie. I quite agree with what you've just said about the importance of schools recording data when it comes to bullying, but would you also agree that, in the interests of transparency, it's important that data isn't just recorded but that it's available to parents should they request it so that we do get an accurate picture of bullying, and, more importantly, the types of bullying that are going on in different schools? Because those might vary from area to area and will need a particular response, depending on the particular situation.

I understand that the Member is asking that the schools publish the data that they gather—

I didn't say—. Sorry.

Do you want to clarify?

I didn't say 'publish' per se, because I could understand that that could raise some issues—

That could cause some difficulties, yes.

—but that that data be available if it's requested, rather than being kept away, because some schools might not want that sort of data being in the public domain or being available to parents, for obvious reasons.

Yes. I think that is something that we could certainly discuss with schools in terms of making it available. Thank you.

Where we have the levers for change, we will act in the interest of children's rights, but, as I've just said, the decisions made in Westminster do profoundly affect children's lives here in Wales, and we have debated that vigorously this afternoon. For example, the Minister for Housing and Local Government spoke earlier about the austerity and the welfare cuts and how they have affected and increased child poverty, and I think that that is something that we are doing our best to mitigate, but obviously, we don't have those very powerful levers. I know that there's a great deal of passion and expertise on children's rights here in the Assembly, so I look forward to hearing your views. I think that it's absolutely crucial that the issues of children's rights are at the heart of our policy making right across Government, and that we can continue to improve outcomes for children and young people. I do think that we've made progress, but I would always acknowledge that we still have a lot to do.

Thank you to the Deputy Minister for introducing the report and the Government's response. Now, there are major achievements that we can all be proud of here in Wales, and that is the recognition and the work of our Children's Commissioner for Wales. When you think of some of the projects that she's worked on—. We now have the election of Youth Parliament, which we've worked together with her on; the first secondary school rights conferences for students and staff; and the support given to major public bodies to adopt a children's rights approach.

The annual report goes to highlight some fantastic facts that emanate from the commissioner's office: the fact that she has engaged with 9,857 children and young people across Wales; directly trained around 700 children and young people to be rights ambassadors in their schools and communities; and undertaken the first ever education rights survey, securing 6,392 responses.

Now, as the commissioner has stated, there do remain significant children's rights challenges across Wales. So, it was with much interest that I read her report and recommendations to the Welsh Government. With regard to residential care for children with the most complex needs, the Welsh Government have, sadly, only accepted the first recommendation in principle. What is being called for is new ring-fenced funding specifically for the purposes of jointly commissioned mental health and social care residential provision for children and young people with the most complex needs in Wales. But, there is no commitment made as regards that funding. This is despite the report highlighting that the transformation fund and integrated care fund do not give Wales-wide coverage.

More so, the report includes a powerful real example as to the impact that the lack of current provision has had on a child with complex behavioural needs. For example, it shouldn't have to take the commissioner's intervention for a child to be moved from an adult ward after many weeks. That is not good enough. So, I encourage the Deputy Minister to urgently progress her work to develop commissioning arrangements and, as a minimum, to ring fence funding for the short term.

Similarly, I think that more can be done on clamping down on profit making in children's care services. The urgency of this is clear when considering that a third of Welsh children in foster care are placed with independent agencies, and the commissioner’s findings that some young people have been acutely aware of the financial costs of their own placements, and the parents are uncomfortable with there being an element of profit making in their need for care and support.

While I welcome the fact that you are continuing to work with the national fostering framework to recruit more local authority foster carers, could you please provide an update on the development of a national strategy for commissioning and managing the full spectrum of placements for children in care? Similarly, Deputy Minister, I would like clarity on your refusal to place a duty upon all relevant bodies to pay due regard to the UNCRC in the delivery of the curriculum. Despite the existence of the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011, I believe that this is a mistake. The commissioner is right that the best way to ensure that children learn about their rights are in environments that respect those rights, and that is to place a duty on the face of the Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Bill.

This is supported by the fact that only 34 per cent of children and young people that participated in the Right Way Education Survey had even heard of the UNCRC; that young people have told the commissioner that they need help to understand their rights; and the evidence that we have been hearing in the Children, Young People and Education Committee, through our current inquiry into children's rights in Wales. So, it would interest me, Deputy Minister, to know how you are working with the Minister for Education to address those concerns. 

We need to do everything we can to champion children's rights in education and schools, so on this now, the thirtieth anniversary of the UNCRC, I encourage you to reconsider the rejection of the commissioner's recommendation in this regard. 

I welcome the report, I do believe there's more we can do, as you have said, as regards children's rights in Wales, but I would like to commend and thank the children's commissioner for all that she does, working with us and working with Government, to support the rights and the needs of our children in Wales. 

I'm delighted to be able to participate in this debate today. Reference has already been made to the thirtieth anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I think, of course, we must also remember another important anniversary that we will be commemorating tomorrow, which is the twentieth anniversary of the Waterhouse report. It was this Assembly's response to that report that led to us being the first Government administration in Wales to establish a children's commissioner—creatively, since we didn't have the legislative powers to do it at the time. And I think it is absolutely right to say that we have come a very long way towards realising children's rights, particularly children's rights for some of our most vulnerable people. But, as the Minister has said, we have got a very long way to go. 

There is so much in the commissioner's report, and I'd associate myself with everything the Minister and Janet Finch-Saunders have said about our gratitude to the commissioner, to her team, to the way that they work so effectively to remove the barriers to children's rights being realised. It's impossible, in the time available for me today, to comment on everything that I'd like to raise, but I would like to comment on three specific areas of the commissioner's recommendations, and perhaps ask the Minister for a little more information about the Government's response. 

On the first set of recommendations around residential care for children with the most complex needs, I'm very glad that the Government is accepting the commissioner's recommendations, although I share Janet Finch-Saunders's worry about recommendations accepted in principle, which we know from experience are often more honoured in the breach than the observance. I would urge the Minister and the Government to put urgency into their actions in this regard.

I've been dealing just this week with the case of a very young man who has very various and very complex needs, both relating to the autism spectrum and to mental health. His family has discovered this week that he's likely to be placed in a remote institution a very, very long way away, in England. And we really need to move on this, because every day that those young people are away from home is a day too many, and every day that their relationships with their families are fractured is a day too many. 

I'd like to refer to the Government's response to the commissioner's recommendation 5, which is about ensuring that the new curriculum—that there's a duty, mentioned by Janet Finch-Saunders, on all relevant bodies to pay due regard to the convention. Now, I'm a bit confused by the Government's response, because the Government is saying that, given that the Ministers have to give due regard to the convention, it is unnecessary to place a duty on other bodies to give due regard to the convention. But, it is my understanding, Deputy Presiding Officer—I'm sure the Minister will correct me if I'm wrong—that the Government has already placed a duty of due regard on bodies through the additional learning needs legislation. So, I'd be interested to hear from the Minister why in principle you can do that in the additional learning needs legislation, but it isn't right to do this in the curriculum.

Janet Finch-Saunders is right, of course, to say that it is not enough for the curriculum itself to have rights-respecting content, it must be delivered through rights-respecting institutions. And while we have some of the most amazing schools here in Wales, and I'm sure we all visit them on a regular basis, particularly in secondary education, there is a long way to go for those institutions to become fully rights-respecting. I am therefore confused at the Government's reluctance to place a duty of due regard in the legislation. I'd be interested to hear more from the Minister about her reasoning for that. 

Of course, there are those of us who are arguing for a fuller incorporation of the convention. We have partial incorporation into our legislative framework, and it is time to move on that. Had that taken place, the Minister might be right, it might not be necessary to place a duty of due regard on other organisations. But, as things stand, I'm confused that they won't do so. 

I'd then like to refer briefly to recommendation No. 7, which the Welsh Government has also not agreed to accept. I really am confused by this, because the commissioner asks for a review and the Government rejects the recommendation and then says that they're going to hold a review. Now, I may be missing something here, but I think there is a need—and it's good to see the Government saying that they're looking at this across portfolios, because of course this affects a number of portfolios—and if the Government accepts the need for a review, why are they saying that they are rejecting the commissioner's recommendation? Is it that they don't want the same sort of review that the commissioner recommends? So, it would be helpful, fully accepting the Minister's, and in this case the Government's, good intentions in this regard, to understand why the review that they are going to undertake is different from the review that the commissioner has recommended. 

And, as a final comment with regard to these issues about transport, the Government's response says that the arrangements for school transport and safety are generally working well. Well, I'm sure from my constituency caseload that that isn't always the case, particularly with regard to students post 16. I would argue, as the commissioner does, that the legislative framework that we have with the Learner Travel (Wales) Measure 2008 is outdated as we have more and more young people staying in education full-time from 16 to 18 and even beyond. And it's of course particularly important that those children with additional learning needs have appropriate transport.

I'll bring my remarks to a close, Deputy Presiding Officer. There is so much more, I'm sure, that we would all like to say. I know these issues will be explored further at length in the appropriate committee, but I do think there is much to be proud about with this institution's commitment to children's rights over the 20 years of our existence. 

There are lots of buzz words in the report—'empowering', 'rights', 'consult', 'engage'—but I'm actually very disappointed with the report. And what I find most disappointing, indeed unacceptable, to be frank, is that there is not a single mention of parental alienation—not a single mention in the whole report. Now, parental alienation is where a parent is alienated from a child. It can happen to dads, it can happen to mothers. I know this because I see so many of them in my office, week in, week out, almost. It's a form of emotional abuse of children, it's a form of child abuse that is accepted and, more to the point of this report, this is evidence that it's a form of child abuse that is, in fact, ignored by the very people who should be doing something about it. 

If you are a child who has been alienated from a good and loving parent, you are more likely to live in poverty, you are more likely to do less well in education, you are more likely to suffer mental illness, you are more likely to self-harm, you are more likely to abuse substances, you are more likely to have difficulties yourself in forming relationships as an adult. I think that's the omission of this huge issue in Wales and, indeed, the UK. I think it's a staggering dereliction of duty and it's also irresponsible to not talk about this. 

There's lots of mention of the convention—the United Nations convention on the rights of the child. To be perfectly frank, in Wales it's not worth the paper that it's written on, because you have organisations in Wales, publicly funded, who facilitate and work with people who are indulging in parental alienation or carrying that form of abuse out. And there are organisations that really should not receive public money until they have policies in this area, but they have no policies because it is ignored and, indeed, accepted. 

A lot is said nowadays about the voice of children, and I want to flag up the voices of children in care, and I've mentioned this several times in this Chamber. I mentioned it last time I was speaking on these matters. There are so many children in Wales who do not want to be in care. They want to be with their parents and they are simply not listened to. This area is not being addressed and really this should feature again in this report, but it doesn't.

I'm really concerned as well that when children in care allege that they're being abused, they're simply not being listened to. I said this last time; I'll say it again now because we're a few weeks further on: there's a case that disturbs me greatly that cannot be dealt with by the children's commissioner because it's an individual case. I have extreme concern at the way the police have dealt with this matter. We are now in December. I have been trying to get a meeting with the most senior officer in South Wales Police in public protection since July, and I have been unable to organise or have this meeting. That really tells me that South Wales Police do not take child abuse or alleged child abuse seriously. That's a point that I want to put on the record, and it's a point that we should all be talking about as we go towards the police and crime commissioner elections in May next year.

As I said, I think it's a huge, huge gap in this report, that an issue that affects so many children, so many mothers, so many fathers, so many grandmothers, so many grandfathers, so many families is not even mentioned in the report. To check that—I'll finish now—I even went through the document with a search to see if 'parental' was in there; it wasn't in the document. 'Alienation'—I typed that in; it wasn't in the document, just in case I'd missed it reading through, and I've read it through several times, and very disappointing. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you. Can I call on the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services to reply to this debate? Julie Morgan. 

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you very much to the Members who've contributed to the debate, and thank you to those who thanked the children's commissioner for her work. I want to draw attention right at the beginning here that I didn't mention in my speech the creation of the Youth Parliament, and I'm very glad that Janet Finch-Saunders mentioned that because, obviously, that is a huge step forward in terms of giving a voice to children and it was obviously something that was strongly supported by the children's commissioner. So, thank you, Janet, very much for mentioning that.

Now, to pick up some of the issues that were raised, on the issue of residential care and the need for residential care for children who have complex needs, the Government absolutely acknowledges the need to commission specialist accommodation for children who have got complex needs, especially for those at risk of going into secure welfare or mental health placements, or who are stepping down from secure provision. And we do know that we have a great shortage of that sort of facility. It isn't just about increasing capacity; it's about promoting trauma-informed models of care. I think we've got to ensure that there are appropriate joint commissioning arrangements in place between health, social services and education so that the needs of these children are met and that they don't fall between different types of provision. We do know that there is a problem often in obtaining places for complex children with difficult needs, and it does happen that they do end up going sometimes outside Wales, sometimes going far from their own home, and this is something that we're working very hard to stop.

What this really links to is Neil McEvoy's point in his speech where he says that many children don't want to be in care. What we are trying to do in the Government is to reduce the number of children who need to be in care, and I know he supports that policy. But I think it is all caught up with having adequate provision for those children that do have to come into care. So, we are exploring this through the work of the children's residential care task and finish group, and we are promoting regional approaches through regional partnership boards and the integrated care fund, although I have to say progress is patchy. We have a lot more to do in this area.

So, we've commissioned a piece of work to develop and implement, to try and find solutions for this very small group of children, but very importantly that we get satisfactory provision for them. I hope we'll be able to report back within six months on these proposals and I hope we will be able to get a plan for the whole of Wales for our needs for this very complex group of children, and that we won't end up in a position where we have to send them out of country, out of county, and far from their homes, because it's absolutely right that children—we all know—want to be near their families, particularly want to be near their siblings, and we've got to make sure that this happens. So, we are doing this bit of work and I hope we'll get information from that that will enable us to move forward.

Another point made was about profit-making in fostering. Again, I think that is a very important point because I know that, sometimes, children are aware that people are making profit of looking after them and we really have to rebalance this provision, and that is one of the First Minister's priorities—to rebalance the social care provision. So, we want to encourage local authorities to do much more to ensure that we have fostering placements that are local authority fostering placements. So, we are responding to that recommendation in a very positive way.

Another issue was about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and how we make sure that it happens, which, I think, is the key issue. Now, I'm not completely rejecting any move towards any further legislation on this, but I'm very aware that the Deputy Minister for equalities and the Chief Whip is carrying out a bit of research that is looking at this in the round, and it's looking to see whether it may be possible. We may need a human rights Act in the next Parliament. So, we need, really, to look at this very carefully and in the round. So, this issue is not being rejected. What it is is that work is already going on and we want to make sure that there is an opportunity to address this in a holistic way all round.

And then the transport issue for children with special needs. The transport issue is particularly concerned with post 16 because that's where the issue is really arising, I think, and that's where I see it arising, and we will be carrying out the review, particularly looking at post 16. The comment, from the Government, that it seemed to be working fairly well, that is really with under-16s where it seems to be working very well. So, we'll be looking at the review for the post-16s, but, obviously, we want any child who needs transport to have it—

Will you take a very brief intervention?

Yes, of course.

Thank you very much. I'm still a little bit confused, though, because you're undertaking a review, and the commissioner has asked you to undertake a review, but this is the recommendation that your written response says that you're rejecting. Perhaps you can clarify—. I think my concern was whether it was a different kind of review or that she was asking for something different from what you're doing. And I couldn't see that, either in her report or in your response, so I just wondered. We're looking for a bit of clarity on that because it seems to me, in fact, that you're accepting the recommendation, at least in part.

Well, the commissioner is calling for every child with special needs to have transport, and we don't think it's necessarily necessary for every child because some children will be able to walk. So, if you take it in that sort of technical way, we are rejecting it for those reasons, but we do acknowledge that there are issues, particularly post 16, and that's what we're going to look at. 

And then, finally, I think, to come to Neil McEvoy's point about parental alienation, I want to reassure him that this is an area that is being considered very carefully by the Government. It's taken into account in—. Certainly, I've had numerous discussions about it with CAFCASS, and so it's certainly not something that is being ignored. I think it's very important to recognise that what this report is about is a specific list of things. It isn't about everything that the children's commissioner is interested in, because the different reports each year cover different issues. And so, I know that the children's commissioner is very concerned—

Will you take a quick intervention?

—yes, in a second—very concerned about children in care and is certainly very supportive of our agenda to reduce the number of children in care.

Thanks for accepting the quick intervention, Deputy Minister. The problem that I have with the children's commissioner is that if you read what she said about alienation, she effectively denies that it happens, and CAFCASS are belatedly cottoning on now, which is progress. England are further ahead than Wales. But it seems that we have a children's commissioner who fails to recognise this huge problem and that's what really concerns me.

I can assure you that the Government has certainly considered the issue of parental alienation and England, in fact, has very much the same approach now as Wales. We've certainly come together in our approach to this and we're taking a very balanced, very non-emotive response to parental alienation and looking at it in a very balanced way. So, I can assure him that it is on our agenda. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much. The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? No. Therefore, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36. 

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

We have not deferred any items to voting time, so therefore that brings today's proceedings to a close. Thank you.

The meeting ended at 17:15.