In accordance with Standing Order 12.23(iii) the amendment tabled to the motion has not been selected.

That brings us to our final debate this afternoon 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. 

Julie Morgan to be unmuted. Yes, there we go. 

Motion NDM7433 Rebecca Evans

To propose that the Senedd:

Notes the Children's Commissioner for Wales’s Annual Report 2019-20.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. As a Government, we want all children in Wales to have the best start in life, to fulfil their potential and to realise their rights. And it's so important in the current context, in the situation that we've been just debating, that we keep that ambition fixed in our sights. It's also crucial that we have this meaningful debate each year to focus on our achievements so far in Wales regarding children's rights, and to take account of the children's commissioner calls for us to go further.

So, today, we discuss and debate the Children's Commissioner for Wales's annual report for 2019-20, which was published earlier this month. This report was written looking back at what has taken place during the previous financial year, but within the context of the pandemic. I value having an independent and impartial voice for children and young people in Wales—one that challenges the work of Government and others through the lens of children's rights, one that aims to promote and safeguard their interests.

In her annual report, the commissioner has highlighted many of her achievements over the last year. These include engaging with over 15,500 children and young people across Wales through various events, delivering training to 200 early years professionals, and managing 627 cases through her investigations and advice service.

While the rest of this session is likely to focus on her 18 recommendations for Government, I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the importance of the work of the commissioner's office, and to thank her and her team for the services they provide to children and young people who need assistance and advice. And I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the commissioner and her office for working with Welsh Government, Children in Wales, and the Youth Parliament on the 'Coronavirus and Me' survey. This provided an opportunity for children and young people across Wales to tell us about their experience of the coronavirus, the lockdown which was in place at the time, and the impact it was having on their lives. We are the only Government in the UK to have asked directly and consulted children and young people in this way. More than 23,700 children and young people, aged between three and 18, responded; it was a remarkable response. Their responses are being heard by politicians and policy makers alike, and my thanks goes out to all those who took part.

David Melding took the Chair.

Before I turn to the recommendations, it's important to remind ourselves that the commissioner has corporate sole status, and is an independent human rights institution, who holds the Welsh Government to account through a number of routes. She has powers to review the effect on children of the exercise—or the proposed exercise—of any function of Welsh Ministers, the First Minister for Wales, or the Counsel General to the Welsh Government, including any subordinate legislation they make or propose to make. And you will be aware that the commissioner has decided to use her formal powers in relation to elective home education and safeguarding in independent schools. The Welsh Government will respond to that review when required, through the formal process, and I won't be discussing the review whilst it's ongoing.

In this year's annual report, the commissioner has set out 18 recommendations: five relate to care experienced children, including reforming corporate parenting, the criminalisation of children in care, safe accommodation of children with complex needs, access to personal advisors, and semi-independent supported living for care leavers. Other recommendations focus on youth justice services, health advocacy and health transitions and mental health, as well as child sexual exploitation statutory guidance for vulnerable children and young people, and publication of the child poverty review findings.

The commissioner has made three recommendations relating to schools, including investigations into allegations of child abuse against teaching staff, guidance for governing bodies on disciplinary and dismissal procedures, and independent schools registering with the Education Workforce Council, as well as a recommendation related to laying the additional learning needs code of practice.

It's important to note, and I know the children's commissioner understands, that a number of the recommendations she has put forward are linked to work that has been paused or reprioritised as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Redeploying Welsh Government officials, or reprioritising some areas of work, have been necessary consequences of the pandemic, and have sadly but unavoidably meant that some activity has not been progressed to original timescales.

We do share substantial common ground with the commissioner. We have and will continue to work with her and others to enable children and young people to realise their rights. And I'd like to thank David Melding for chairing the corporate parenting task and finish group, which is developing a voluntary charter that organisations can sign up to, setting out their unique offer for care experienced children. And I'd like to use this opportunity to pay tribute to the work that David has done for children, and particularly for children who are looked after.

And of course, the mental health and well-being of children and young people remains a priority. Building on the work of the Children, Young People and Education Committee's report, 'Mind over matter', we've been determined to push ahead with a whole-school approach to the well-being framework. Coronavirus has delayed the consultation by a few months. However, initial findings are being considered by the task and finish group, ahead of finalising publication.

The commissioner published her 'No Wrong Door' report in March this year, which focused on bringing services together to meet children's needs and stop situations where different professionals cannot agree who is responsible for the care of children and young people with complex needs. The commissioner has called on the Welsh Government to respond to the recommendations outlined in her report, and we're keen to make progress on this issue.

The First Minister will publish the Welsh Government's response to the commissioner's annual report by 30 November, taking into account what Members say in this debate. The commissioner's approach, as stated in her report, has always been to respond to the Welsh Government as a critical friend, to challenge robustly where necessary, but to welcome and acknowledge positive developments. And I should like to take this opportunity to thank the children's commissioner for her role in being a critical friend to the Welsh Government. And this has been of particular value in the last eight months whilst we've responded to the pandemic in Wales and where we've strived to recognise and mitigate the impact of the pandemic on children and young people. The commissioner has been very supportive in challenging and advising the Welsh Government on our responses to the pandemic and how we've had to balance keeping children safe with respecting and protecting their rights. While some of those decisions have not been easy, I am proud of the way the Welsh Government has pulled together to keep children and young people and their rights at the forefront of decision making, and particularly the emphasis that's been given to vulnerable children during this time.

With all that's happened during 2020, we should remember that it was only a year ago that we were celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child—a major milestone for children's rights. And finally, I want to restate that the UNCRC continues to be the basis for all our policies for children: it's central to our work to improve children's outcomes by helping and supporting them to achieve their full potential. We want to build on our achievements so far to ensure that Wales is a place where children's rights are respected, protected and fulfilled. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Minister, and thank you for your kind words about me, which were nice to hear from the chair, though I can't participate in this debate today, otherwise I certainly would have and reciprocated my good wishes.

Can I just say that I have only two speakers for the debate, so if anyone does try to catch my eye, you might be lucky? Laura Anne Jones.

Thank you, acting Presiding Officer, and I too would like to start by thanking you for all the work that you and your task group have done in helping children. That sort of focus on them and their issues will do a power of good for them and I'm sure they are very, very thankful for all the work that you have done.

I too welcomed the publication of this report and would like to thank Sally Holland and her team for all the work that they have done to change lives for children and young people in Wales. The conversations that I've had with her to date, since arriving in the Senedd just a few months ago, have been open, honest and reassuring. This report acknowledges the effects the current pandemic is having on the children's commissioner's work and the need to respond to critical issues affecting the lives of our children under lockdown. Never has their work been so vital and it will be critical going forward now, due to the impact of this crisis. 

The report acknowledges that key new pieces of work will have to be undertaken in the next programme as the result of the changes experienced by children and the impacts that will be felt for years to come. It is some of these issues that I'd like to address in my remarks this afternoon.

The report states that public services in Wales still do not meet the needs of our children and young people effectively. Children and their families have to navigate complex systems and are often not helped because they do not fit neat categories or are not helped at all even though they are in crisis. This is a particular problem in our mental health services and disabled children's services. This was before the children's committee said that children's mental health had suffered the collateral damage of COVID-19.

More than two years ago, an inquiry called for the tackling of emotional and mental health issues in children to be made a national priority. There have been improvements in services since then, but they are happening too slowly and some young people still struggle to get the help that they need. The children's committee concluded that the Welsh Government's reassurances about out-of-hours and crisis care are disappointingly thin. There are too many reports of limited options for children who need help, but do not reach the threshold for specialist services. Although progress is happening in education, it was far less confident that the pace of change in health and local government, including social services, is sufficient.

I know that the mental health and well-being of children and young people is the key priority for our commissioner and I've had many conversations with her about that. The pandemic has put this into sharp focus for everybody. The Welsh Government has recognised this by appointing a Minister with specific responsibility for mental health and we welcome that. I look forward to seeing positive results in building a system that responds to the needs of the child rather than trying to fit them into existing services.

Even before the outbreak of coronavirus, young carers were all too often spending significant amounts of time caring for a relative—this, in addition to the time they need to spend on work, education and relaxation—but coronavirus has significantly increased those pressures. The Carers Trust recently carried out a survey that found that 58 per cent of young carers who are caring for longer since coronavirus are spending on average 10 hours a week more on their caring responsibilities. The survey shows how worries relating to coronavirus and increased isolation caused by the lockdown have affected the mental health and well-being of young people with caring responsibilities.

Young carers provide a huge amount of support to vulnerable people in Wales. The children's commissioner calls for greater prioritisation of mental health support for young carers and greater support from education providers and employers to help carers to juggle their caring roles alongside school, college, university or work. I look forward to the progress being made to reduce the unacceptable pressures young carers are under and to improve their well-being and life chances. We need to work with our young carers, working with them and involving them in formulating policy. I'm sure we all agree too that young carers should be encouraged and have support to go into higher education or find apprenticeships, if this is what they want to do.

And I'd like the commissioner and the Government to note that Monmouthshire County Council actively encourages apprenticeships for young carers leavers within its own organisation and those carers are included in any information going out with job vacancies, where appropriate. They also include them on their corporate parenting panel. Monmouthshire County Council are always setting the bar high when it comes to a local authority and an employer in its practices, and it's this sort of good practice that needs to be rolled out across Wales in all authorities.

This pandemic has highlighted just how important it is to support and protect our young people from the immense challenges they have faced and continue to face. As this report says, we know what the challenges are; it is time for decisive, brave actions.

Before I call Siân Gwenllian, I do apologise, I should have informed Members that the amendment had not been selected in accordance with Standing Order 12.23. Siân Gwenllian. 

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to discuss this report and thank you for the work that the children's commissioner does to try and improve the lives of children and young people in Wales. There is no doubt that the COVID-19 crisis has changed the lives of the children of Wales in a dramatic manner, with schools and childcare settings closed for long periods of time, lectures and lessons delivered online, playgrounds closed and major restrictions on opportunities to socialise. And it's no surprise that there's been more demand than ever before for the Childline service, and there are major concerns as to how the pandemic is impacting the mental health of children and young people in the present and in the longer term. 

Although COVID-19 may have changed the lives of the children of Wales forever, one could argue that many of the issues contained within this report—this latest annual report—tell the same old stories, unfortunately. The report includes a broad range of well-established concerns on the quality of mental health services for children, children continuing to live in poverty and children in care not receiving the specialist care that they need. These are some of the complex issues that impact the lives of children and young people and are likely to have been exacerbated by COVID-19. 

And one could argue that the need to ensure that the Welsh Government's policy approaches are successful is more important than ever before. We therefore need to implement the 18 detailed and sensible recommendations made by the commissioner across a range of specific areas: in terms of residential care for children with complex needs, in terms of personal advisers for young people leaving care, reforms to corporate parenting, support for young offenders and strengthening child protection measures. These are just a few examples. There are many very practical recommendations contained in this report that could make great differences to particular groups of children and young people. 

There is one area that is a cause of specific concern, namely elective home education, an issue the commissioner has made recommendations on in her past four annual reports—that's four annual reports. She has called for some legal changes in this area. Now, prior to COVID-19, the Welsh Government had consulted on statutory guidance and regulations to tackle the commissioner's concerns, but in June the education Minister announced that that work couldn't be completed within this Senedd term. In September the commissioner stated that she does intend to use her statutory powers for the very first time to review the actions of Welsh Government in this area. I support this and I believe that the commissioner has been very patient indeed on this issue—too patient, perhaps—and that swifter action and a swifter review from the commissioner would have led to the improvement that we need to see.

Unfortunately, another area that the Welsh Government has decided not to take action on is the need for teachers in independent schools to register with the Education Workforce Council. We will all recall the headteacher in a Ruthin school who was sacked from his post after a report discovered that pupils there were at risk of harm because of failings in child protection. Extending the law that places a duty on private schools as well as state schools to register their teachers is one way of seeking to avoid such serious failings for the future, but action on this too has been pushed on to the next Senedd, and once again, the commissioner has stated that she will use her statutory powers in order to review the actions of the Welsh Government in this area.

I know that this public health crisis means that we must shelve some legislative issues, but these would have been quite simple issues to deal with, and one has to question the wisdom of leaving both of these issues on the table when the well-being of the children of Wales is one of the main priorities of this Government and this Senedd. The commissioner will use her statutory powers on two issues, and they are two issues of concern for everyone in the Senedd, and it's a cause of concern that she has to use those statutory powers.

Before I conclude, I would just like to draw attention to the commissioner's report 'No Wrong Door' and the need for regional boards to ensure that no child or family will fall through the net in seeking support for mental health and behavioural issues. This is a very important report, and we need to maintain a focus on this work. The 'Happy, healthy and safe' manifesto is also of interest, with some of the ideas certainly corresponding to Plaid Cymru's priorities. There'll be an opportunity to discuss some of the issues contained within the children commissioner's manifesto in our debate on education tomorrow, so I won't expand on that.

The report before us today does include a period prior to the COVID period, from 1 April 2019 to the end of March 2020. Now, the next report will deal with a very difficult COVID period, and it's likely to have a very different flavour and will focus on issues that will have emerged anew during the COVID crisis, or that have been highlighted anew as issues that are of some importance. But it's important that we maintain a focus on those issues in this report too. I'd like to thank the commissioner and her team for the collaboration between us, and I look forward to further collaboration during the rest of this Senedd term.

And the Minister to reply to the debate. Can we unmute the Minister, please? There we are. Minister. 

Thank you, acting Deputy Presiding Officer and thank you very much for the contributions to the debate today and the support that has been shown for children's rights. As we know, children's rights are entitlements—entitlements that each and every child and young person in Wales should know about and should be supported in realising.

Thank you to Laura Anne Jones and to Siân Gwenllian for speaking so powerfully and sensitively about the needs of children and young people in Wales. Laura Anne Jones in particular drew attention to young carers, and I really think that this is an area that is of great concern to us all. I was very pleased that we were able to announce an extra £1 million today to help carers, including young carers, with some of the small items that they may need to help them manage, because as Laura Anne Jones said, we know that this pandemic, this period, has been a very difficult time for carers and particularly for young carers, and I know she referred to the survey that had recently been done. I was also pleased to be able to give £55,000 for psychological help for carers earlier on in the pandemic because I know that the strain on their mental health has been very extreme during this period.

I'm also pleased that we are pursuing the issue of identity cards for young carers. I think that that is something that will help enormously and we have a number of local authorities who are now using identity cards in order to make life easier for young carers. Because one of the things that young carers have told us is that they feel very strongly that they don't want to tell every new person the whole history of what has happened to them every time they meet somebody, and in school they need to be able to have a card that will help them. It will help them when they go to the chemist, when they go to get medicine for the people that they care for, and, in fact, there's so many ways that a card can help that I think that's another way that we will be able to help young carers.

I've met many groups of young carers, both while I've been doing this job and previously, and you had to pay a huge tribute to them in terms of what they do in order to keep families going, often. So, thank you very much, Laura Anne Jones, for highlighting that in your contribution and also drawing attention to the fact that this is an area that the children's commissioner also feels very strongly about. It's very impressive that Monmouthshire are encouraging particular young carers to apply for apprenticeships.

As well as young carers, I know that Laura Anne Jones mentioned mental health and the mental health of children during this period, and that's been mentioned in the debate a lot this afternoon. I think we're all aware of how mental health is one of the real areas that we've got huge concern about, and we certainly all welcome now the appointment of a Minister with responsibility for mental health, which does show the priority that the Government is giving to that area.

Siân Gwenllian really vividly described how coronavirus has changed the lives of children dramatically. She described all that has been lost, and we know that for many vulnerable children whose lives are held together by school, by outside activities, by the support they get from youth clubs, from youth workers and from many other services—that all that scaffolding has gone and this has been, I think, a very difficult experience. So, thank you, Siân, for describing that so vividly about what children are experiencing and reminding us about what we have to do and what we have to concentrate on to try to mitigate this as much as we possibly can. Certainly, the Government has had the rights of children high at the top of their agenda, and I think you will have seen in the steps that we've taken and that the First Minister has put before you today—you've seen that children have been right at the forefront in terms of keeping as many children in schools as we can, keeping childcare open, keeping playgrounds open, acknowledging the importance of play. All those things are there for children and they have been at the very top of our agenda.

Siân Gwenllian referred to the 18 recommendations that the children's commissioner has put forward, and the First Minister will respond to those by 30 November, but as I said in my opening remarks, we wanted to hear what Members said in this debate, so that we can then respond fully, taking into account what Members have said. Siân Gwenllian referred to elective home education and safeguarding in independent schools, and as I said in my opening remarks, because the Commissioner is using her statutory powers to review these areas, I won't be commenting on those until the Government responds to her review. But Siân Gwenllian has highlighted the issues very powerfully, I think, in her response. So, thank you very much for those contributions.

Just to conclude, while I am proud of the commitment the Welsh Government has made and is making to children's rights, I do know that we can and we must do more to ensure that children all know about their rights, how to access those rights, and how to challenge when they're not receiving those rights. So, we have a big job of awareness and of reaching out to children. The children's commissioner is an absolutely vital partner in this endeavour, and has a hugely important role in holding the Government to account. As we've said, this year has been a challenge for so many children and young people, and of course, this may continue for some time. That's why we have to have children's rights at the absolute forefront of everything we're doing. Children's rights and improving experiences for our children and young people has been at the heart of our responses to the pandemic, and I'd like to remind Members about the free school meals provision over the holiday period that we are providing, the improvements to the mental health services that we have carried out, and working with the commissioner to listen directly to the voices of children. So, thank you very much again for your contributions to this debate. It's a very important debate. It came after another very important debate, but I think the two debates are very closely linked, because children's rights must be at the heart of how we respond to this pandemic. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Minister. The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I do see a Member objecting, so I defer voting on this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.

In accordance with Standing Order 34.14D, there will be a break of at least five minutes before voting time commences. IT support will be on hand to help with any issues during this time.

Plenary was suspended at 19:13.

The Senedd reconvened at 19:19, with the Llywydd in the Chair.