Human Rights (Joint Committee)

11 March 2026

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Human Rights (Joint Committee) Wed, 11 Mar 2026 House of Lords

00:03 - 02:55

Speaker 1

Order. Order. Welcome to the forty sixth meeting of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. We have a new member of the committee, Baroness Hamwy. A great welcome to you.

Anyone who's unfamiliar with our work, well, let me briefly say who we are and what is the scope of our mandate. As the name of the committee implies, we're made up of six members of the House of Lords and six members of the House of Commons, both houses of parliament, and we come from diverse political backgrounds and traditions. We're required by parliament in our mandate to examine policies and legislation and to test their impact on the human rights of British citizens. Our recent reports on issues such as supply chain transparency in modern day slavery and transnational repression are available to read on our website as is much of the written and oral evidence that we've received relating to our current inquiries on the human rights of children in social care, on artificial intelligence and human rights, and the new legislation on Northern Ireland. Today, we're holding our fourth public oral session in our inquiry on the human rights of children in the social care system in England.

The inquiry has a particular focus on children in care that is looked after children as they're often called but wider aspects of the children's social care system are also relevant for example in regard to the availability of additional support to families with disabled children or the efficacy of early intervention measures and kinship care. As part of our examination of what works and what doesn't, members of the committee recently traveled to cities of York and Leeds where we saw some very interesting firsthand examples of best practice as well as talking to and meeting young people who shared important personal insights with us. In today's session, the committee will hear from Ofsted on issues connected to inspections and regulation, and then also from the British Association of Social Workers on challenges faced on the ground by social workers. I'll introduce our second panel when we get there at about 03:15, but we begin with Yvette Stanley who is the national director for regulation and social care at Ofsted. She was previously director for children's so schools and families of Merton Council and has thirty years of experience in children's services.

So before turning to my colleagues, and I'll begin with my colleague Lord Saul, let me begin by asking you if I may, Yvette Stanley, what is the role of Ofsted in the children's social care system?

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