Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)

I have been persuaded in the course of this debate about the significance of this issue. I had some experience in previous work that I did in children’s social care about this, so I will certainly undertake to go back and talk to my colleagues about some more specificity around the particular requirements in these cases. Perhaps I can return to the noble Baroness with a bit more detail about that. Amendment 171 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, seeks to establish a duty on local authorities to improve access to bereavement support services for children. Like others, I recognise and respect the noble Baroness for talking about her own experience of bereavement, as we also heard from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, identifying the enormous pressure that falls on families and particularly other children at the point at which they are bereaved. It is for this reason that the Government continue to consider how to improve access to existing bereavement support. There is a cross-government bereavement group, chaired by the Department of Health and Social Care and attended by officials from the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office, continuing to look at how we can improve access to support. Following discussion by this group of opportunities to improve signposting of support—and as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester said, I would have appreciated being signposted to some support outside the family—we have recently added links to bereavement support specifically for children and young people on GOV.UK. Schools increasingly talk to their pupils about mental health and where to access further support, both as part of the curriculum and through their wider pastoral duties. The relationships and sex education statutory guidance specifies that teachers should be aware of common adverse childhood experiences, including bereavement. I hope that, bringing those things together, we are enabling an improvement in the support that we provide for children who have suffered bereavement. I hope that this, along with the continued investment in services for children and family support, reassures noble Lords that we are taking action on that. In all these areas, I hope that I have provided, after a useful and important debate, some reassurance about the acceptance by the Government of all the issues identified during the course of the debate, but also about the action that the Government are taking to commit to and invest in improving outcomes for children and their families through effective support services. I hope that noble Lords will feel able not to press these amendments, but I will certainly come back on the specific points and reflect on the case made in what I think has been a very important and helpful group of amendments.